Cynthia's Collage using photos of Novia Scotia
Colleen's Collage using her daughter's drawing as the center piece
Betty's Collage using Marucka fabric scraps
Melanie's Collage using lots of embellishment
Sharon's Collage using her grandmother's doilies
Martha's Collage using textiles that belonged to her Mother
Connie's Collage using silk scraps
Donna Mae's Valentine Collage
Betty's complete Collage from a previous challenge, using a family photo and rusted cloth
The Quilters Studio – Art Quilt Challenge 2nd Saturday of month 10:30 am
Challenge #15 COLOR TRENDS January 8th /due February 12th
For our challenge this month, we will get our inspiration from two of the 2011 Spring color trends forecasted by the international group of experts, the Color Marketing Group:
Natural Comforts
· Island Brights: inspired by tropical birds, fruits and flowers
· Calming and soothing water colors: soft aqua blues, periwinkle, weathered nautical blues
· Soft cool greens: glass green, mint green, honeydew and pistachio
· Rich chocolate browns: combined with any color-bright or muted. The more bizarre the color combined with brown, the better
Urban Nerds
· Black and white: with an unexpected color pop
· Pure white: with a surprising shimmer or texture
· Unusual color combinations: a traditional dark autumn color with a lighter and brighter spring shade
· Complementary colors: opposites on the color wheel – one clear and bright, the other muted or dusty
· Unexpected combinations: traditional or primary colors combined with neon brights or ambiguous shades
· Metallic shine: a spattering of metallic over the whole design, adding a magical sheen
Quilt examples
Island brights : Annette Morgan
Water colors: Katie Pasquini Mausopaut
Soft greens: Holly Knott
Rich chocolate brown: Pamela Allen
Black & White: Jane Sassaman
Pure White: Carmella Rother
Complementary: Catherine Kleeman
Unexpected combination: Jean Wells
Metallic shine: Jane Dunnewold
Time Magazine photo essay on street art: http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/street_art/1.html
Graffiti evolving into Urban Art - a trend that is influencing other artists - http://bit.ly/dWXIfd #cnn
Source of information: Fabric Trends magazine for Quilters Winter 2011 pages 72-73 and author Luanna Rubin’s blog
Call or email Cynthia if you get stuck: 303 545-9440 camorgan4@comcast.net
Oh! If you dress in one of the color trends above at our next meeting, you'll get a fat quarter of hand dyed fabric!
Cynthia's piece using Black and White with an unexpected color.
Colleen's lap quilt using rainbow colors and chocolate brown
Challenge #14 ONE SHAPE – Repetition and Theme 
December 11th/due January 8th
We have an infinite variety of shapes to play with for our quilts.
For this challenge, pick a simple shape and using only that shape,
make a quilt.
This is, of course, borrowed from traditional quilting which uses squares, triangles, rectangles, tumblers and a variety of other simple geometric shapes in classic patterns. Think about other shapes as well: circles, hexagons, pentagons, octagons, parallelograms, trapezoids, etc. Consider exaggerated shapes as opposed to blocks. Think about big shapes and little shapes, as well as horizontal and vertical. Think about layers and shadows….
Your quilt should be totally composed of that one shape… pieced, appliquéd, collaged, fused, any technique will work, as long as you only show one shape! You can embellish, paint, foil, stitch….. but just use one shape. One.
If you have done lots of pictorial quilts in the past, try to move to more abstract quilts with this challenge. This is a great chance to go beyond that mindset and stretch our wings!
Theme and Repetition: In art, a theme is the overall sense or message of a piece whether it is music, poetry or visual art. Repetition, then, is the repeating of that theme throughout the piece, often with shading or variation.
Consider Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Did you immediately hear those opening four notes? They repeat throughout the piece with varying intensity and feeling throughout the body of the work. Spend a few minutes with this video from Fantasia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMnlxYkZKaU
Did you notice how the theme of the butterfly and the triangular shapes repeated through the animation?
