Nancy Zieman - The Art of Landscape Quilting

Out On A Limb by Nancy Zieman (47 40)

Welcome to the art of landscape quilting. We think you may be surprised to learn how simple these nature scenes are to make. You will not need templates, patterns or complex tools. You don't need to know how to draw. Scissors, some fabric markers, a few glue sticks and a small collection of cotton fabrics will get you started.

The leaves, trees and shrubbery that cover our landscape quilts are simply motifs from our landscape fabrics which we cut out, glue and machine appliqu to background fabrics. We enhance the motifs with fabric paint or pastels, and then machine quilt and bind the piece. This technique allows almost as much spontaneity as painting does. And the final result can be as unique as you are.

Artists who use paint, pastels or pencil can bring their tools directly to the scene that inspires them and create on site. Fiber artists cannot. We have to depend on photographs not only for our inspiration but also for assessing scale, texture, hue, and depth in our scenes. Even when the photo is only a jumping off point for a landscape quilt, it plays a very important role.

The most important characteristic of any photo you consider as your inspiration for a landscape quilt is that you love it. You find yourself looking at it repeatedly and intensely. The site it depicts means a lot to you. You rush to your fabric stash (or local fabric store) to find matches for the elements in it the bark, the leaves, the water, the rocks, etc. You put it in a special place and come back to it time after time. Since you will be spending untold hours recreating it in fabric, you need to care about it.

The second most important characteristic of your photo choice is that it be fairly good. It does not have to be of professional quality but its hues should be intense enough to show you where the light is coming from. Its details should be vivid. Its perspective should be one you can reproduce easily. Remember that you will be interpreting the photo and translating it into art, not copying it. If it has elements or structures you don't want or need, leave them out. Change the type of trees at your will; reduce or enlarge the foliage. You are the artist.

The final consideration should be who took the photo. Let's say that one of your landscape quilts wins a prize at a quilt show or gets noticed by your local newspaper and you are asked to provide not only a photo of it but of the scene that inspired it. Photographs are protected by copyright laws. If your landscape quilt is inspired by a professional photo from a book, calendar, magazine, or print, you must get permission to reprint it in any form. Permission from publishers or professional photographers can be hard to come by and sometimes involves a long, legal process. For that reason, the safest path is to use either your own photos or ones taken by friends, family, or local photographers who are often only too happy to give you permission to reprint their work. We have learned from experience to bring our cameras along on any outing that may lead to a landscape quilt inspiration. Given our passion for landscape quilting, that means we carry our cameras everywhere.