Friday, September 14, 2007

Myrna's Work

I flew off on Sunday in a regular size airplane to Seattle where I changed to this little turbo prop that had only ten rows of seats.

Took off for Kelowna in BC where I was met by Myrna. This is on the Canadian side with lots of mountains and snow.

I was so impressed with the neatness of Myrna's fabric stash. She is showing the dyed fabrics which she had done but there is an identical cabinet right next to this which has more dyed fabrics plus more of her commercial fabrics.
This is one of Myrna's which she had done before I had gotten together with her. As you can see, she does a pretty good job already.
And here is another one of hers. I was beginning to wonder why I was there but we spent some good time doing critiques of these and some of her other works. In the piece below you can see she has put some lighter, brighter pinks on to help create a feeling of movement in the piece. She now has all sorts of ideas of what more she can do to spark it up even more.

This is the first piece she started on. She used a split complimentary color scheme. she had goals of loosening up her work and I had goals of getting her off center and to use more contrast in her work. I think she accomplished this! It still awaits purposeful quilting...not just fill in the space but purposeful!
This is the second piece, again with the same color scheme. In total she did three pieces using this color scheme but somehow I didn't get a picture of the third she did. It is, however, on the last image of the design wall with all the work. This too is awaiting purposeful quilting.
So then she had the assignment to complete four small pieces in thirty minutes using a tertiary color scheme. She was able to pull all the fabrics she was going to use and apply fusing to them so she would be able to work quickly and not over think. This is her first piece.
And then came the second ladders:
And then the third ladders:
And this is the fourth ladders:

Then her assignment changed to windows and she did the following: No. 1
Number 2:
Number 3:
Number 4:
And here is Myrna, very proud of herself, and the work she had finished by Wednesday afternoon.

You can see the other larger piece right next to her. What you can't see is the work she did on Wednesday afternoon and the quilting she started doing on the ladders pieces. Very purposefully!

We both decided that this was a very good way to learn.

5 comments:

Myrna said...

Thanks for the fabulous encouragement Liz. It was fun, fun, fun. I'm energized and inspired. YES YES - and quilting purposefully (read experimenting) in my studio. Should be good!!

Diane Perin said...

Wow. The work is stunning and I love seeing the progression. How great for you to see your mentoring paying off so directly and immediately! And I love that you mentor-- hey, Liz, I'll be calling you!

Anonymous said...

Wow!! This was a wonderful tutorial on breaking loose, discovering the power of strong design elements and working in a series.

Anonymous said...

This is incredible and just fascinating to be able to watch this unfold in front of our eyes like this! How long did the 2 of you spend together working like this?

English Rose said...

WOW! Myrna this looks just so amazing, what a fabulous couple of days. Your work is great, but I loved the quick half hour series idea. Liz, I am sur you are down playing your contribution here hugely, but I hope you got as big a blast out of it as Myrna did.