Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Fl

I've often heard about the Atlantic Center for the Arts and so I was very happy to be invited there by the Florida branch of SAQA to give a workshop this last week.
It's a super place!!!  If ever you have a chance to take a workshop there....do!
The center is a collection of arts and music and dance buildings  nestled in the native palmetto forest of Florida - it's so good to see there is a bit of the real Florida left!
There are boardwalks between the buildings, so you feel like you are floating along!
it was a great class - on design.  I threw the participants in at the deep end and they all swam like fish to the finish line!  Here are some of their designs and their blocked out quilts:

 above the sketches, below the quilt.....

on the left, the design...


below...one happy campanologist!!

on the right, the moth design in fabric....and below and potential design (in 3 different value ways) of a detail of the moth...

the moth design above has a real Japanese feel to it....I love abstract work like this.

 Above  a design derived from  a photo of dock pilings and their reflections and below the quilt...
great colors....and so unusual!

 Above are several designs based on a painting...and below the quilt in progress... beautiful movement...and looks a bit like Miro!! though that was not the original inspiration at all.....

One student had the most beautifully printed fabrics - images of spires... it was very difficult to arrange them all in the same orientation, the same light direction and in an interesting way...however the final result was quite stunning!!!  

 This one came out beautifully ...but it was taken down before I could get it photographed!!!  so you'll just have to trust me...it was a photo of the shadows of trees on other tree trunks and was really amazing...
and the sketches look like little Clyfford Stills....

now I wonder if his inspiration was a similar phenomenon?

 a very elegant rendition in 3 values of the photograph....there are so many possibilities for this idea....I love it just as it is though.

And look at all the designs this student got from one photograph!!! and there were even more...
here are a couple of them worked out in fabric:

the one on the left isn't complete of course, the one on the right looks like a Klimt!!

 On the right the original photograph and then the sketch....it's important to simplify...bring shapes together and repeat both shapes and lines...and NOT worry about details!!


























Ellen organized this whole workshop and it was beautifully done...so smooth...and yet very low key...but very efficient..we were all so comfortable and accomplished an enormous amount in just 3 days....

somehow I didn't get a picture of Ellen's quilt...
but I'm sure she'll be putting one up on her blog site


it was a gorgeous mix of red-orange and blue-green....one of the most beautiful complementary pairs.
a big thank you to Ellen for setting up this workshop!






















I really liked the series that this lady proposed...of people having problems with the wind...in the windy city!!  The city will be the back drop for all the various windy events...here is the first character!!

 Above another design...people losing their umbrellas...this is going to be a wonderful series....and she amazed me by carefully cutting out all those swirls of wind, one by one!!

 sometimes the simplest designs are the most elegant...above on the right is the design...and on the bottom left, it's beginning to be transformed into fabric....

 all from one photo!!!  don't they look wonderful?   

  I really like the ense of something going on in those left hand windows...adding a little mystery is very important to good design...and, nice perspective!!!

Another beautiful simple design...this lady has a whole series like this...and they're going to be really amazing hanging in a long line...
you really do not need a lot of fussy detail to make a great quilt.

What a lovely calm little scene...two inspiration images added together to make something new and fresh.....

 this piece is inspired by the boardwalks and forest of the ACA...I love the play of light and shade...and the boardwalk heading off into the mysterious unknown...

and there were several more!! but some people had  them whipped off the wall before I could get to them...!!!  What was really nice was the range of work, and the personal references within all those pieces.....how dreary it is when you see a row of people all holding up identical quilts that they've made!!!  Every one of these quilts tells a story for the particular person who made it.....
thank you ladies!! you were great!    

and now, phew, I need a nice cuppa tea....I hope you've enjoyed the quilt show!
If you have been, thanks for reading!   Elizabeth

Adding mystery

WE all love a mystery!  mystery will keep us looking at something...trying to puzzle it out.  Just consider the popularity of mystery stories, tv shows, movies etc....the very word "secret" has such fascinating possibilities!!My favorite book as a child was The Secret Garden .   It's a wonderful story about a hidden neglected garden that three very different children bring back to life....I always hoped I'd find such a garden!!
One of the ways of telling if your art quilt is successful is to see if people want to look at it, and having started to look...do they stay and ponder over it? How can you keep them there?  Well you could have a sign that says Everyone who stands at looks at this quilt for 10 minutes will be entered into a million $ drawing!! but that might be beyond most of our capabilities!!  Interesting idea though - to offer an inducement for looking!!
But another way is to add some mystery to the work.
 I've come up with a few ways you might do it....see if you can think of any more.  Next time you go to a quilt show, or an art show for that matter, make a note of which pieces hold your attention and why.  Let's all steal those artists' secrets!!

