Design Class, Student Example
One of the great things about teaching online is that I get to interact with students all over the world. One such case is Nathalie Goosens, from Belgium, who has now taken three classes with me.
Nathalie especially enjoyed the Design Your Own Nature Quilt class, which teaches students how to interpret their own photo as a quilt. This was her inspiration photo, taken near Marseille, France.
It was an excellent starting point. However, Nathalie wisely made some important changes to the composition and contrast. She used more saturated green fabrics for the vegetation and kicked up the contrast within the flower blossoms. (Can you see how effective that little bit of dark burgundy is?) The dark border is also setts off the composition extremely well.
Marseilles V – Frioul
copyright 2008 Nathalie Goosens
(Click image for a larger view)
Nathalie improved the composition by making the blossoms form a more diagonal line. Plus, she made the flowers spill into the adjacent border.
It was great fun for me to work with Nathalie, as she progressed through this piece. Along the way, she blogged quite a bit about it, and has kindly grouped her blog posts on the subject. You can read them here. (Start with the bottom post.)
I’ve recently created an online gallery featuring pieces made by Nathalie and other students who’ve taken this class. You’ll find it here.
If you’re interested, this class starts again on August 7th. Full details.
