In this five-day retreat, we will begin with a work of art as inspiration for an abstract quilt design. It can be a painting you admire, a photograph, a graphic design, or anything else you find inspiring. We will be using the source as inspiration only for color and shape---not representing the work itself. 

Through lecture, demo, and individual discussions we will study our inspirations and how to translate them into fabric.

First choose your inspiration—photo, artwork, graphic design. Define what draws you to it – color, shape, something else? You may draw from the color story, a favorite shape, and/or the mood or energy in the place to decide how to use it in a quilt. Some quilts have just the colors, some just the shapes, and some just the energy. Some have all three.

Or you may use a 4" window cut from cardstock to identify an area of interest that you would like to focus on, then enlarge it to create your composition.

If your inspiration photo has a variety of shapes, you could decide to isolate just one or two of them and make a quilt using that shape or shapes. Make it bigger, or smaller or both. 
You may end up with one large composition or several smaller designs, depending on how you like to work best.