Photo Inspiration – Part Two
More photo inspired from a recent “Design Your Own Nature Quilt” class.
Winnie’s inspiration photo showed a busy forest floor with dappled sunlight and pink flowers. She cropped way in, focusing on just two blossoms. Much more effective (and easier to construct as this scale.) She also darkened the background fabrics, allowing the pink flowers to stand out more.
A confident sketcher, Winnie worked along with very little help and made lots of progress. Most of the quilting was completed on her piece, above, by the end of the second day.
Jenette brought a photo from her garden, below. Right away we knew we’d need to find a way to add definition to the mass of like-colored flowers.
Jenette wisely decided to eliminate a few flowers, creating more space between the remaining ones, and thus giving each one more definition. She also played up the dark central shadows of each flower, and improved the composition. Her quilt (in-progress below,) will be much more interesting than her photo!
This was Barbara’s inspiration photo, below. When asked what she liked about it, she said the picket fence and the central poppies. So, she cropped it way down, focusing on just those elements.
She did an excellent job editing! Here’s her finished quilt, called “Summer Splendor.”
What a transformation! Look how she altered the background, while keeping the pickets. And the complete rearrangement of the 3 flowers. (But, you can see the inspiration for that composition, right?)
The large purple flower has faced petals, so she turned several of them up and stitched them in place. After class – so completely her ideas – she added the beads in the centers of each flower and the FUCSHIA binding. Who would have thought of that color? I didn’t, but I think it’s perfect.
I’m SO delighted with not only the quilts these ladies produced, but also the thrills they received as they realized they could successfully complete something so new for them!
Barbara summed it up well when she sent me a follow up email.
I’ve gained more confidence in an area that I hesitated to go, and am very pleased to discover that it’s more fun than frustration.
I had to smile at that. New things like this CAN be intimidating, (which is why I tell the students to pack their artistic courage.) But, like most students, Barbara had newfound confidence in the process by the end of the class.
Ellen Lindner
P.S. I also teach an online version of this class. If you’d like advance notice about the next one, you can sign up on the class information page.
