Quilt Design: Where Negative is Good

This week I continued on with my  design class at Quilt University with Elizabeth Barton.  Its weird for me to be working through design exercises while doing a whole other quilt in my sewing hole.  Usually I’m much more linear than that – start a quilt – finish a quilt.  Its hard for me to let one project go to start designing another.

Still I’ve found these exercises really freeing.  The first was working with negative space.  Did you know that the space that is empty is just as important as the space that is filled?! Yes we all realized that when it came to our dinner plates but its true in Art too.  Its amazing what a difference the empty space makes!  So I've posted some of the more interesting  design  studies.

I used the cross motif since eventually I want to get back to my cross series from last summer.  That one was shelved temporarily stalled because I wasn’t quite sure where to take it.  Well now I know!  Doing these studies using Paint, Word and Snippet really was quite easy and revealing. I really find varying the scale and value so interesting .  Still a word of warning.  Doing these studies is addictive! 

Although I could have easily have kept doing more negative studies I went on with the lesson and did some studies in shape.  I took some of the compositions from lesson 1 and interpreted them using a simple shape.  The one I found I liked the best was the rectangle.  It was easy to manipulate and draw.  Plus the swing from last week was already a rectangle so it was the logical choice.  Here are some of my more successful efforts.

 So I really am having fun with this course. . . .

I can’t wait to see what Lesson 3 will bring!