Ellen Lindner: Art & Creativity

Oh my, did I have fun teaching at a retreat in Destin, FL!  It was put on by the hardworking members of Flying Needles Quilt Guild, and I highly recommend it.

To give you an idea of the fun and high spirits, check out Gabriele Bullard and her sassy apron.

 Ooh-la-la!  Gabriele was a vendor at the event, selling GORGEOUS hand dyed fabrics!  (She doesn’t have a website yet, but when she gets one I’ll definitely let you know.)

Meanwhile, down the hall, my students and I were working hard in our “Design Your Own Nature Quilt” class.  This was the two-day version of the class, which was wonderful.  It provided the students time to make excellent progress on their quilts and gave me time to cover a few extra points, as well.

My students were amazing!  (As always.)  None of them had ever designed a quilt and several of them had only made one or two quilts.  But, that didn’t slow them down at all.  Although they were intimidated at times, they bravely continued, and were all THRILLED with their results.  Me too!

Doris quietly worked away and almost completely finished her quilt in the two days.

This was her inspiration photo (although it was actually focused in her version.)

Definitely lots of potential.  However, because we were working on a wall quilt about poster-sized, I knew she wouldn’t be able to include ALL of those details.  I suggested that she crop it way down, focusing on her favorite part.  She did, and she ended up with this:

Amazing, right?  Doris applied several lessons from class:  cropping, tweaking the composition, adding contrast, and working loosely.  She also had several unique ideas:  shaping the golden leaves in a horizontal fashion, adding the rust color as a transition, letting her images run off the edges, and using rough “messy” stitching to enhance the grass and leaves.  Click the photo to see.

Can you see why I love teaching this class?

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  I ocassionaly teach this class online.  If you’d like to be notified about the next class, use the newsletter subscription interface to sign up and indicate which notifications you’d like to receive.