Ellen Lindner: Art & Creativity

I recently updated my master bathroom.  I painted the walls a soft grey/tan.  (The name was “blank,” so that gives you an idea – even though it looks a little too warm in these photos.)  It was a good backdrop for the vibrant red art I wanted to add to the room.

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White Poppies near the sinks:

And Red Strata over the toilet:

Can you tell I planned and sized both of these for their respective locations?  And, since I wanted the artwork to be the star of the room, I kept everything else colorless, adding white towels and neutral rugs.  I’m really happy with the way these changes brighten up the room!

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  Fiber art works very well in bathrooms.  There’s no wrinkling or puckering from the humidity.

After completing the background for my crepe myrtle quilt, I got to work on the  foliage.  I followed my sketch closely and it looked like this.

(See the sketch and design process in this previous post.)

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By scrunching my fabrics in the blades of my scissors as I was cutting, I got irregular, organic shapes.  I call this process “jagged cutting” and I use it a lot.

I was quite happy with my foliage until I started to notice the blooming crepe myrtles around town.  The thing I really liked about them was their open airiness and the individual branches that sprang out.  Hmm.  Mine didn’t have that.

So, I worked with a different photo (my own) and printed out that plant’s silhouette as a new foliage model.

Much more open, right?  Of course, this meant quite a bit of reworking.  Resulting in this.  Better, don’t you think?

The trunks in the photo above, were just for a quilt fabric audition.  I removed them and quilted everything.  That’s rather unusual for me.  But, I knew I’d be dodging pink blossoms later, so I decided to quilt in stages like this.

The first few flowers were to give me an idea about size and placement.  Many changes to come.

I generally construct my quilts with raw edge collage.  I hold everything together with pins until I quilt and secure it.  But, since I knew I’d be using several pink fabrics for blossoms, I decided to try fusing them.

It was a little bit of a challenge to decide on the proper level of accuracy.  I wanted the heavy blossoms on the left to have the almost triangular crepe myrtle shape, but I also wanted the interior ones to be rather loose.  This made it really hard to stop!  There was always something I could tweak.

The next photo shows the composition almost complete.  I’ve added trunks, rounded a few blossom shapes, and filled in the “armpits” between some of the left branches.  (You know what I mean, right?)  It’s almost ready to have the flowers quilted.

I’m pretty happy with it.

Ellen Lindner

P.S.  Did you notice the red object in some of these photos?  It’s a wrist pincushion.  The fabric end allows me to pin it to my design wall.  Very handy.

I thought you might enjoy a few more photos of the kids in the summer art class I taught.

Cyrah and Jaylina were usually fully engaged with their painting.  They easily mastered mixing colors and generally used a wide variety.

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The older girls, Tiana and Desiree, liked spraying watercolor paper and encouraging their colors to bleed.  (Even though they weren’t keen on having their pictures taken.)

 The youngest girls, Shanyla and Unica were very enthusiastic!  They had fun whenever they held a paint brush.  No planning – just applying paint!

It was very fun for me to work with these girls.  I hope I get to do it again next summer.  If so, there will definitely be paint involved!

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  See my own recent painting adventure here.

Lately, I’ve been packing up several quilt to ship them to shows.  While doing so, I’ve been feeling really spoiled by my new shipping station.  It’s just an empty table with supplies nearby, but it’s SO convenient!  (Yes, I said empty table people.  What a luxury!)

One show required that I send hanging dowels with eye screws for each quilt.  That wouldn’t have been a problem if the quilt hadn’t been 51″ wide.  And the box only 48″ long.  After pondering my options, I consulted some online quilters and got several good suggestions for making a 2-piece hanging dowel.

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Armed with this knowledge, hubby and I headed for the hardware store and came up the solution shown above.  As you can see, the dowels can be joined with a coupler (found in the plumbing section.)  I think this should work.

I use my empty table to roll the quilts around a swimming noodle.

Then, I wrap muslin around everything and pin it in place.  After adding the appropriate paperwork it’s ready to go into the shipping box, (48 x 6 x 6.)

Aren’t I lucky to have such a set up?

Do you ship many quilts?  If so, you may be interested in a much more detailed article on my website.

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  You can see more about how I use this space here and here.

Do you have Crepe Myrtles in your area?  They thrive here in the south and I just love them.  Not only are their blossoms beautiful, but their shapes and their trunks are as well.  I especially like the way the branches droop when they have heavy blossoms on them.

