Color and Composition Workshop with Katie Pasquini Masopust

Our guild was fortunate to have the amazingly talented Katie Pasquini Masopust as our January featured artist!!  Monday morning, she presented a slide show depicting her journey as an art quilter and her extensive body of work featuring several series that were just amazing!  She brought several quilts as well that had so many layers of interest, texture and detail!  All in all, her presentation was a real feast for the eyes and soul and I wanted it to go on and on!

Luckily for myself, I was signed up for her next day's workshop on Composition where Katie PM led us through a series of exercises to practice incorporating different compositions and color schemes.  For each round, students were invited to select an magazine/calendar clipped image to inspire our composition (vertical, horizontal, symmetrical, radiating, etc) and a ziploc baggie, each containing a bundle of fused solid fabrics from a different color scheme (complementary, analogous, cool, warm, etc).

Morning Composition Exercise

For our morning exercise, I selected a magazine advertisement for make up with a radiating composition from the lower right corner.  My fabric was a split complement including 7 values of purple along with a yellow-orange and a yellow-green fabric for purple's split complement.  Some students sketched out shapes to make templates, but my shapes were all fairly simple and could be cut freehand. 

Everyone hung their finished compositions according to color scheme for a really fun gallery display.  

Gallery of Compositions

Before breaking for lunch, Katie PM gave us an overview of our afternoon exercise which had a few layers for interest and abstraction.

We each selected a new image:  mine was a serene pair of palm trees.  A new color scheme was also chosen and mine had 7 values of yellow and 7 values of purple for a complementary colorway.  Katie PM had us translate our inspirational image into 4 abstract images:  1st using only circles/ellipses, 2nd using only squares and rectangles, 3rd using all triangles and the 4th could be a combination of all 3 shapes.  We then chose our favorite quadrant to further develop into a larger composition.  The palm trees translated nicely into triangles so I experimented more with the layout and developing layers of interest for my fabric composition.    

Afternoon Composition Exercise with Abstraction

Optional Exercise with Cropping

 For students who finished early, Katie PM had a 3rd optional exercise.  She provided us with L shaped paper to audition newly cropped compositions within either of our earlier exercises and then recreate that new composition.  I really enjoyed this one area of my morning composition and saw its potential.  I was able to get a pencil sketch of the new composition but ran out of time (and perhaps energy) to recreate the fused fabric version.

In the final hour, we examined our classroom composition gallery and did some reflection on the exercises.  It was so interesting to see everyone's abstract art without even knowing the inspirational image.

Growing Gallery of Composition Exercises

In the last few minutes, were were treated to a close up of her art quilts!!

I will admit that I left the workshop feeling totally wiped out.  But that is a good thing as it meant I was using lots of creative energy to push myself outside of my comfort zone.  Moreover, the lessons learned from these exercises will help me to design and create more interesting compositions in my future quilts.  I was thrilled to learn she currently teaches two online classes, which greatly appear to me for my continued exploration of  incorporating these design concepts into my future work.

Thank you Katie PM!!