Dec 2016This book has the tagline ‘How to get from 'start' to 'art''. This is a very apt description of the book as it works as an exercise in mentoring the reader into creating art quilts.You can get a lot of books that try to direct you in this way but don’t always offer practical exercises to achieve it. Joen Wolfrom’s book 'Adventures in Design' did so very successfully (also published by C&T) and Deborah Boschert’s book reminds me of this. It doesn’t go into the subject of design to the depth of Wolfrom’s but instead, concentrates on the art of composition and surface design. What is different here is that you are given a limited set of tools and this helps focus the mind whilst developing the skills.The tools you are given are eight design guides to follow which are presented to you in simple diagrams. These basic layouts apply to all the techniques of creating a quilt through the book and you can see what makes each work. Working alongside that is a Design Checklist (which is a great way of getting you to analyse your work and change your layout accordingly) and the See What Happens exercises which offer a prescribed method of trying out new approaches. One of those exercises, using a photo you have taken, and working out the composition,shapes and patterns, provides a perfect way of improving your observation. This is a great book for working on developing a visual style and thinking more about the mechanics of composition.
