Inspired to Design - A Quilt University Class

You would think with two art shows, a national show's deadline and school beginning in two weeks that I would have enough on my creative plate.  But No.....I decided to take Elizabeth Barton's Inspired to Design class at Quilt University.  Now I first took this class in person about  5 years ago at QBL and it opened my eyes to new ways to design.  Her first lessons are filled with all sorts of ideas of how to come up with a main idea for an art quilt and then how to translate that idea into fabric.  Very fun - very methodical.  I love Elizabeth as a teacher because she always has very concrete ideas on how to design quilts.  With those ideas she also throws in a lot of design principals so that you understand why your work is good . . . . . .or not depending!

This is my fifth class with Elizabeth and I read her wonderful blog, so I definitely knew what I was in for.  There is always a lot of work involved in her design process.  In fact a good hunk of the total time on a quilt is designing  it.  For the first lesson, she asked us to come up with an inspirational notebook (which I did on pinterest), come up with a main idea and then get together at least 12 sketches for that main idea.

  With the Seasons art show deadline approaching, I thought I would design for that.  I decided to do fall with a nostalgic feel.  When I think about fall, I think colder air, leaves flying in the wind, school days, greens turning to red and orange. . . . you get the idea.  I also could see that my inspirational notebook was full of swings, benches and playing depth perception.  Then I also get a feeling of loneliness during autumn, since most of our socializing is done in the summer and Christmas.  Fall is meant for work and school. . . .and the lazy warm days of summer are left behind. . . .not to mention the isolation of winter is coming.  So I wanted to capture all of that too.

So I managed to put together 7 sketches - some by drawn by hand and some done by photoshop (which I'm teaching myself).    The photos are basically collages of a bunch of photos that I  manipulated and put together.   Still I'm not quite sure if any of the sketches I did this week are anywhere near what the end design will be.  With Elizabeth, there is always one more design waiting to be inspired. . . .