The Modern Quilt...improvised....

I love Improv!! That doesn't mean that some Planning doesn't go into it...I think all the best improv starts  a well thought out structure  and then you get to feeling improvise on top of that...whether it's comedy, or music or  quilts...

As I look back over the quilts I've made - and there are quite a few! coming up to around 300 now...it's the simpler ones that I actually like the best....and they are so much more modern!

When I look at other people's work...and when I advise and suggest in my various classes I'm always urging for an elegant economy.  If you look at some of Picasso's early drawings and Matisse...with just the fewest of lines they create a whole world of impressions.

.....and of course some nice bold hand stitching is just the cream on the cake!  something that we as quilters and fiber artists can do that isn't possible with mere pigment!

and so I had a lot of pleasure writing the Mod Meets Improv class for the academyofquilting  coming up with different starting points for beautiful elegant quilts that are surprisingly easy to make.

I have a new class starting the end of this week, if you're interested.  The classed that the academy runs are very inexpensive...I just took two expensive painting classes, and honestly the class was huge and the students got Very Little feedback...and none of it with helpful suggestions for overcoming problems.  

 I really like to help people move forward in my classes and I think showing people how to analyze problems and then find possible solutions is what a teacher is there for.  I have been very critical of many classes I've taken because the teachers don't do that - usually they're just too nice, but often they have too many people and so simply iterate the original instructions...just too much effort to go beyond that.   it's actually worse in painting than it is in fiber arts!  but, it occurs everywhere...

.of course private lessons are really really nice!!!  as I'm discovering in several of my endeavors....but they are expensive and I think a small group lesson is a good starting point.

These are quilts I've made over the years that were not complicated, one is traveling with SAQA in a Mod Quilt show....others still reside here, some I've sold, some I've traded!!  Love a good trade.

so if you're looking for a new, fresh approach to quilting.....consider taking the Mod meets Improv class!!
I have an even easier class coming up mid February..but it's a lot of fun: it's basically a reality show!  More about that when I have a firm date for its running.....

Meanwhile, I hope you've enjoyed looking at these quilts!!! I love to meet you in class!
If  you have been, thanks for reading!!!  Elizabeth

Journey into Abstraction!

A lot of people feel that they don't understand abstract art...and as a result don't like it.
Even one of my close friends came up with the line "my 5 year old could have made that" - nearly as bad as "not your grandmothers' quilts" right???
Not your grandmother's phone, or her clothes or her tv or her car or probably her diet for that matter!!!

Good abstract art could not be made by a five year (unless perhaps Picasso as a child, as Mozart composed when he was a tot) - they simply don't have the sense of organization, the ability to judge between what adds and what detracts, the sense of color, how to convey mood etc etc.

I do think though, that if you want to make abstract art it's very helpful to have some idea of the processes, particularly the design processes that the successful abstract artists have used.
and this is what my class: More Abstract Art for Quiltmakers, starting Friday with www.academyofquilting.com
attempts to do.




 The class examines some of the more influential abstract painters since abstract art began - yes! with a woman painter!!  Hilda af Klint.    Not poor old Kandinsky as he claimed.  Women were there FIRST.....    From each "school" of abstract art, I derived design exercises that  you can use to create many many designs of your own.



Some you will like, others you won't...but you will have a lot more knowledge of abstract art as a whole...and a number of very straight forward starting points to set you on your own journey to abstraction.














This class is parallel to my Abstract Art for Quiltmakers class. They deal with the subject in different ways. More Abstract Art looks at the history and the popular abstract painters we know. Abstract Art for Quiltmakers focuses particularly on the contributions made by female abstract artists.
all the exercises are different, if you liked Abstract Art for QM, you'll like More Abstract Art for QM - but you'll have many different things to try.

Happy to answer any questions!
If you have been, thanks for reading!  Elizabeth