Tag Archives | Abstract

Using Coordinating Fabrics

By Ellen Lindner on November 30, 2024 in Uncategorized

In my last dyeing session I printed these two fabrics. I loved them and couldn’t wait to use them together!

But, what to do with them? In my usual fashion I pulled out every fabric that I thought MIGHT work with them.

I tried adding some peach, as a transition color.

Then, I removed some of the busiest prints and added black and dark purple.

Now what? Should I use both bright and dull yellows?

Or maybe just dull yellow? (Which would mean I couldn’t use the yellow circles at all.)

Either way, I knew I needed a plan. Maybe something wide and short with a horizontal arrangement of purple.

No, it really was too chunky.
I finally proceeded with the selection below, still wondering what to do.

I thought I should lay out the focal point/line first. I cut up the yellow, trying not to dice up too many circles. I was pretty happy with this, but I knew I couldn’t properly audition it on a light design wall. I needed to see the purple/fuchsia around the perimeter for contrast.

I stared in with the fuchsia and liked the added contrast. But what about those yellow pieces? I began to think that they were too big and chunky.

What if I made them smaller and/or inserted fuchsia in some places? To audition the idea I did a little experimenting in the computer.

Hmm. I learned two things: 1 – Yes, the yellow looked better in smaller pieces, 2 – That’s too much fuchsia!

So, I reluctantly knew what had to be done: I needed to partially take it apart, cut some pieces smaller, and then figure out how to get everything back together again. And that’s when it turned into a giant Tetris puzzle!

Sometimes I hate it when I get a good idea! (Or was it really good? Watch for future posts so you can be the judge.)

Ellen Lindner

“Heat Wave” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on September 30, 2024 in Uncategorized

My latest piece, Heat Wave, is now complete.

Heat Wave

I’m quite happy with it! The design was dictated, in part, by the triangular orange scraps I had on hand. I like the sharp points.

At 35 x 35, this piece is available for $1200. See more photos.

I used ALL of my orange and navy hand dyed fabrics in this piece. I’m looking forward to an upcoming dye session when I can make more.

Ellen Lindner

Creative Whimsy Spotlight

By Ellen Lindner on September 10, 2024 in Uncategorized

As part of my spotlight on Creative Whimsy, I was asked to show several completed quilts.

Crotons served as an example of my earlier quilting style. This piece is one of my all time favorites!

Then, I showed some of my more recent abstract pieces, along with these words about my transition to this style.

My first attempts were definitely not great art, but I think they were necessary in order to develop my skills. I don’t regret the time they took or the fabric they required. The PROCESS was valuable!

This is my mindset in a nutshell. It makes me a little bit fearless because I know the process is valuable, not just the product.

Ripples and Runs is a more recent abstract piece, featuring my own hand dyed fabric.

Ripples and Runs

Ditto for Exuberance

A big thank you to Creative Whimsy for featuring me and my art! Their website has many more spotlights of very interesting artists. I hope you’ll investigate.

Ellen Lindner

Featured Spotlight on Creative Whimsy

By Ellen Lindner on September 5, 2024 in Uncategorized

Creative Whimsy, a website about artists and their endeavors has just done a spotlight on me. How nice!

They sent me a ton of questions and I answered most of them. (I mean, you didn’t want to read PAGES about me, right?)

I was glad they asked about my process. I explained how I make decisions at the design wall, since it’s the part of quilt making I really like the most. I showed this series of pictures as an example.

Easily Distracted

They also asked for a photo of my studio. So, I bravely walked in, LEFT EVERYTHING IN PLACE, and took a photo. This gives you an idea of what it looks like mid-project, although it’s usually much worse!

I hope you’ll check out the full article (and be willing to scroll past all the ads.)

Ellen Lindner

Planning as I Go

By Ellen Lindner on August 31, 2024 in Uncategorized

As usual, my current quilt started with a high contrast piece of hand dyed fabric. This is all I had of it.

What could I do to best show it off?

The additional fabrics added above provided interest, but the original fabric swatch still seemed rather straight forward.

It was kinda hard to judge against white. I knew I wanted a blue background, so I added some to the design wall to help me judge the overall look.

I split the featured print and splayed it apart. I thought this added energy, plus some interesting negative blue space.

I began to audition additional colors and fabrics. What about a mass of orange on the right and across the bottom? I placed folded fabrics to consider options.

My orange fabric was limited and I knew I’d have to work with the shapes I had: sharp triangles.

That didn’t seem objectionable. However, I did get rid of the vertical yellow point near the center.

As you might imagine, there was some fiddly stitching on this one. It was actually easier than I expected and I’ll show you some about how I did it in the next post.

My next question: what to do with the lower left.

Ellen Lindner

Following the Fabric

By Ellen Lindner on August 3, 2024 in Uncategorized

I’ve been working on a new quilt, using fabrics I dye-printed during my last dying session. As you can see, I made them to go together.

