Abstracting design ideas.

I spent Friday on a course with Christine Restall in Portsmouth looking at quilt ideas as abstractions of images. Christine was an excellent teacher, especially given the number in the group and the limitations  of the teaching space.

For me it was a bit of a "lightbulb" moment and I am filled with enthusiasm to explore my new found knowledge !

I had chosen to work with a stunning image from a greetings card of a beach at Dunstanborough on the Northumberland coast by David Tarn.

To enable us to make a number of studies in the day Christine got us to use iron-on Vilene and stick our fabrics down rather than try to stitch them. Task one was to try to identify all the colours in the picture and put fabrics down in proportion to their presence in the picture. Very good way of really seeing a picture, but hampered by the the size and quality of the stash taken with one! Next we had to identify the three strongest colours in the image and create a visual piece with them.

A little Rothkoesque !

By using some sheers I was able to vary some of the shades to get them a bit more subtle. 

Christine than talked us through some of the techniques of interpretation used in her own quilts and suggested we try some of these in relation to our own images.

I could have done with a far wider selection of fabrics to the image justice! The exercise taught me how much I would have benefited from creating my own dyed stash based on the picture before I started. Always easy to be wise after the event!

One technique discussed was the use of simple block construction to create an abstract piece. Log cabin and square in a square were two looked at . I tried the log cabin idea but felt that the overall feel of the block was not right for this photo.

Now that I am home again I am trying to do each of the these ideas as small sample quilts to aid my understanding and because I was so struct with the initial work that I want to complete it.

I'll post these and the intercutting ideas Christine showed us and which I had no time to explore on the day.

I had so much fun and am so charged up to get working, it's a great feeling.