Ellen Lindner: Art & Creativity

Is this a classic rural image or what?  It shows my parents’ farm, my nephew (also a farmer,) and his great-grandfather’s truck that he restored.

My visits to the farm are always filled with images like this.  Things that I just wouldn’t see in the (suburban) town where I live.  Although I grew up on the farm, I forget about these things and I have to chuckle at myself for being surprised by them.

In case it’s been a while since you’ve been to a farm area, I thought you might like a little photo tour. 

Here’s a typical hay wagon.  It’s pulled behind a bailing machine, which gathers raked hay, ties it into square bales, and spits them out into the open front of the wagon.  

Not all the wagons look so good.

Square bales have been mostly replaced with huge round ones.  The round ones can only be moved with a fork lift, so they can’t be sold easily.  Since my dad sells hay to lots of horse owners, he square bales some of it.

Farm trivia:  Do you know the difference between hay and straw?  Hay is food.  It’s made with the entire plant (like barley.)  Straw is used for bedding.  It’s made from the stalks and leaves of plants, after the grain has been harvested.

More rural photos to come.  What do you want to see next?  Scenery or the county fair?

Ellen Lindner
P.S. The gridded sides of these wagons always make me think of a gridded quilt layout.  Wouldn’t these be interesting variations?

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I like to experiment with a variety of techniques and materials.  This is great fun and it generally works well.  But every now and then I just end up with a dud.  Like this.

Click for a larger view – if you dare

Can you say “ugly?”  Really.  It’s okay.  Go ahead and say it.

As you can see, I stopped short of completing this piece.  The best parts?  The little flecks of light peach, white, and blue peeking through.  But these are the parts of the old sample I was trying to cover!  Not a good sign.

The lower 2/3 of this collage is almost entirely one fabric.  And that was my inspiration.  I thought I could cut up this wonderful fabric and rearrange it to look like a garden.  No such luck.

But, it’s no biggie.  I had a lot of fun putting this together.  The fact that it’s not successful doesn’t really bother me.  I’ll just paint/gesso over it and start on the next thing.  Plus, I know that I learn from every project, no matter the result.

So, on to the next thing.

Ellen Lindner

Once again, SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) has published a book featuring quilts made by the professional level artists.  This is an excellent publication with TONS of wonderful images, AND it’s all online for your viewing pleasure!

Click here to see my quilt, Mountain Meadow, but be sure to check out the other quilts as well.  (Better allow plenty of time for that.)

I’m thrilled to be in such an outstanding book!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. You can also purchase a hard copy of Portfolio 18.

You’ve got some UFOs, right?  You know, Unfinished Objects?  I’ve got a drawer full.

Here’s the thing.  These UFOs have potential.  Otherwise I wouldn’t have kept them.  (My friends will tell you that I DON’T keep things that just take up space!)  But, these items no longer interest ME.

So, I thought I’d see if any of you readers might be intrigued by some of them.  Here’s the first one, started in a QSDS class with Cherilyn Martin around 2003.

Click any image for a larger view

It’s about 21″ long, with a cluster of something organic at the top.  This cluster was stitched on water soluble film, so it’s a stand-alone item that’s been hand stitched onto the background.

Batting is already in place, and some quilting has been done.

Do you have any ideas for this piece?  If so, I’m giving it away.

I’d LIKE it if the recipient would:
– promise to actually use it (or pass it on,)
– show me pictures of the completed project (which I’ll post on this blog,)
– and credit me as the artist who started the project.

But there are NO RESTRICTIONS about what you do with this.  You can paint it, cut it, burn it.  I don’t care, as long as it serves your artistic purposes.

I’ll mail it at no charge to the first person (within the US) who emails me with a request.  Email: 
ellen@adventurequilter.com  UPDATE:  This piece has been claimed.

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  I have lots more give aways.  I’ll mix up the way I do them.  Some will be offered via my Face Book page or my newsletter.  I’ll also reward them in different ways.  Stay tuned!

I’ve been having lots of fun stitching skinny strips into a swirling pattern.  It seems that I’m making a hurricane, although that wasn’t really my intention.   As a storm hardened Floridian, maybe it’s just imprinted upon my brain.