To start designing the quilt, I played around on the computer, using two of my own photos.  With photo editing software, I can cut each plant away from its background, move it, resize it, etc.  Very easy!

Eventually, I decided to feature just one plant.  This is my sketch, complete with three different values in the pink flowers.  Something I’ll need to reproduce.

I construct my quilts collage style, using a piece of muslin for support.  I had fun creating the sky.  I like to use a variety of patterned fabrics to add interest.

Have you ever noticed that the sky is lighter at the horizon than it is up at altitude?  My mom, who’s a painter, taught me that trick.

I thought I was very clever when I decided to use white and green prints where the sky and grass meet.  Like blades of grass, I thought.  But, it wasn’t very effective.

So, I cleaned that up, lowered the horizon, and softened the edges of the shadow.  Then, it was time to start on the foliage.  I put a few “place marker” fabrics in position, as a reference.

Being “clever” again:  I was hoping I could use the dark green and light blue print as delicate foliage near the edges.  We’ll see.

Ellen Lindner

While visiting family I bought a book called How to Paint Flowers in Acrylic, by Tim Fisher.  The loose quality of these flowers really intrigued me!

Then, my niece, Nolie, and I found some TINY canvasses (3 x 3 and 2 x 2) and we just HAD to play!  We got out my mom’s acrylic paints and started doing some of the exercises in the book.

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We had great fun mixing paints and making a mess.

I decided to loosely imitate one of the images in the book.  (Note that I’d never tried to paint anything realistic before this!)

Many of the flowers in the book were rather loose.  I thought that matched my skill level.  I wanted to just add colorful shapes, like I do with fabric.

And this is what I ended up with.

As you can see, my painting was a little inexact.  (Is there such a word?)  A fine black line added definition to my vague edges.

I’m pretty happy with it.  But, most of my enjoyment came from the process of exploration and learning.  Great fun!

BTW, if you want to order the book, just click on the image and it will take you to Amazon.com.

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  I keep saying that I’m going to learn how to paint with acrylics when I retire.  But, maybe I should accelerate my timeline?
P.P.S.  Isn’t Nolie a pretty name?  She’s named after her great-grandmother, my grandmother.

I recently got to visit my parents and extended family in rural Virginia.  The country vistas are always beautiful, but they were especially green and lush in the middle of summer.  (Even though they were having a dry spell.)

I really enjoyed seeing all the  things I don’t get to see in my Florida suburb:  rolling hills, round hay bales, wooden fences, tassling fields of corn, and lots of cows and horses.

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A drive to the Blue Ridge mountains was simply mesmerizing.  I HAD to keep looking outside!  (But, I wasn’t driving, so it was okay.)

Even though it was threatening to rain, my mom and I did a little light hiking.

Here she is on the trail.  Perhaps you can tell that it drops off steeply on the right.

My mom is awesome!  She’s a talented painter, and she takes care of EVERYONE.

But she’s not much of a techie.  Here’s the photo she took of me in the same spot.

Spending time with my family was delightful.  I even got to do some art play with a niece.  I’ll show you that in the next post.

Ellen Lindner

If you live near Melbourne, FL, be sure to check out the “Florida in Fabric II:  Wish You Were Here” exhibit, at the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts.  It’s a wonderful exhibit, with 35 art quilts.  And it’s all free!

My quilt, The Last Few Dates, is part of the exhibit.

The adjacent gallery space is showing “Oil Stains.”  This exhibit features art quilts made by Floridian Eleanor McCain.  Each one has an environmental message.

Both exhibits end August 23rd, so be sure to see them before too long!

Ellen Lindner

How teenagers pose for pictures:

How young children pose for pictures:

🙂 Either way, they’re a fun group to work with.

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  Read about these girls learning how to mix paint colors.

“Mine turned green.”

 “Hey, mine too!”

This is what was heard when the students in my summer art class were asked to mix a little blue paint with some yellow.  A discovery!  Green paint!  They were very excited by this.

And then came orange.  And purple.

 My ten girls were delighted to learn about color mixing, along with the characteristics of some of the colors.
– Yellow is wimpy.
– Black takes over.

At the end of one class, I even encouraged them to make “mud.”  Just so they could learn how to avoid it in the future.

From 6 to 15, these girls are part of a summer program which caters to disadvantaged  kids.  I was initially a little worried about the age span, but two things have helped. 1) two great helpers, 2) keeping everything abstract and loose. 

We are having a lot of fun!

Ellen Lindner