Ideas, Ideas....Everywhere Ideas on Off the Wall Friday

This one is mine - its from the Pittsburgh Children's Museum

Another week of winter done.  Little by little more light is coming in the windows and we are getting that much closer to spring.  When you live on the Great Lakes days are grey so every bit of sunshine is cherished.  This week, I did manage to get some sewing in and put a nice black frame on my exercise

piece.   I'm all happy with it.  

This is from Bayside of Erie

With that done, I noticed I was only  10 weeks from my class with Timna Tarr.  My gosh! I better get on the stick about finding an inspirational photo to make into an art quilt using her mosaic method. Instead of taking photos which I normally would do if it wasn't - ya know - snowy and grey, I decided to use a trial month of Shutterstock.  That way I could buy the rights to a photo - crop it in my own style and then blow that up as a pattern.  Easy right?!

Ahhhh, no.  Somewhere when I was signing up for Shutterstock, I missed the fact that they have 400 million images to chose from.  Yes, you read that right - Four Hundred Million.  So you know how that went.  I started looking at pretty pictures and the next thing I knew, 3 hrs had gone by.  Every time I thought I was onto a good subject I just had to do, another one would pop into my head.  I only bring this up because I know - you know - what I mean.

Shutterstock is super easy to use and relatively inexpensive (especially a trial month which included 10 photos for free).  Don't be surprised if I give this old blog a spruce with some of the cool images they have.  So that's the easy part.  The hard part is narrowing it down to what subject matter.  

So as always I started with my Pinterest Boards and some of the subject matter there.  (The pictures here in the blog are ones from my boards and NOT chosen for the project but it's where my mind is at the moment).

Timna Tarr gave some good suggestions on how to pick a good inspirational photo

• Simplify the subject matter and fill the frame with it
• Have just a bit of background (or negative space)
• Use a well-lit photo where the colors, values, and shapes are easily distinguished
• Be eye level with the subject matter
• Don't be afraid to crop.

This is mine too - the Albion Carousel

 

Once we find the right photo then we are going to have it blown up to a full size pattern so it has to be a file that is big enough to do that.  THEN we need to bring bits and pieces of fabric that will go with the colors and values in the photo.

See why I need to start now and pick one?  Also, why in my state of mind and looking outside I thought shutterstock was a good idea (as I listen to the ice rain pouring down - lol)??

So What Have You Been Up to Creatively?

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