Click any image for a larger view
 

(Oops.  I forgot to trim the threads before taking the photo above.)

I’m still not at all sure of what this will be.  But maybe that’s a good thing.

Ellen Lindner

Woohoo!  My commission quilt is finished, and I’m quite happy with it.

Click any image for a larger view

I wanted an upbeat title for this piece and decided to call it Blessings Underfoot.

Here’s a detail image.

I hope this quilt will bring a lot of joy to those who see it at Nemours Children’s Hospital.  A delightful thing to imagine.

Ellen Lindner

I’ll soon be spending some time with my teenage nieces, as well as other extended family members.  Since these girls like art projects as much as I do, I’ve gathered a few supplies, so we can have “art camp!”

Check out these cool little bird houses.  Won’t they be fun to paint?

I’ll bet my “Sticky Fingers” students can tell what I have in mind with these items. 

 That’s right:  glued collage.  So much fun!

Ellen Lindner

My husband and I enjoyed a recent visit to the wide white sands of Pensacola Beach, Florida.  We drove south to Fort Pickens and were amazed by the changes to this area.

This tiny peninsula of land was swept clean by hurricane Ivan in 2005.  Without dunes, you could see the water of both the ocean and the bay at the same time.  Very beautiful.  Click any image for a larger view.

I have no idea how they keep this road clear, however.  Sand was sweeping across it as we drove.

Eventually we encountered large piles of what looked like snow on both sides of the road.   These didn’t seem to be natural dunes, but rather piles that had been “snow plowed.”  Very unexpected and amazing!

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  I wish I had taken a picture of the “Soft Shoulder” sign that was in one of these “snow banks.”

My local quilt shop does something that I love.  Well, many things, really.  But one in particular.  When trimming fabrics to create fat quarters, they save all the little skinny trimmings and bag them up.  When the bag is eventually full, they sell it.  I love these, and have used them in several projects.  Like this quilt, and this knitted project.

Recently, I”ve noticed a lot of textured pillows in home dec stores.  Like this one from Target.

Which got me thinking about my bag of strips.  Not that I wanted to make a pillow.  But, I liked the idea of sewing strips down in lines.  Maybe not straight ones, though.

Knowing that the background fabric would show through, I selected an appropriate one, added batting, and drew on a few reference lines.  I anticipated sewing the strips on in random order.  But, I quickly abandoned that idea because it created too much of a striped effect.  Instead, I started like this.  Click image for a larger view.

As you can see in the photo below, this spiral is both very textured and very hairy!  Many of the fabric strips were creased, having been cut away from the fabric fold.  In these cases, I generally stitched down the center, encouraging the fabric edges to flair up.  (I say “down the center” but I found that steering was pretty challenging with all these little wonky pieces.  So, it’s all pretty messy – which doesn’t bother me.)

My only plans for this – currently – are to have fun with it.  I don’t know what it will become, but it’s a nice little project to work on when watching a favorite TV program, etc.  So far, I’m happy with the hairy results.

Ellen Lindner

Well, I decided on purples centers for these “black” eyed susans.  Then, I tackled the quilting.  As usual, I outlined the petals with two very imperfect rows of black stitching.  It really helps define the floral shapes.  Other areas were quilted with matching thread.

Click on any image for a larager view

My photos of these flowers showed the more mature ones with little vertical “nubs” in their  centers.  I decided to replicate those with hand stitching.  In the photo below, I’ve completed this in the bottom flower.  (Click the photo to see what I mean.)

Look at that photo again.  Can you see how a couple of leaves in the top right flower have taken on a greenish cast?  That’s because my blue “washout” pencil didn’t all wash out!  Aargh!  I considered a variety of corrections, but finally just created new petals right on top of the original ones.  One of the great advantages of working in raw edge collage.

Now, readers, I need your help.  This quilt needs a name.  (I might have called it simply Black-Eyed Susans, except for the color change.)  The quilt will be hung in a children’s hospital.  I sure would appreciate your suggestions!

Ellen Lindner