Читать книгу Creating Art Quilts with Panels - Joyce Hughes - Страница 8

CHAPTER 1

PANELS

Why Use Panels?

When I first started to teach art quilt classes, I would design a pattern and students would trace, cut, and copy my designs. Students would then learn the numerous techniques that were used on the project. This turned out to be very time-consuming. Many of my students were at different steps during the class, causing delays, pressure to catch up with others, and sometimes frustration with the creative process itself. I would hear many students saying things like, “I am not creative,” “I do not know how to design,” “I am not sure what colors to use,” and “Am I using the correct proportion and size of items?”

I needed a way to keep everyone in sync and allow my students to enjoy the whole learning and creating process. I wanted them to not be intimidated by the process and to be less critical of themselves as artists. So I started to look at premade panels for teaching. Panels soon became a great tool for me to teach many of my ideas and techniques while minimizing frustration for my students.

The main advantage of using a panel is that the designing process is done for you. There are many wonderful panels on the market today, and the designer’s talent and knowledge of size, shape, proportion, and color are already incorporated into each panel, allowing you to save time and skip the sometimes frustrating designing steps. This will allow you to jump right into the fun part: choosing the techniques you will use to create your own unique piece of art.

You will find that many of the ideas and techniques shared in this book can be carried from one panel to another. This allows for each project to be individually created and altered as desired. When you have finished your panel, it will no longer look like a panel, but rather a unique work of art, and you will have learned and enjoyed the creative process along the way.

What Makes a Good Panel?

Now that you understand why using panels is a great idea, you are sure to go shopping for them and find many beautiful options to choose from. You may see a lovey panel and think, “This will look gorgeous when I thread paint it and add some embellishments!” Now, this might be true, but there are several considerations to think about when choosing a panel. The five considerations are:

• What is the size and detail level of the print?

• Are there any lines on the panel, vertical or horizontal?

• Is the panel an entire scenic design?

• Will the panel need a new background fabric? Why?

• Can the panel be redesigned?

Let’s look at each consideration in more detail.

What is the size and detail level of the print?

Look for designs and patterns on panels that are large and open. This allows for many techniques to be used on the panel, such as thread painting, trapunto, and three-dimensional effects. You need space and large areas on a panel for these kinds of techniques to be effective. If the design is too small, you can lose the detail of the design. This can have a negative effect on the overall panel and limit the ways in which you can incorporate additional design elements.

Are there any lines on the panel, vertical or horizontal?

Are there lines or designs on the print that create a visual line, such as inner borders, words, buildings, trees, or water? Many of the techniques you may use will distort the panel somewhat, making continuous lines sometimes difficult to keep straight. Consider how you are going to maintain and keep these lines straight with the techniques that will be used on the panel. Will you have to quilt the lines first to stabilize the panel? Also take note of whether the panel is printed straight and if the lines can be straightened out.

The large flower petals and leaves will make this panel relatively easy to work with. Center: The dense, fine detail in this panel’s main design may be hard to maintain. Right: Large, simple shapes will make this panel easy to customize.

Be careful when there is lettering on the panel.

If you work on a panel like this, you’ll have to be careful to keep the church steeple straight. Bottom right: This panel has mostly organic, rounded shapes that will be easier to work with, but the window frame will need some attention to keep straight.

Is the panel an entire scenic design?

Scenic panels make wonderful projects. Scenic panels have the correct coloring, size, and detail already done for you. If you choose to work with a scenic panel, it is best kept as a whole panel to maintain the integrity of the design. Look for large elements in the print. Remember, smaller elements can get lost when adding certain techniques.

This panel, which is a featured project on see here, has large swaths of sky, rock, water, and tree to work with.

This lovely composition, featured on see here, should be used in full to include all the elements of sky, water, grass, heron, and lilies.

Be careful not to lose the details of the geese, children, and background house in this piece.

Will the panel need a new background fabric? Why?

There are a few things to consider when deciding if a project will need a new background.

Are there lines on the background print? If so, how are they going to be kept straight? If there are too many lines on the background, it might be best to remove the main design and apply it to a new background.

This tree is perfect for doing trapunto, which is best done with a new background. It is a featured project on see here.

The rigid, crisscrossing lines in the background of this panel will be a pain to deal with.

These poppies go right up to the edge of the panel, so they are a good candidate for placing on a new background.

Imagine some possibilities for this design. Perhaps you could fussy cut the individual snowflakes along the top and bottom and scatter them across a wider background. Center: This lively winter scene was redesigned using a duplicate panel to add more width and birds; it’s a featured project on see here. Right: The individual elements on this panel are ripe to be fussy cut.

Is the design very close to the edge of the panel? You can apply the main design to a new, larger background and have more room to work different techniques.

What techniques are you going to use on the panel? Techniques that may distort the panel, such as trapunto, work best when the main design is applied to a new background.

Do you want to change the overall size of the panel, whether to make it larger or smaller? Using a new background might be the easiest way to do that.

Can the panel be redesigned?

Generally, panels are meant to be one cohesive design, but can the panel be fussy cut and redesigned? Using a panel in this fashion can produce some amazing results! Can two different panels be combined together? Can a duplicate of a single panel be mined for additional pieces to add to the original panel? Don’t be afraid to think outside the box.