Imagine

My inspiration for the challenge was John and His  historical song Imagine 1971

You Make Me Dizzy Miss Lizzy

I chose to do "You Make Me Dizzy Miss Lizzy".  The backgkround is hand dyed. The dancers are printed, the music notes are beads.  It was fun but very challenging to try to depict more emotion in  color and movement than the actual representation of figures and places.  Good mind opener.  Thanks!

Pat Havey

I Wanna Hold Your Hand:

Still Crazy and Nuts About Him After All These Years!

The Beatles' song that inspired this metal quilt is "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"

The quilt background is a crazy patch. The hands also represent a lifetime partnership.

Female hand: silver nuts . Male hand: gold washers

Under the Old Oak Tree

The Gestalt principles used in this quilt are Proximity and Similarity. The leaves of the tree were fussy cut and individually glued onto the branches. All these small parts became a recognizable tree because of their proximity and their similarity. I made this quilt for my grandson's playroom. He loves farm animals and tractors and at eighteen months can make many animal sounds. The tree took hours and hours of cutting and placement, as well as all the quilting to hold everything in place, but I'm so glad it's finished in a timely fashion so that it can be hung while my grandson is still young enough to enjoy it.

Yellow Submarine

I loved this Challenge. It was like a walk down memory lane revisiting my teen years. Yellow Submarine was composed by Paul McCartney in 1966, the year before I graduated from high school. I remember well the "hippy era" with all the peace symbols, love beads, flowers and butterflies. It was a time when "All You Need is Love." I chose the background fabric because it seemed rather psychadelic. I couldn't believe I found the border fabric in my stash, which has peace symbols as the center of the flowers. I printed out the Beatles' picture with the Yellow Submarine from the Internet onto fabric. I downloaded the free Yellow Submarine font and printed out the words OK, Love and Yes, as well as phrases from the song onto fabric: "So we sailed up to the sun, Till we found a sea of green And we lived beneath the waves.We all live in a yellow submarine." The Yellow Submarine represented the escapists of the 1960's. The song was made into a movie in 1999, so I used the "Blue Meanies", the Flying Hand, and the green apple from the movie. I added heart-shaped beads to represent the Love Generation. I printed out Paul McCartney's signature on "The Hard Day" album cover onto fabric and added that in the upper corner. It was fun creating this collage. Thank you for a great challenge.

Long Tall Sally

When I was going through the song titles, one made me stop!  "Long Tall Sally"---what more did I need?

This is really not collage but is the fastest I've ever done one of the challenges!  It is 7" x 10 1/2".  I had some scraps of fused fabrics and these fit.

The Devil in Her Heart

I chose The Devil in Her Heart as my inspiration. This was made on a 12x12" piece of thin plywood. I used fabric, magazine photos, colored pencils and markers. The words I used on it are little sections of the lyrics to go with the images I chose. Basically the fortune teller is trying to tell the man that the woman is no good and will hurt him, he is denying it and saying she's an angel and mentioning the things he likes best. I don't have the proper equipment to use with collage yet, specifically a brayer, fingers don't work well smoothing out photos from magazines so I have wrinkles, but I enjoyed making this anyway!

Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds

I chose the song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" to illustrate.  Growing up then everyone knew the title referred to the drug LSD.  I used sky fabric sliced and partially grayed to depict the light and dark of the drug, mostly dark layered upon silver fabric.  I found some old star fabric and used them and beads to show the diamond light.  Lucy everyone will recognize from Peanuts.  Angel wings were added to elevate her into the sky.

The Long and Winding Road 16” X 17” The lyric I chose is: The long and winding road that leads to your door… While searching for fabric, I found two partial projects from a Vikki Pignatelli workshop that I tore apart and rearranged the pieces to make this one. I do not think I achieved the collage portion of the challenge but I had fun and experimented with some free motion designs. I also eliminated two UFO’s!! YEA! I am limited with fabric and embellishments as most are packed waiting until we have a more permanent residence. Thank you Julia for a fun, inspiring challenge. Comments and critiques are appreciated. Pam Harris

Challenge 69 - Pop Art

Challenge 69 “ Pop” Art                     May 25, 2012    Due:  June 2^nd

Host: Julia Arden

Use the title or lyrics of a Beatles (or Beatles member) song to inspire you.  Collage would be an appropriate method of construction, but not essential.