To get started, I pulled these out, along with every fabric I thought MIGHT go with them. As usual, this stage was a rather ugly mess. (I was toying with the idea of using some pure red bits along with the pink.)

That seemed like overkill. I removed some busy high-contrast fabrics, most of the red, and tried out a little blue-green.

Much better. I was ready to move ahead.

There was a fabric combo in this collection that was really exciting me: the pink and black polka dots and the yellow-green print top left, with the little twiggy shapes. I liked the way the sharp little twigs contrasted with the round dots. Unfortunately, the photo above shows ALL the twiggy fabric that I had. I knew I would have to use it very purposefully and that it’s limited size would also dictate the overall size of the quilt.

Here’s the entire piece of twiggy fabric plus what I thought was an appropriate amount of the polka-dot. I quickly committed to the central composition and stitched two primary seams. Everything else is shown in audition stage and is only folded and pinned.

I really liked the vertical strip of black and yellow-green stripe just right of center (above.) I made it by carefully cutting a strip from the fabric with the large yellow-green rectangles. I was very happy with that result

Below, I added more fabric on the right. The black spacer between the stripe and the dots was needed as a calming note.

I wasn’t sure about the large rectangles on the left, shown above. They seemed to be sorta taking over. I removed them and concentrated on the right side for a bit. This corner combination seemed about right.

The left side was definitely going to need some attention. At this point it needed some weight (black) and some pink.

In the next post I’ll show you my progress.

Ellen Lindner

Adding Interest to a Background

By Ellen Lindner on June 3, 2024 in Uncategorized

My current quilt is progressing along nicely, (but slowly.) I spent a LOT of time piecing the background and was quite happy with it. But, I wanted to tie the background of angular shapes into the design more. Since I planned to use large circular shapes in the foreground I thought skinny circles in the background would add interest and unity.

First, I auditioned fabrics for the background circles. I wanted them to be fairly subtle. Maybe about 5 or 6 of them. I thought these would be pretty close. But is that darkest blue too dark? We’ll see.

I drew the circles on my computer sketch and used that as a loose guide. I spent a good bit of time cutting the fused fabrics and arranging the circles. Here, 3 of my planned 6 are in place. But not attached yet! I pinned everything and studied it before fusing the circles in place.

What do you think about the dark blue circle, top left? I think it stands out a little, but I think it will work.

And this is where I am now. The background circles have been fused on and I’m working on the two foreground circles. (The colors are actually much brighter and I’m in love with them!)

OK, what about that skinny blue circle now? I think it’s okay, since the strong red foreground elements will attract more attention.

One thing that didn’t work: a wheat stencil. Actually, the stencil itself worked fine. But, it was just too large and too different from everything else. I’ll save it for something else.

I’ve been thinking about the title. This piece is about my parents. My working title was “Daddy Was a Farmer, Mama was a Southern Belle.” While that’s a great title, I don’t think it goes with the narrative of this story. I’ll simplify it and am still thinking about. Maybe I’ll use their names, the number of years they were married, or something along those lines. I can still reference farming and southern hospitality in the artist statement.

I’m getting close!

Ellen Lindner

Planning a Foreground Design

By Ellen Lindner on May 28, 2024 in Uncategorized

I’ve been wanting to do a series of quilts about my family. I made the first one, Happy Family, which used circles to represent people.

Happy Family

With that one the circles were an 11th hour addition. For the next one I wanted to be much more intentional.

After selecting green for the background of my current quilt it immediately got me thinking about my dad, a farmer. I decided to make a quilt about both my mom and my dad. My mom is a very gracious southern woman, who excels at entertaining, gardening, and cooking. I think of her as a Southern Belle, because she’s a beauty, as well. Thus, my working title became “Daddy was a Farmer, Mama was a Southern Belle.” (Note: my mom is still alive and she’s given her blessing to this title.)

So, how to depict these two with circles??? I knew I wanted to use red to contrast with the green. And it had a sort of farm feel to me, since farm equipment is often red.

I drew a sketch on the computer and began to audition my ideas on the design wall. I thought Dad (or Daddy as I often addressed him,) needed a big red sort of tear shaped oval.

But, Mom needed to be more curvy.

And slightly pinker.

I managed to find enough red fabrics for my purposes and I’m loving these colors together!

I was REALLY tempted to complete these two shapes, but I began to think about how much easier it would be to quilt the background before adding the circles, especially since I intended to add quilt a few more blue and green ones. So, I quilted the background and started auditioning fabrics for background circles.

The background circles will be MUCH skinnier than the foreground ones. Maybe pinky width. And they’ll have much lower contrast, serving as a background of ancestors.

The pace on this piece has finally quickened and I’m really enjoying it!

Ellen Lindner

Piecing a Green Background

By Ellen Lindner on May 26, 2024 in Uncategorized

For my latest quilt I envisioned an interesting green background with vibrantly colored circles in the foreground. I got to work on the background with my usual technique of auditioning fabrics and designing as I went along. I chose green, because I had A LOT of green fabric. Plus, I had a theme idea that would work well with green.