I have been ruminating on finishing this first lesson in my Quilt University class, especially since I am now a week behind due to our vacation in San Diego. But it was not wasted time, even though I never opened the sketch book. The exercises I had done at the beginning caused me to start looking at my surroundings in terms of line and shape, focal points, unusual camera angles, and textures. I ended up with a lot of unusual shots, just to remind myself of what caught my eye.

Last night I sat down with my selected pictures, tracing paper, and my sketchbook to see just what I could come up with. First, here’s the original picture, from sitting in Spanish Landing Park and admiring all the boats, and masts, and straight lines….and triangles……

I cropped the picture and then used tracing paper to get basic outlines. I am not comfortable sketching freehand with this activity – it kind of intimidated me at first.

What I liked about this was that I could definitely see the trapezoids, triangles, and straight lines. From here I tried a grid to repeat some design elements.

Not happy with this – not at all pleasing to me. Probably because the exercise itself is so new. So worried – like always in the past – about what this was going to look like. Then I went to my triangles and straight lines:

This has got possibilities, but it would seriously need reworking. I might pick up tree color in the sails. Once again, I can see just how linear I am in the design….

From here I went to the photo of what hubby and I called “our tree” at Spanish Landing Park, since we sat next to it for three days. Here’s the original:

I ended up turning this on its side for the outline – something I NEVER do with a picture…..and I liked it!

I already could see some possibilities in this, and at this point I was kind of amazed at how my thinking was changing. In the past I had always looked at trying to work with the whole composition, instead of just pieces of it.

Here’s the close-up, and as I was trying to add some texture, it occurred to me that all the lines were pretty much ovals…..the beginning of inspiration and a real change in my thinking, which led to this…..

I LOVE this! The linear part of me was going to do all the ovals equidistant apart, but I had trouble with that in the second line and I realized the wonkiness of the “in and out” of the line gave me even more texture. Then when I changed pencil hardness I was really hooked……which led to “Oh, my, I need more thread and yarns….” I think I’m on to something. Plus, this was so freeing. This process really works, and I can see working this activity much more.

So then I went to another photo:

This was taken in Balboa Park, the reflecting pools near the Botanical Gardens. LOVE these lily pads, especially the variegated leaves. Here’s the outline.

And here’s the close-up:

I really like the shape of the lily pad, so I decided to use not-quite-regular circles. I ended up with this, and again, really happy with it. I already know what stitches I would use….and again, I need more thread…..

I have a couple of additional photos I want to do this exercise with, and I can see myself using it a lot. I had ideas come out that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Definite progress.