Find Beatles songs with lyrics at- http://www.azlyrics.com/b/beatles.html

This is an excellent essay on the nature of art and its components, including the trivial, which can develop into good art, following on from our Gestalt ideas of challenge 68.

http://www.ndoylefineart.com/artmaking2.html

Here is an example of a piece of art inspired by the lyrics of Blackbird.

http://illustratemusic.livejournal.com/3317.html

In quilts, Susan Carlsson uses collage techniques, often using realistic subjects. http://www.susancarlson.com/Quilts/Quilts.html

 David Walker is another collage expert, with many abstract examples. http://davidwalker.us/Pages/Q_QUILTS_HOME.html

Many of our members work in collage, including Cynthia Ann Morgan. Her namesake Cynthia Morgan from Australia also uses collage in her quilts. http://cynthiamorgandyequilts.com.au/

There are many quilt artists who use collage in fabric, mixed media or photography, such as Judy Momenzadeh  http://miamithreads.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/ and Leslie Riley http://www.lesleyriley.com/gallery.php?cat=1

There are some famous collage artists like Romare Beardon and Kurt Schwitters

http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/schwitters

http://www.dailyartfixx.com/2010/09/02/romare-bearden-1911-1988/

http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/bearden/memnc1.shtm

Collage in general can be explored at

http://www.collageart.org/links/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collage

http://www.loveofcollage.blogspot.com/

http://www.collageartists.org/artists.html

I had some difficulty when looking at past works by members of FFFC to decide which were collage and which were appliqué. I think for myself, collage would have to mean the assemblage of somewhat unrelated items to create an impression, rather than using appliqué to interpret a scene, landscape, portrait or abstract idea.

Have fun everyone!

Miss Lena Horn

Hi all, this maybe cheating a little but recently my time has been limited and I really loved this challenge.  My husband's Mother, at 91, is finally slowing down mentally and our daughter is fighting an illness.  We are spending lots of time away from home, both live in NC.
At any rate I loved this challenge and it brought to mind the image that I recently  recently finished for an exhibit at The Art's Center in Clemson, SC.  The exhibit was titled Painting the Blues and was part of a local Blue's Festival.
I Chose a portrait of Miss Lena Horn and used the Gestalt Principal of closure.  I chose a piece of fabric with music notes as the background with black over top.  I manipulated the image in PSE until I had only the black and white image above. 
The image is 12 x 17 and is matted and framed.

Gestalt Leaves

18" x 24"

The gestalt principles here are similarity/differences, and proximity, to create a trio of plants.  I used reverse applique, with the base fabric being a piece of dark brown stretchy velvet, which adds a richness to the piece.  The curlicue pattern at the bottom was part of the fabric when I bought it; it seems that on the basis of a bit of an embroidered pattern, it could be imported for a lower price, as embroidery, rather than as velvet!  At any rate, I chose to keep it, and when I mounted the whole piece on foam core, decided to make the lower edge echo that shape.

Machine problems plagued the sewing of the satin stitch around the leaves, but I managed it on my older machine by going ve-e-e-e-ry slowly!

Comments welcome

Spiral Galaxy M101

Hi Everyone, I took the suggestion from several of you to capture my galaxy  pieces (from the previous challenge, Turner effect) by overlaying black netting.  I was surprised to note how little I lost in the white areas.  I learned from this.  Thank you!!!  So then I was able to quilt it, using silver metallic thread in a spiral design that followed the galaxy image itself.  Really fun.   Sandi Nehlsen-Cannarella.

Amigos

I was on vacation when this new challenge was posted.  I did not quite understand "Gestalt".  This is my idea of gestalt.  I did not want to see what others had posted until after I did mine, because I did not want to be influenced by what others had done.  I think I'm pretty close.  The finish quilt will be approximately 25"X17".  I don't know why, but the true colors of the quilt is not coming through.  All comments, critiques and criticisms welcome.