Lost edges/dissolving A technique much beloved of painters, where the edges of a form within the paint dissolve into the background.  Paula Nadelstern uses this method to disguise the real edges of her wonderful snow crystals. I used it in several of my shibori/discharge pieces.

In Botallack Mine the edges of the houses disappear into the outline of the headland.   

You can see that effect clearly in this detail (right) from The Arrogance of Calm where i’ve basically only indicated the roof.  It’s an effect that’s a little harder to do without surface design but could be managed by matching values: i.e. if the edge of the object is dark and the background is similarly dark, the one will flow into the other.  As well as adding mystery, it helps with the TOV (the track of vision) or the way your eyes flow through the piece.

Obscurity Something is obscure when you’re not really sure what it is..could it be a group of houses? or a set of rhomboids?  If I don’t give you any clues…perhaps I’ll achieve more mystery.  Another way to obscure would be to introduce more shadows with strange amorphous things possibly happening within them.  One of the things about such unnamed shapes is that the viewer can put their own ideas into a piece...and see what they want to see.  And seeing what they really want to see...will keep them looking!

Abstracting Picasso once defined all art as being abstract (because it’s never perfectly realistic) and no art as being abstract – because there are always associations and influences from the real world. But obviously there is a continuum ......between the two.  And, in any case,  I think it's really rather tiresome the way that people just seem driven to classify things.

There are many ways to abstract:  an interesting way would be to work through all the five elements  (shape, line, value, color, texture) considering the original scene from the standpoint of one element only and deliberately ignore the rest: e.g. consider only shapes…or only values (that might be really interesting!!), only colour…or only texture.     Certainly many artists have done this.
Look at Sean Scully's paintings of stripes - they're  derived from old houses, doors, walls made from strips of wood - he took the shapes ...and some of the texture...and used that for his paintings. He completely stripped away all the rest of the context.


I love reducing things to black and white! 

Pixelating
This is an easy way to drop detail and reduce an image to squares alone…put the image into Photoshop or GIMP and then reduce the pixels.  What’s fascinating is how far you can simplify and still know what the image is.









Unusual angle of view wow I got so many good ideas from this one! Look!!





Reflections always a favorite:    Reflections in rounded objects are really mysterious!!

Close ups

 What are those things?     What is that texture?  

Gestalt – subtraction I’m a great believer in getting rid of stuff in quilts.  We know from Gestalt theory that we really need very little information to mk sns f thgs!
we don't need everything spelled out for us....and we are likely to stay with a piece longer if everything isn't spelled out.  You don't need to quilt every brick, add every window and branch and all the separate petals of a flower.

Disguise I could disguise one thing as another…is that a Dalmation or is it currant cake?
Is it a gold fish or a flower?    Is there a person hiding in the bushes, or just a lot of strange shadows?
Remember that quilt that looked like flowers but when you got closer, it was all insects arranged into flower shapes??

Enigma I love this word…how to create an enigma…an enigma is a puzzle...a visual illusion - you think you know what it is, but is it really?  Like the two profiles that make a vase if you gaze at the negative space between them.

Subtlety not  spelling  out but merely hinting – e.g. instead of the edges of a window or a flower, just indicating the shadow on the window, the light on the flower.

Obfuscation Of course in language one should eschew obfuscation, but perhaps in visual terms??? One possibility might be to reverse things like Hockney did so amazingly in his reverse perspective paintings.  something truly unexpected...like the Surrealist paintings of Magriite.

So what d'you think? would adding some mystery help?  And can you come up with any other ways of creating it?
If you have been…thanks for reading!  I apologize for radio silence!!  First I wasn't well (am fine now thank you!) and then I had to finish writing a new course for www.academyofquilting.com
And I'll tell you all about it on my next blog!

 Elizabeth

New paintings and quilts at Lyndon House Art Center, Athens, GA

This coming Saturday, Oct 22, 2016 will be the annual art fair at Lyndon House Art Center in downtown Athens.
it's going to be a fabulous day with over 80 individual artists, lots of live music and, yes, food!
The best of Athens come out for this occasion....and the artwork will be very varied in price and type so as to suit everyone.

I have a bunch of new paintings and some new quilts, also some older work that will be for sale for ridiculous prices!   Something for every wall, and every pocket..  Please come and see!
The fun starts at 10 am and if I know anything about events at Lyndon House, the parking will go pretty quickly....of course there will be considerable turnaround during the day...but the early birds get both worms and parking!   Lyndon House has also arranged with all the nearby businesses and organizations for extra parking, of course.

Here are some of my new paintings  and a couple of new quilts:

 This is a 12" square acrylic...we have a pond in our neighborhood and I love to look at it in many different lights on my daily walk.
$100.  I hope to have 3 more little acrylic landscapes by Saturday...they'll make a nice set!

Watercolors range from $25 to $150...depending on size, age and whether framed or not.

