Planning Stages

One of my Patrons, Donna M, recently asked me about my planning process. She said: In watching your videos, on a number of occasions you've said things like, "I knew I wanted his skin to be bumpy so I picked a pretty non-textured fabric. and planned…

Continue Reading →

Details Matter

Details sell the believability of a scene. The clutter, debris, stuff, and things that fill an area or adorn an outfit tell a viewer lots of information about a person, place, or thing without any words required. Our lives are filled with embellishments a…

Continue Reading →

Shaping the World for Good Composition

Sometimes, I use a program called FlowScape to build my imaginary settings. Flowscape is a sandbox-style computer game in which the purpose of "playing" is to build virtual worlds. Users can add foliage, fauna, ground texture, elevation, and hav…

Continue Reading →

Learning from Failures

Several months ago, I was asked, "Kestrel, how do you learn from your failures?" To me, a "failure" would be a project that failed so spectacularly there was no way for it to be saved, so I just threw it in the trash and moved on. I ha…

Continue Reading →

Drawing What We See

Learning to draw what we see — not what we think we see — is a tough lesson for all artists to learn. Even with years of practice under my belt, I still catch myself falling into that trap, and my latest quilt design was no exception. Let's talk about Luc…

Continue Reading →