"Mother Nature's Gift"

After a long absence from quilting or sewing of any kind (we're talking a couple of years I think!) I decided it was time to get back to it. And this challenge was the perfect place to start!
I started a couple of sketches but wasn't happy with them, but yesterday while walking to the store with my grandson I saw all these "whirlybirds" on the ground and it hit me!
The seeds  were collected by my grandson and me on the way home, I wrote the Haiku last night, and made the design today.
It is not quilted, the seeds are laid on the fabric and Haiku was put on in the computer, the leaves are laid on fabric also, but are ready for fusing.
I'm not sure how I will attach the seeds or what to do to them to preserve them, I may just put the fabric on a board and glue the seeds on then frame it behind glass.
Not sure yet, but at least I broke the long dry spell!!
I am pretty sure I have 4 of the principles here..similarity, the seeds, and proximity, also the seeds. Continuation since (hopefully!) the eyes will follow the spiral from the upper corner to the middle, and anomaly by adding the small sprig of leaves.
This is also the 5th in a series of illustrated Haiku that I have been working on. I hope you like it :-)

Zebra (En)Closure

When I saw Cherie's theme and read through the various Gestalt principles, the one that spoke to me was Closure. This is an interpretation of a closely cropped image I found in a book somewhere. Once I got started the quilt almost made itself and was a pleasure to create. Overall it measures 12"w x 14"l.

Ann In Fallbrook, CA

Waterworld

I wish I could interpret these challenges a little less than literally, but here it is.  I wanted to experiment with Lutradur and coloured a large piece with Tee-Juice markers. When put on the dark background the colour was lost so I fused two pieces of Lutradur together and then cut out the shapes with an electric needle that I bought years ago to cut templates ( Yeah, that long ago! LOL) Each individual piece is fused to the background and then sewn with a narrow free-motion zig-zag stitch.  The background is narrowly machine echo quilted.  The entire piece is only about 16" square.

The Biker

The Biker is created using the principles of Closure and Proximity. The biker’s head and the bike's wheels are separate from the body made of lockwashers and yet is perceived as a group due to proximity.

 Materials: lockwashers and washers on cotton fabric

Where Ever You Go

I chose to do an abstract for this challenge, I used recycled fabric including upholstery scraps. Quilted with free motion embroidery.

I am not sure what inspired me other than the challenge topic -I am thrilled I completed this wondrous challenge. Cynthia's words "don't over think it" pushed me along. I am traveling a journey with breast cancer and really in a chemo daze.
Susan Ward
 berylsjourneywithbreastcancer.blogspot.com

'We All Shine On'

I have finally finished up my answer to this challenge. I quilted the circles and circle slices, added the sun in the right hand corner, quilted sun rays over the entire piece, and couched yarn around the edge of the sun. I am happy with the finished product and it hangs in our home on wheels!

This was an interesting challenge which provided a lot of options. I decided once more to attempt an abstract since my comfort zone is in realistic portrayals. I was contemplating working with squares and rectangles, but eventually settled on circles. Since I am very involved in getting a piece completed in the next three weeks, I only have the foundation completed for this challenge. I will be quilting a sun with long wavy rays in the upper right corner of the piece. I am also planning on putting stars dancing through the rays, making them descend from the smallest to the largest at the bottom of the piece. Sorry to not be able to complete this in the allotted time again, but I will post a picture when I have finished it. Thanks for stretching me again and helping me to learn new things in the process!

Stalking Cat

I was interested in pursuing the idea of rudimentary shapes suggesting a whole. I did it in reverse, Starting with a high contrast photo of my cat and eliminating shading, and texture. I don't have time to translate this into cloth right now, but I have done several croppings to try to get the least amount of information which will still convey the personality. For example, if I cut to just an eye, two eyes, and /or nose, it could read as several different animals. Very stimulating to think of all the elements that are essential and the others that aren't.

original photo

Julia in NZ

Changes in how to post

Since Blogger has just changed things on us, here is an update in how to do the same things we were doing before!


After clicking on New Post, you now see this page:

 Enter a title up at the top; this should be the title of your piece.  Since you ARE going to put in the label for the challenge, you really don't need to put it up here, and your name should also go in the label and not here!