Here are some fun examples of repetition and theme in art:
Check the 3rd picture from the top, Ugo Rondinone's Clockwork for Oracles
http://3rdhouseparty.typepad.com/blog/2009/01/repetition.html
(You can also Google the artist and title for lots more images!)
Amazing subtleties, Rectangular Green Heart:
http://www.kazuya-akimoto.com/2005/2005contents/4375gallery12.htm
Value and Contrast: Pay attention to all we’ve learned about value and contrast (and color theory) for this challenge. One shape can be boring if there isn’t contrast. Think about how colors play off of each other to add drama and “pop.”
Some Quilt examples:
In researching this topic, it was somewhat difficult to find many examples of non-traditional single-shape quilts. There are many traditional quilts that fit this mold (Square in a Square, Thousand Triangles, Flying Geese, Grandmother’s Flower Garden, Tumbling Blocks, Stack and Whack, One Block Wonders….etc etc etc), and you can find scores of examples on line. But those aren’t the focus of this challenge…. Unless you can alter them in some new and interesting way!
Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr of Fun Quilts have some good examples on their gallery page http://www.funquilts.com/gallery/gallery1.html - their use of lines is especially effective.
Kaffe Fassett often uses a single shape in his designs http://www.kaffefassett.com/Patchwork.html
Tessellations are sometimes traditional and sometimes art. You can find lots with a Google search.
http://www.mathematicalquilts.com – check out the gallery pages (not all are tessellations but lots are just fun to see)
http://nachograndmasquilts.blogspot.com/2010/02/transformation-tessellation-tuesday.html a nice tutorial on creating your own tessellation block from Raymond Houston.
http://www.rickytims.com/quiltgallery/quilt-gallery-1996-now Flying Colors is the last quilt in the gallery..... scroll to the right
http://www.quiltart.com/elements/html/Tseq_wetzel_where_river_joins_sea.html
designed shape which she has been developing for several years. The first one hereis her piece for this challenge and the following ones are examples of the same shape (previously made)
Haiku!
The challenge is to be inspired by words. Haiku is the form of short poetry that captures a moment in time, evokes a vivid picture or feeling and often has something to do nature and the seasons. Because they evoke a strong image and/or feeling, Haiku can be a wonderful source of inspiration for art quilts. If you have a favorite poem, you could use a verse from that if you’d rather not find or write a Haiku.
The challenge here is not to become a poet (unless you want to) but rather to allow yourself to work from the feelings created by experiencing the written word. Try to select the words first and then allow the ideas to flow from them. If you would rather do your quilt first and write a verse to match…that is OK (though that is more of a writing challenge than an art quilt challenge).
You can be as realistic or as abstract as you like. Please bring your verse for show and tell next month.
There are tons of Haiku sites on the internet, and lots of books at the library and bookstore.
If you want to try writing your own Haiku…there are some sites explaining Haiku
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku www.wikihow.com/write-a-Haiku-Poem www.toyomasu.com/haiku/
http://www.simplytom.com/definitions.txl (see the viewpoints section for the feeling part)
http://haikuguy.com/issa/links3.html
Quilts inspired by words:
Susan "Lucky" Shie is probably the best known quilter to incorporate words directly into her quilts.
www.turtlemoon.com/gallery10/2010gallery.htm
Nature Quilts:
Marilyn Wall and Sue Wademan each do a marvelous job of creating moods with their nature quilts. Marilyn's quilts tend to be realistic while Sue's are more abstract.
www.marilynwallfiberartist.com/index.php/gallery/fabricating
Seasons:
Two artists whose quilts evoke emotion by referencing the seasons are Leslie Rego and Alison Muir.
www.leslierego.com/ArtQuilts/Meanderings_by_Leslie_Rego.html
www.ozquiltnetwork.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=136&Itemid=114
Other Art inspired by Haiku
http://thegreenleaf.co.uk/HP/Duets/01/CH.htm
Example Haiku
Morning surf
A dog fills the sky
With seagulls
