My new DVD – and a giveaway!

I am pleased to announce that my third DVD with Quilting Arts/Interweave – Dynamic Quilt Design: Paint Meets Stitch — will be available in late October (digital downloads will be available earlier in the month). This DVD focuses on my method of wholecloth painting, in which I start with white PFD (Prepared For Dyeing) fabric and cover the surface with paint before stitching.

Me on the set of Quilting Arts TV, shooting the DVD

In this 69-minute-long DVD, I teach how to turn your photos into realistic wholecloth
painted quilts. I cover supplies and tools, and how to:

• choose the right photo
• trace the design elements
• enlarge your drawing
• print it out
• transfer the lines onto the fabric. 

There’s a bit of basic color theory and information on mixing paint colors, shades and tints. Next, I cover how to approach painting your piece and how to add shadows and highlights for greater realism. And in the last portion, I show how to bring your painted piece to life with thread sketching and quilting. Along the way, I illustrate all these things by showing how I’ve used them in my work.

The focus here is on realistic subjects, so I created the piece below, Still Life With Cherries, to demonstrate the key concepts in the DVD. 

Still Life With Cherries

This is the photo on which the quilt above is based:

I love the combination of paint and stitch! I think the texture that the stitch provides is what makes wholecloth painted quilts so much more interesting than paintings. Here are some detail shots of this small art quilt:

Still Life With Cherries (detail)

Still Life With Cherries (detail)

Still Life With Cherries (detail)

Still Life With Cherries (detail)

I’ve been teaching workshops on wholecloth painting for the past year, and this is really not a difficult technique to master once you have learned the basics. If you can’t get to one of my classes, the DVD gives you what you will need to be successful with the technique. 

The DVD will be available on the Quilting Arts/Interweave website – and on my website – in late October. I’ll keep you posted!

GIVEAWAY! 

To celebrate, I’m giving away one copy of my new DVD! Post a comment after this post, telling me why you would like to win it. At noon on Sunday, October 23, I’ll draw one name at random. I’ll send a copy of the DVD to that winner as soon as I get back from teaching at International Quilt Festival, in early November. If already follow my blog, or if you sign up to follow it now (see the "Join this site" button in the upper right side of my blog, under my photo), tell me that in your post, and I’ll enter your name twice! UPDATE: Bee in Texas is the winner!