This painting on the right and the one above are two of several I've done of the UGA golf course...I took some Canadian friends round there earlier this year - had never been before!  And the grounds are lovely...got lots more photographs to work from...

 Our summer trip to the south Carolina coast had me inspired by the dunes...love the shadows you get in the early morning and late in the day.....

below, more dunes, palm trees in the wind and a storm brewing - quite prescient as it turned out!

Painting hydrangeas...in the studio

Another stormy sky.....

More hydrangeas, and some Black eyed Susans...

A very bright light day where the sun dazzles...

 Imagining some of the golf course trees in the winter...there are lovely little copses of trees standing on slight rises.....
also did a painting of the pond at the golf course....which I don't have a picture of ....yet!

Looking out from the art room window at Athens Academy with a strange chiaroscuro sky....

The view from an upstairs window in early spring...love those delicate yellow greens...

A tiny little abstract based on autumn foliage...

And a very little quilted wall hanging:

And here's a medium size one...yes it IS a quilt - or fiber collage as some prefer to call these "art quilts" that hang on the wall.

Thank you for working your way down and looking at all the pictures!!!  I hope to see you at the art show.....if you can't come, and are interested in any of these pieces, please just write to me - my email link is on the side bar near the top.
Also, all comments are received with great delight!!! 
If you have been, thanks for looking!!  Elizabeth

The Proliferation of Online Classes

Swimmer

I'm swimming my way through the proliferation of classes online and I'm wondering what other people's experiences are like.   As you know, I've been teaching (mainly different aspects of design, but also some surface design) online for a number of years now..maybe seven years....and I also have a private online master class.  Meanwhile, I've been taking online classes myself - not in quilting - but in several other things.   So I've been thinking about some of the pros and cons of the online experience.

Feedback
From the teaching point of view I really like having personal contact with the students...which I do in all my classes...just writing lessons and then putting them out there with no discussion and no feedback seems very sterile to me. And with the lessons I've taken in other subjects, they are nearly always computer driven, and since I always have questions - I find that very frustrating! Especially when the computer makes a mistake!  Online lessons that don't have teaching feedback are no better than reading a book - and a well illustrated book is often easier to use - you can flip back and forth ...slow here...fast there etc.
Research shows  that two things are key to learning: practice and feedback.  The non-teacher present learning situations are therefore going to limit one's progress.

Timing
 Start date: Some classes run for a specific period of time, others you can start whenever you want.  I like the flexibility of starting whenever you want, though that might make problems for
 student/teacher accessibility or for discussions between students all moving forward as a cohort through a sequence of lessons.
Inter-lesson intervals: I also would like to be able to move forward to the next lesson at my own pace - sometimes more quickly than they plan, sometimes more slowly.  Some programs allow this, others don't.   I was very put off recently by a language learning site that required you to sign up for 3 months, but the amount of material that was offered I knew I would get through in just one month! Three month sign up for one month access to material didn't work for me.

Continued Access 
 Sometimes you get to the end of the course and you'd like to take a break and then review the material again....I was very miffed when  a site that promised I could do that at the end of the course completely reneged on that promise!  However, I can see that unlimited forever access could be problematic for the teaching agency....what I've done with the master classes of previous years is allow access for at least a full season after the class has finished.

Pricing 
 There does seem to be a usual rate of about $10-$20 per lesson where there is a "real" teacher available for feed back....and that seems very fair to me...but where the whole program is computer driven I feel that this would be too high.  A recent series of bridge lessons I surveyed wanted $15 per videoed lesson - no feedback available.  On the other hand,  most painting DVDs are in the $20-$30 range...BUT you have them for ever and you can freeze one frame and work from it in the studio.
Piano lessons with one teacher via Skype are quite high: about $75 per lesson.  And, remember, ANYONE can say they're a piano teacher, there is no professional license required!

Videos - too fast or too slow!
Surprisingly, although everyone says all students want videos, I have not usually found them to be very helpful.  If it's something I need to actually see I've found that on the video the action or position can go by too quickly, a clear series of photos or even diagrams would be more helpful.  And, quite frequently, the opposite is true, the person demonstrating on the video faffs around and I get bored waiting for the crucial bit of information!  When will she actually tell me the right key strokes?!!!!

Variety
 While there are a huge number of lessons out there, often none of them are exactly what you're looking for!  it would be good if one could contact the agency and say "how about making a class on this, or that, topic? "  However, when I have contacted the companies I've usually found that you can only email a salesperson rather than the creator of the lessons.   (But feel free to contact me if you have a yearning for something that you think I could write a course about!).

So...what are your experiences?  how would you like to see online classes presented?  What are you looking for in your classes?  Comment please!  or feel free to email me privately - there's a link up on the side bar on the right....I love to hear from you!

And, if you have been, thanks for reading...it's time for a nice cuppa tea, don't you think?
Elizabeth