Showing posts with label art instruction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art instruction. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Allie Aller's Crazy Quilting

Allison Aller is one of the top crazy quilters in the world today. Her 2011 book is chock full of eye candy as well as how-to information on crazy quilting.  I read her blog for years and have read every book on this subject.  I can honestly say that Aller's book is the mother of all books on crazy quilting. Much of what she wrote in her blog is in this book.  It is a physical book that cannot be deleted online, making it a great reference guide.  In addition, this book has more eye candy than other crazy quilting books that I have seen.

As with all other crazy quilting instructional books there is the usual section for beginners where materials, fabrics and tools are discussed. Ideas for selecting fabrics and threads for embellishment are shown in color photos. Instructions on how to print images from your computer onto a special fabric that you can print from a printer are also included.  Several traditional embroidery stitches are shown too.  The photos of her work are where the reader gathers ideas on seam treatments.  Aller normally combines 5 or 6 embroidery stitches into one seam treatment.

What I liked most about the book is Aller's methods for piecing the squares that she later embellishes with embroidery.  For many years I made my squares too big.  Her squares are just 6 inches square while mine were 12 inches or more.  The reason that her embellishments cover the square entirely is because those squares are small.  The heavy embellishment is what makes her crazy quilts  look exquisite.

Another interesting feature of Aller's work is that she does not always attach her squares in a traditional shape.  Included in the book are designs that the reader can follow to make a landscape quilt out of crazy quilt squares.  Another design attaches several squares into a larger square for the middle of a piece and then attaches borders that are later embellished.  Sometimes the borders are embellished to continue looking like a border.  Sometimes they are not.

Allie Aller's Crazy Quilting is the best book on the subject that I have seen.  If you are interested in learning about this craft I highly recommend her book over others that are out there.

Monday, March 23, 2020

Botanical Drawing in Color

Wendy Hollander's instructional guidebook on drawing botanicals in colored pencil is a beginner's guide to mastering the realistic form of plants.  As colored pencil artists know, in every colored pencil book there are the usual chapters on art supplies, how to use colored pencils, and color theory.  This book is no different.  What is different are the instructions on mastering this particular subject matter. These may include how to depict elements that overlap, understanding the form of plants, determining what parts of a plant to include and ignore in your drawings, measuring your subject matter in perspective, and how to plan a composition.

The book is filled with exercises for readers to practice.  The author recommends that the reader practice each exercise even if they already know how to do the exercise.  While many of the author's own drawings are shown, she prefers that readers not use them as a guide for exercises.  It is best to use your own plants and learn your own style of drawing.  The exercises fill about 75% of the book and cover topics such as how to draw a cup and a ribbon that twists and turns, taking a flower apart and drawing each part of it separately before drawing the entire flower, and drawing under magnification.

If the reader follows the author's advice and uses their own plants in the exercises, they will come away with knowledge on how to create their own drawing designs in the future.  In this regard the book helps an artist become creative on their own.  Personally, I have been taking my time with the exercises and am considering a thirty to sixty day plan for working on them daily.  I then should be able to create a final design.  Right?  We shall see.