Last month I got to spend two and half days with members of the North Suburban Needle Arts Guild when I conducted my class, Design Your Own Nature Quilt. Because this group includes many non-quilters there was quite a mix of skill levels in the class. About half had never made an art quilt and several had never made a quilt of any sort! But, they all bravely dove in and they achieved EXCELLENT results.
In this class, each student brings their own inspiration photo, which means we’ve got 15 DIFFERENT projects going all the time. It keeps me on my toes, but I love it. They learn so much in this class!
I wish I had thought to photograph their inspiration photos, rather than just their resulting quilts. (These photos were showing on my computer when photographed. The quality is sometimes low, but you’ll get the idea.)
Gretchen was inspired by a photo of water lilies. She changed the nearly black water to a dark plum, which worked beautifully. She’ll use fusible web to add the skinny little grasses, and she’ll stiffen some of the leaves to make them 3D. It will be great!
Ronna also worked with water lilies, and also switched to purple water. This complementary color really adds drama and contrast. And check out how effective those black shadows are. Nice!
Val’s lily pads are coming along nicely. She’ll add some shadows to add dimension. Check out her water grasses and their reflection near the top. She spent a lot of time on them and I think they’re very effective.
This photo doesn’t do Barbara’s work justice. Her photo had three delicate flowers against a complex shadow. She had to work at providing contrast with value. Her later progress showed that she was moving in the right direction.
Nancy cut loose in a really wonderful way. She started working with solids, but needed some dappled light. As we searched her print fabrics she realized that she had quite a big selection of them, so she switched gears. This brought a lot of energy to her scene. She’ll add some thread-painted grasses in the foreground.
Every so often my small art quilt group, Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists, likes to have a group challenge. Frequently, we use a photograph as our starting point. We select something with lots going on so different people can respond to different elements. This is the photo we selected for our recent challenge, “Welcome to Provence.”…
Dying specialty fabrics is a lot of fun. Having said that, I don’t think I’m that good at it. And I DEFINITELY am challenged when it comes to using them. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. During my recent dye session I tried to create some specialty fabrics that could either be used together or…
My piece, Caring, has just won Best of Show in a local exhibit. How nice! At 40″ high, this piece is nearly life-sized. To enhance the message I’ve included little thoughts throughout. He thinks, “I rely on you.” She thinks “I’m here for you, you can count on me,” and so forth. This piece is part…
Remember me telling you about the “Stitched” exhibit, in Stuart, FL? It’s about to end, so I thought I’d show you the quilts, in case you didn’t get to see them. (This will take several posts.) Enjoy! These are just the first few. Check future posts for more art! Ellen Lindner You…
A lot has happened with my coastal piece since I last posted about it. I’ve now added the bulk of the bottom/foreground section. At about this time I began to question how much I really needed to add on the right. After some consideration, I ended up deleting the far right column. This is the…
The style of improv (no pattern) piecing I do evolves greatly during the construction of the quilt. Which is one of the things I love about it. I do a lot of slicing, repiecing, slitting, and slanting, all without a construction plan. With such a loose technique the color and value selections become critical. These…
