Section One: Backgrounds
Most (but not all!) landscape style art quilts have a foreground and a background. They may have more layers than that as well. But just those two will get you a long way! Here are several ways to give yourself a head start when it comes to backgrounds, from super simple to a little more involved, but still not difficult.
1. Watercolorish fabrics:
There are many fabrics out there now that look like they have been hand painted. These often look like sky or water all by themselves. They make your quilt half done before you start!
This Moonrise quilt just has one piece of background fabric, two rows of trees, a moon, painted shadows, stitching and hot fix crystals for the sparkles, and some quilting on the background. For now, just notice the background!
And then a few quilted greeting cards using similar fabrics.
There are many fabrics out there now that look like they have been hand painted. These often look like sky or water all by themselves. They make your quilt half done before you start!
This Moonrise quilt just has one piece of background fabric, two rows of trees, a moon, painted shadows, stitching and hot fix crystals for the sparkles, and some quilting on the background. For now, just notice the background!
And then a few quilted greeting cards using similar fabrics.
Moonrise 8 x 17"
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To take it a step further, in this quilt, Seagull Sunset, I cut the background fabric in half, and rotated one half 180 degrees to make a kind of mirror image. Instant sky and reflection in the water! I got lucky with the shadow on the water in front of the island to the left, I didn’t even notice it at first! But since then I have sometimes added shadows with Inktense pencils. (Moonrise) They are great because they are ink and therefore transparent.
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This quilt looks much more complicated than it really is. When you break it down into parts, there's not much to it! Other than the border, this quilt only contains two fabrics, and only two pieces of each one! The land is all one applique, and the applique of the people in the canoe is made from the same dark gray fabric. I added a bit of thread sketching for the shadows of the people, and some treetops, then quilted it.
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Here's how:
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Pretty cool, right? And if you want your quilt to be wider than half of the WOF (width of fabric), you just need two repeats of the pattern, then you can use up to the whole width of the fabric. In that case you would cut it horizontally to separate them, then turn one 180 degrees.
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One caution here:
Trim either the top or the bottom piece a bit so your horizon line is not right through the center. You may be familiar with the ‘rule of thirds’. This means to divide your quilt into thirds both ways, then put the focal point near one of the lines or intersections, at least roughly. In my quilt above, I trimmed the sky piece across the top to make it a bit shorter than the water section, but it can be the bottom one that you trim instead. |
Rule of thirds
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2. Panels
Fabric panels are another way to get an easy background. Look for panels that don’t have much going on in the foreground, they are out there! (And I'm working on adding some to my website too, stay tuned!) The background of each of these three quilts is a single piece of fabric. I added the chickadees and branches on the first two, and the peacock on the third.
Fabric panels are another way to get an easy background. Look for panels that don’t have much going on in the foreground, they are out there! (And I'm working on adding some to my website too, stay tuned!) The background of each of these three quilts is a single piece of fabric. I added the chickadees and branches on the first two, and the peacock on the third.
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A similar idea is to use fabric with landscape elements printed on it, such as sky, rocks, trees, grass, etc. Eventually you will probably want to create your own, but those are great for getting started, which is what this class is about!
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Lesson 1A: Watercolor-ish or panel background
This one is pretty easy! Just try to track down a fabric that is either watercolorish or a simple panel, with a design small enough to show on a greeting card. This will be the background for your first project. Cut it 5 x 6”. You will also need a piece of batting and a backing (I use interfacing, but muslin or other fabric will do also) for each of the first five lessons, also cut to 5 x 6”. If you chose a larger size for your projects, just cut them at least an inch larger than your finished size in both directions. For example, if you want it to finish at 5 x 7”, cut them to 6 x 8”.
This one is pretty easy! Just try to track down a fabric that is either watercolorish or a simple panel, with a design small enough to show on a greeting card. This will be the background for your first project. Cut it 5 x 6”. You will also need a piece of batting and a backing (I use interfacing, but muslin or other fabric will do also) for each of the first five lessons, also cut to 5 x 6”. If you chose a larger size for your projects, just cut them at least an inch larger than your finished size in both directions. For example, if you want it to finish at 5 x 7”, cut them to 6 x 8”.
3. Stripes
The next level up from a single fabric background is a pieced background (or a hand painted single fabric, but that doesn’t quite fall into the ‘super simple’ category!) I generally like to use a gradation in my stripes, but other color schemes work as well. The first crane quilt has a gradation of value (light to dark) from top to bottom. In the second one the stripes are fairly similar in both value and color. Value almost always matters more than color, just like traditional quilting. There are exceptions though, like this card below that looks like the path goes into the ocean, oops!!
The next level up from a single fabric background is a pieced background (or a hand painted single fabric, but that doesn’t quite fall into the ‘super simple’ category!) I generally like to use a gradation in my stripes, but other color schemes work as well. The first crane quilt has a gradation of value (light to dark) from top to bottom. In the second one the stripes are fairly similar in both value and color. Value almost always matters more than color, just like traditional quilting. There are exceptions though, like this card below that looks like the path goes into the ocean, oops!!
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Lesson Two
