Margaret Harwood, Putting the Art Into the Art Quilt

This is a two-session workshop to be held on Monday, January 12, 2009 and Monday, February 9, 2009. In the first session you will design the quilt. In the second session you will bring back the quilt that you made at home to share your experience making an art quilt.

This workshop is for those who wish to learn how to create their own original designs. You will learn:

• what an Art Quilt is
• how artists get ideas for their work
• one process artists use to create art quilts
• the basics of composition, including how to use it in designing a quilt
• why some quilts sing and others go flat
• to look at other work, as well as your own, to assess what works
• how the image or design was developed
• how emotion is expressed in color and shapes
• what criteria judges use when looking at an art quilt
• how to use the same criteria when you are developing the design for your own original quilt

You do not have to be able to draw. By the end of the workshop, you will have designed an original quilt pattern to take home to make a small quilt. Handouts will be provided.

Supply List:

• About 30 sheets of plain white paper 8-1/2 x 11. Cheap computer paper is good.
• Pencils
• Ruler
• Box of color crayons (at least 16 colors)
• Magazines with color pictures (home decor or gardening are good)
• Glue stick
• Pack of plain 3x5 cards
• Scissors
• Tracing paper
• Notebook

Margaret Harwood is an artist who has been painting and drawing for most of her life. She has a degree in fine art from California State University Fullerton. She has taught classes in art and now is applying this knowledge to teaching quilt makers the underlying structure of how artists find their inspiration and put images together.