Design Class

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

In the fall of 2013 I started another series of classes with Heather Thomas that would run for 12 months.  This class was to explore and learn more about artistic design and composition.  We had monthly homework which sometimes entailed producing a finished art piece using our medium of choice.  Always looking for opportunities to improve my digital design skills, I chose to design my homework and art pieces on my computer.

The piece below is one I completed for this class.  Our assignment was to make a piece inspired by an artist we wanted to study.  I chose Alphonse Mucha, a Czech Art Nouveau artist who produced many paintings, illustrations, and advertisements.  He often did women with long flowing hair and gowns surrounded by decorative lines and flowers.  I designed this piece of my daughter in Photoshop Elements giving her the hair from one of his paintings.  The design inside the circle came from a kaleidoscope I designed, and the flowers and lines around the circle came from a Dover art book.  The entire piece was printed to one 8.5" x 11" fabric sheet and stitched.  This piece was selected to be in the SAQA Small Visions Big Voice exhibit at Tactile Arts Center in the summer of 2014 in Denver.