My Chicago area “Design Your Own Nature Quilt” students brought their artistic courage to class, and made some really great work. (These photos were showing on my computer when photographed. The quality is sometimes low, but you’ll get the idea.)
Sue did a great job with her tree frog. She constructed him with fusible web on some release paper. (See the white outline?) Once she removes that he’ll be a little slimmer.
If I remember correctly Terre had never made an art quilt before. But, didn’t she do a great job? She fully embraced “jagged cutting” the mountain tops, which worked beautifully.
Deborah had never made any sort of quilt before! However, she bravely embraced fusible web, jagged cutting, and abstracted rhododendron flowers. (Don’t they look better than some perfect fussy cut version?)
Deborah’s inspiration photo.
This photo of Susan’s work doesn’t begin to do it justice. She’s working on a rock face, snow with shadows, a lake, and – the missing items – tall evergreen trees. It’s going to be a lovely composition.
Beth took a lot of artistic license with her cactus grouping, which worked really well. She had a pleated scrap that made great texture for one of the plants. See her finished piece in the “Design Your Own Nature” gallery. (Link at bottom of post.)
Cindy also worked on a desert scene. She used mostly solids to capture the austere beauty. She’ll use fusible web to secure the spiky plant. Won’t it be great?
Although Frances’ image was simple in composition, it wasn’t simple to construct. She did an excellent job capturing the subtleties of variation in the sky and snow.
My students always do an awesome job and these were no different. It sure makes it fun for me!
I quilted my latest quilt and was pretty happy with it. But, as I studied it, one spot bugged me. I thought this spot was too busy and that a solid piece of fabric would look better. Should I applique a different fabric over the current one? Maybe something brown or purple? As I auditioned…
This past week I went to a wonderful 3-day workshop with Elizabeth Barton. I’ve long admired her ability to simplify a design and to then interpret it in dramatic, high-contrast, colors. Our class supply list included several inspiration photos. I was familiar enough with Elizabeth’s work to know that a landscape image would work well….
My magazine paper collage, Three Cherries, is now complete and I’m very happy with it! I love the texture that the text of the pages adds. Cool, right? This technique is super easy: spread/paint matte medium on your surface, add a little bit of torn paper, and smooth on another layer of medium. The only tricky…
My dyeing/print making class with Pat Pauly was amazing. She’s SO comfortable with thickened dyes and what she can do with them that it was almost hard to keep up. This was the first demo, about using stencils. She doesn’t use them with a screen, but just hangs on to a corner and scrapes dye…
I don’t like the flavor of vinegar but I know that it adds a needed tartness to a variety of dishes. However I’m starting to like the idea of “vinegar” colors. That is, those colors that are jarring in combination with others, but which also add an interesting bit of “sour.” My interest began several…
Finally, here is Second Thoughts, complete. I had a lot of fun working on it and I’m quite happy with the results. Did you notice I turned it upside down? That was just the jolt it needed. Here’s a detail shot. Notice that I added subtle squares in the background. I love little things like that which…
