Tag Archives | Design

Remember the great fabric I used in my quilt Initial Response? I still had half of it, ready to use on the next project. This portion made me think of fall leaves, with the twigs and branches of trees peeking through.  Can you see it?

That was enough to get me started.  From there I cut it into 9 pieces.  (Not square, of course.) If you look closely, you can see the cuts, above.

I decided the feature fabric should be about 1/4 of the quilt design, which helped me determine the size.

I put 4 of my 9 pieces in the corners and scattered the others throughout.  Then I started filling in with fabrics from my stash, both commercial and hand dyed.

Soon, I had this.  “Not bad,” I thought.

I added a little more interest with some small snippets of plaids and stripes.  And then began to audition twig fabrics and widths.  I decided most of them would need to be pretty skinny.

I added QUITE A FEW twigs and was happy with the results.

As I thought more about fall leaves I realized I should probably add some color variations.  I tried several fabrics in the orange family. Some were very bright and sort of took over.  Maybe I could still use them in small pieces.  Others were too dull and were removed from consideration.

In the next post I’ll show you what I did with these fabrics.

Ellen Lindner

Continuing with my abstract exercises, I focused next on line.  (Although I’d been using it since the very first exercise.)

What kind of line(s) did I like?  What came naturally?

I’m still trying to figure that out.  On the grid above, my favorite line is the one top right.

The next assignment was to use two shapes and add a line.

I love that little squiggly line above!

The next exercise required multiple shapes, arranged in a grid format, with line added. By now I found myself leaving space for the future line.

I was beginning to smile more and cringe less at my results.  It was beginning to gel in my brain, I think.

Finally, I read (or saw?) something in the book that surprised me.  First, some background: I’ve often heard that elements in a composition shouldn’t “kiss.” That is, they shouldn’t just barely touch.  They should either clearly miss one another, or clearly overlap.  Same for elements in relationship to the edge of the composition.

However, Jane’s work often has elements kissing.  So, I decided to test the kissing, non-kissing concept.  I cut out similar elements and made two different compositions.  The first one had no kissing.

And I was pretty happy with it.

Next, came full on kissing!

Hmm, to my surprise that wasn’t too bad.  It had a certain edginess to it.  I decided I might occasionally ignore the “no kissing” rule.  But not at the edges.  I didn’t care for that.

How about you: kissing or not?

Ellen Lindner

While working through Jane Davies’ book, “Abstract Painting: The Elements of Visual Language,” my next exercises had to do with pattern.  This assignment was to find a variety of pattern scales, which I did with fabric.

She talked about how a variety of patterns, in a variety of scales, can really enhance a piece.  This was my first exercise adding patterns to a basic background.

I started with four fabrics and one magazine image of a strawberry.  It was pretty boring.  I added patterns, with markers, and that added TONS of interest!  I’m a believer.  And perhaps you can tell that some of the patterns I added mimicked those that were already there, only in different sizes.

Here’s another one, before.

And after.

Once again, the patterns added a lot to the composition.  (Although I think I may have over done it with the circles.)

Jane said if you’re going to vary the sizes of patterns or shapes you should do it in a big, noticeable way.  This was my interpretation of that.

As you can see, I wasn’t trying to make great art here.  Generally, I just used whatever I picked up first.  But, I was really learning a lot!  Each exercise confirmed one of the book’s concepts.  I was gluing things down and writing notes.  Very exhilarating!

What great books have you learned from?

Ellen Lindner