The Quilt Skipper

quilting makes me skip for joy

Jenny K Lyon

Quilting makes me skip for joy

March Assignment-Design Master Class

I recently ran across this succinct and accurate description of “The Creative Process”:
1. This is cool!
2. This is gonna be hard.
3. This sucks.
4. I suck.
5. There is hope.
6. This is cool!

I think that is an apt description. I lived every one of those steps last month while completing my March assignment in Elizabeth Barton’s on-line Design Master Class. I’ll take you through this process, warts and all.

March’s challenge was interesting: take an existing quilt and alter it using line more than shape. We could even take just a part of the image or even a design idea that we had never made into a quilt. That sounded fun! My work is about line so I had a hard time figuring out how to alter an existing quilt. Ultimately I decided to opt to use a photo that I never got around to making into a quilt. (Step 1)

Original photo-March
Original photo-March

So this is my original photo-lovely, huh? It seemed so innocent at the time….

Sketch-March
Sketch-March

Hmmm, how to use line more than shape. I made several sketches and settled on this one as my best-looked kinda fun. Her comments suggested it was a little unbalanced and undeveloped on the right hand side. Elizabeth is careful to point out issues without giving a prescription for how to fix it. (Step 2)

I started here
I started here

Who knew this would be so hard? I tried to figure out how to morph the darkness into the brighter parts using fabric. I spent hours trying different fabric combinations. I know the line of demarcation on this combination was stark, but I envisioned thread painting over the lines to soften them. (Step 2)

I sent this photo in for my second submittal of the month-my blocked out quilt. Elizabeth felt like I had lost my original vision with this, which of course I had. Time to try a new approach. (Step 3)

Fabric explosion
Fabric explosion

This is the type of activity that drives me batty-I call it “fabric explosion”. You just go through lots and lots of fabric, trying to find the right one-what a mess! (Step 3)

All that fabric explosion resulted in this?
All that fabric explosion resulted in this?

I dipped into my hand dyed fabrics and began to play with them. Again, hours of work to get this??? What is that, a tongue, next to some biological disaster??? (Step 4)

Base paint color
Base paint color

The end of the month was approaching and I was absolutely determined that I was going to crank out something decent! In absolute desperation, I pulled out my Lumiere paints and Tsukineko inks-I know very little about these! I had taken a fabulous one-day class in the inks with Judy Coates Perez, which gave me a little bit of knowledge of how to work with them. I took some pfd Radiance and inked the background color-yippee-it’s actually the right color! (Step 1)

Painted base in process
Painted base in process

Oh dear, is that a bull’s eye? (Step 3)

Final painted base
Final painted base

Ooops-so excited about putting the background color in that I forgot the Cardinal Rule that I learned from Judy: lights first, then add darks. Lucky for me I had some of the Lumiere paint in the yellow. By sheer dumb luck, the yellow actually sat atop the surface and did not fade into the pink-whew! (Step 1)

Great, now we have a multi-colored bull’s eye-forge ahead. (Step 3)

Thread selection
Thread selection

This is fun-selecting threads! (Step 1)

Before French Knots and added color to center
Before French Knots and added color to center

I got to this point and it was at least respectable. But that center still looked like a biologic mistake and it really needed something. Of course I knew I was going to have to crop it-in my haste to lay the colors down, I did not think about my placement and jammed the focal point into a corner. (Step 4)

March-Final
March-Final

I don’t know if you can tell from the photo, but I added hundreds of French knots (fun!), ink, marker and more thread to the center to punch it back a bit. All cropped off it looks fairly interesting. (Step 5)

It was great fun to use the paints and inks, add the French knots and redo the center. The rest of the process…not so much, but learning something outside of my comfort zone never is. (Step 5, kinda) I didn’t get to step 6 but that’s okay-I tried some new things, made some mistakes and had some fun-on to the next thing.

I’m reminded of one of the points in “Art and Fear” (Bayles and Orland), ya gotta make a bunch of mediocre art to make some great art-loosely phrased as I can’t find my book at the moment.

I’m not sure I have this kind of time to spend each month on the class. This is a dilemma-I desperately want to up my design skills. Because I am in such need, each step of the way takes sooooo much time, effort and angst. I guess I will just take it month by month. Already my first attempt at April’s challenge is a bust, sigh.

Oh, and for the first time, I’ll be linking this up to Nina Marie’s Off the Wall Friday. Nina Marie is in my Masterclass and each Friday you will see links to posts by other interesting artists. Take a look!

Comments

  3. I really enjoyed your blog about this process. Your final quilt came out great and it was interesting to see the frustrations along the way. I have the same struggles and since I am in class with you I know how you feel about how challenging the assignments have been. I had my studio torn up this week trying to decide on our April assignment.
    Chris

    • And I LOVE your piece-didn’t know whose it was. That is such a fabulous piece. I took a gander at your blog and I can’t wait to see this one finished.

    • Thank you Mardi. It’s uncomfortable to share the process but I think most of us go through that so I’m just showing it all!

  5. Hi Jenny,
    I love this piece. These are very happy colors! Your interpretation of the photo is very well done. It was nice to see you recently at EBHQ.

  9. ohhh this is great – I was wondering how you did it! its funny how this week on the art quilt list they asked us for one word to describe our work – lately for me – its been – #thestruggle (a term I’ve borrowed from my teen). Maybe its ’cause I’ve been working during a cold long winter but I definitely have a love hate relationship with these challenges month!!

  10. Sorry – I got so excited to see your process I forgot to say – Welcome!! please feel free to join us any week you have something created to share – we’re an easy drop in kind of group!

  11. Thank you for posting my link Nina-Marie! That is a great concept and I enjoyed cruising some new blogs. And yes, it is a struggle indeed!!

  13. Thanks for sharing your process, Jenny. It’s so interesting to see how you got from Point A to Point Z! And it’s beautiful.

  15. To paraphrase another blogger I read recently, experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. An assignment about line should play to your strengths, though I give you props for trying to go another direction. The end product is lovely, especially with all those french knots. Thanks for sharing the long and winding way.

  19. I always love reading about the process — angst and all. We all go through it. Thanks for the tour. I really like the effects you got using the different tools and techniques.