And speaking of labels, they are now on the right, under "Post settings":

Enter "Challenge xx" in the box; as you begin to enter the word, you will see all the "Challenge" numbers, and when you see the current one (or if you are entering a post for a past challenge, that label), you can click on it.  Then hit the comma key, and start typing your name.  Again, you will see a number of entries, and eventually one of them will be yours, unless this is your first time posting.

Click on "Done" at the bottom of the label box, then when you have entered your text, click on the orange "Publish" button at the top, then click "Close".  You can now click "View blog" to get back to the blog page.

Hope this helps

Tobi

Lunch at the Lake

This challenge was soooo much fun!  I chose CONTINUITY for my quilt.  Hopefully I have achieved it - your eye should travel from fish, to the right and up, ending with the heron.  I decided to enter this now (I have yet to add the binding) since I will be busy for the next few days and not sure I will have it completed by Friday.

This is 29"x18" and most of it was done with cottons.  The water is overlayed with organza so that the fish looks like he is in the water, not on it.  The dragonfly wings are organza and the lily is cut from ribbon. (Hope the fish gets the dragonfly because it would be wasted on the frog since he is about to be nabbed by the heron.)  Your comments are welcome, and encouraged.  I have really enjoyed doing this one, thanks Cherie.    Sandi

Lady Arbor

I have been fascinated with the principles of Gestalt, and in this piece tried to use as many as I could. The sky is woven using many different fabrics for texture and contrast, the repeating shapes represent Proximity. The birds swooping from top, across the quilt and out the side show Continuation. The repeating shapes of the birds- Similarity; the bird flying in the opposite direction-Anomaly; The tree/lady- Closure.

The tree is appliqué cut in one piece using a suede cloth, and the leaves are 'beaded’ netting. The birds are appliqués made from a copper tissue lame fused to a copper suede cloth.

Your comments gratefully received...

Cherie

Cavorting Trees

This picture of trees fascinated me and encouraged me to try the same thing.  It is thread painted, painted with watercolor pencil and sheva sticks, appliqued and quilted.  It measures 10x14".

Pat Havey

La Luna

After reading the challenge, I started googling for ideas and found one that just leaped off the page at me.  This image (8th one down on that page) made me think of some B&W striped fabric I had in my stash, but alas, I didn't have enough of it (and no more at the quilt shop, I checked!).  But I started in, and knocked this one out in 4 hours.

The striped fabric was strip cut and reassembled to alternate the strips.  The inset circle was doing with Cathy Miller's circle technique (found in her songbook, page 41, and I was the hand model!).  Quilted with black and white variegated thread (King Tut!), and simply bound.  Done.

Fun to just play.  A lot of the gestalt work struck me as also Op-Art.... and I love it when things come together so fast!... Comments of course are welcome and appreciated.

Find Your Own Path

I played with several of the gestalt principles using fabric paint and some of my homemade stencils.  None of the samples thrilled me but found I was drawn to the similarity/anamoly principle.  I came up with the idea of individuality and went to posemaniacs.com to create the figures.  Since they are small (entire quilt is only 17 x 21) I used faux suede for the figures to keep the intricate details from unraveling.  I dug the border out of my stash and found a piece of my hand dyed fabric that went well with the rust color in the border.  I finished the edges of the quilt using the pillowcase method.  The only thing I have left to do is quilt it.  I plan to use echo quilting.  I just need to go to the store to find a muted rust thread.

I haven't posted in a while.  Between work and my husband's health, anything creative has been on the back burner.  However, finals are coming up next week and I hope to have some time to play this summer.  This was a really great challenge and I may make another one using one of the other principles.

LindaBN from Louisiana

Challenge 68 - Gestalt Art

Challenge 68:  Gestalt in Art

Gestalt Theory holds that “the whole is other than the sum of its parts”. Kurt Koffka (the whole exists independently from its parts).   Parts identified individually have different characteristics to the whole;

e.g. describing a tree,-its parts are trunk, branches, leaves, perhaps blossoms or fruit.  But when you look at an entire tree, you are not conscious of the parts, you are aware of the overall object-the tree.  Parts are of secondary importance even though they can be clearly seen.

When your first impression of a design is positive, when you instinctively see it as good, it’s likely because one or more “Gestalt Principles of Perception” are at play.

