Find one of your favorite artists or schools of art and create a small piece in the style of that artist or school of art.  You could copy or adapt a specific piece of art, but it may be more rewarding to do something original using the style.  This is a study only; please be aware of copyright issues.

Ann Turley
Walnut, CA

Klee Hen
8"x11"
used hand dyes and batiks

Paul Klee had a variety of styles over his years as an artist. I was particularly drawn to one of his earlier pieces, "1914", because of its childlike simplicity. My piece tries to re-create this feel as well as the woodcut look the original piece has.

Betty Donahue
Wethersfield, CT

Monet's l'Esterel Mountains
15" x 14-1/4"
Cotton

Tree trunk and grass thread painted. Used snippets for the leaves.  Watered down acrylic paint for the highlights and covered with tulle to give a misty look.  Machine quilted.

 

Brenda Jennings
Columbus, Ohio

Klimt Tree of Life   
19-1/2" x 22-1/2 “ 
Commercial cottons; fused applique; free-motion quilting

Cherie Brown
Del Mar, California

Erte/ Heart
20" x 20"
Suede cloth; dupioni silk; holographic lame; vintage lace; beads, pearls, gold net

From ERTE'S Hearts and Zephyrs series...my interpretation of "Heart-I Purple".
I have always loved all of Erte's work and really had fun recreating one of his pieces in fabric. It turned out to be the most involved and labor intensive of all my challenge pieces so far, due to all the beading and painting lace with metallic Tsukineko ink.

 

Cathy Lewis
Pawtucket, RI

Quilter's Window
18 x 24”
fused applique

My attempt at Cubism.  Quilt showing sewing machine and various tools, which was then cut into strips and reassembled.

Cynthia Ann Morgan
Boulder, CO

Kandinsky Revisted
20 x 24”

hand dyed and commercial fabrics, fused appliqué

I chose Wassily Kandinsky of Bauhaus fame because I really like how he used repetition of geometric shapes in his abstractions, but still had great balance and variety. My piece is based on one of his paintings called Decisive Pink.

Janice Simpson
Marquette Michigan

Five Wooden Buttons

Cotton discharged fabric for background, fused on shapes,
hand painted wooden buttons found at antique show.                                                   
  
I chose Wassily Kandinsky (Russian) 1866-1944, Composition VII, 1913.
Kandinsky uses a varity of lines,shapes and colors. He used a large black circle
for the focal point. I used five wooden buttons and many lines, shapes and colors
with fused fabrics, stitching and discharged background.

Lisa A Albanese
Seattle, WA

Stone Spiral
8-1/2 x 7”
Planting pebbles, scrap quilting cottons

I went with my initial artist - Andy Goldsworthy. I like him as an artist - his pallet is mother nature and takes only what is available to him to create sculptures and what not. So I took some pebbles - sorted them by value and composed this piece only with my scraps that were in my sewing room - not quite the same as his work - but fun to do anyway. The pebbles were a bit of challenge - I really wanted them sewn on to the pieces but that wasn't a technical possibility all the time so I glued them then sewed them so you think they are sewn on.

 

Linda Cline
San Leandro, CA

Le Talisman, After Sérusier
13½ x 11½”
Collaged cotton fabrics

My second attempt at this challenge. This is a loose copy of Sérusier's 'Le Talisman'. In my first attempt, I tried to incorporate Serusier's colors and style into something done more intuitively, and I didn't care for the results. This one I like. I learned more by trying to copy his painting than I did by doing my own thing in a similar style.

 

 
Marilyn Rose
Ridgeland, MS

What Would Mondrian Quilt?
8.5" x 11"
commercial poly/cottons, iron on bias tape

Mondrian, in this modern time, would still use the same colors and forms, but the key would be the quilting. I chose to do a rectangular spiral in each of the blocks, adding texture without changing his basic design.

 

Penny Irwin
Reno, Nevada

Churn-dash I, Churn-dash II and Churn-dash III
each is 8.5"X 11"
All Kona cottons

Inspired by the hard edge, non-representational painters; these are all abstractions of the Churndash block.  Blocks II and III take the initial abstraction a step further. Colors were chosen with Mondrian in mind.

Tobi K. Hoffman
Ashland, MA

Mountain Pass
14 3/4" x 18 1/2"
Cotton prints, tulle

This was designed after John Robert Cozens, 1752 – 1797, of the English Landscape School.  His watercolor of Chamonix and Martigny was the specific picture that I imitated, as its muted but light tones appealed to me.  I found that most of my fabrics were too bright, so a couple of the pieces are in with the back side forward to get the lighter shade.  I added fine white tulle over it all to further mute the shades, using thread painting to hold it together and to try to bring out the clouds which were wisps of Polyfil between the background and the tulle.

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