The challenge:  Create your piece using one or more of the Gestalt Principles as described below:

I hope you will find these ideas fascinating, as I do.  Have fun and I’m really looking forward to your ideas!

Cherie

The Gestalt Principles  Gestalt is a psychology term which means "unified whole". It refers to theories of visual perception developed by German psychologists in the 1920s. These theories attempt to describe how people tend to organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes when certain principles are applied. These principles are: Similarity Similarity occurs when objects look similar to one another. People often perceive them as a group or pattern. The example above (containing 11 distinct objects) appears as as single unit because all of the shapes have similarity. Unity occurs because the triangular shapes at the bottom of the eagle symbol look similar to the shapes that form the sunburst.  When similarity occurs, an object can be emphasized if it is dissimilar to the others. This is called anomaly. The figure on the far right becomes a focal point because it is dissimilar to the other shapes. Continuation  Continuation occurs when the eye is compelled to move through one object and continue to another object. Continuation occurs in the example above, because the viewer's eye will naturally follow a line or curve. The smooth flowing crossbar of the "H" leads the eye directly to the maple leaf. Closure Closure occurs when an object is incomplete or a space is not completely enclosed. If enough of the shape is indicated, people percieve the whole by filling in the missing infomation.  Although the panda above is not complete, enough is present for the eye to complete the shape. When the viewer's perception completes a shape, closure occurs.  Proximity Proximity occurs when elements are placed close together. They tend to be perceived as a group.   The nine squares above are placed without proximity. They are perceived as separate shapes.  When the squares are given close proximity, unity occurs. While they continue to be separate shapes, they are now perceived as one group. The fifteen figures above form a unified whole (the shape of a tree) because of their proximity. Figure and Ground The eye differentiates an object form its surrounding area. a form, silhouette, or shape is naturrally perceived as figure(object), while the surrounding area is perceived as ground(background). Balancing figure and ground can make the perceived image more clear. Using unusual figure/ground relationships can add interest and sublety to an image.    Figure The word above is clearly perceived as figure with the surrounding white space ground.    In this image, the figure and ground relationships change as the eye perceives the the form of a shade or the silhouette of a face.  This image uses complex figure/ground relationships which change upon perceiving leaves, water and tree trunk.

.Here is a wonderful little video with Bobby McFerrin demonstrating the theory with music…I love it!

 http://vimeo.com/5732745

Here are some terrific resources for learning about the Gestalt Theory:

http://painting-course.com/445/oil-painting/gestalt-principles-of-art-and-design/

http://daphne.palomar.edu/design/gestalt.html

http://painting-course.com/445/oil-painting/gestalt-principles-of-art-and-design/

http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/gestalt-principles-applied-in-design/

Seven principles of design:

http://artblog.emilygonsalves.com/2009/03/seven-principles-of-design.html

http://www.slideshare.net/wyncko/unity-and-balance

http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/~kbroom/Lectures/gestalt.htm

http://artnectar.com/2010/05/fundamentals-design-gestalt/

http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/ss/gestaltlaws.htm

Dawn on Sea - Silvia Dell'Aere

Hi :)
I've used this challenge as guideline to make my last piece. I've made it for my solo show I've had last week, and it's a piece that talks about my love for sea.

Measures: 86x39 inches
Technique: hand dyed cotton and machine quilting
Title: (the title is a short poetry I've written, I'll try to translate it for you in english)
A sea ​​stirs in me / foaming, flashing, / then comes the dawn

Full:

Details: waves on bottom left corner, sun rays in top right corner and 3 seagulls from top left to bottom right corners

Every comment's welcome :)

Challenge 63

Untitled and unfinished

I have really struggled with this challenge. In the end, I decided that I would paint, and then quilt a seascape. The painting didn't go so well. My last attempt looked perfect while it was wet but faded into nothing as it dried. The sailboat was added in an effort to bring it to life. And then I realized that there is too much wind in the sails for such a quiet sea. Perhaps it's a ghost ship, and sails along without benefit of wind.

Certainly not one of my best efforts, but I plan to persevere with it and see what happens.

Pat F in Winnipeg
aka fndlmous