“Elizabeth’s View” – Art Quilt. 21″ X 14″. This year there are two members of our family turning 50 years old. Their birthdays are three weeks apart in October and November. My son Tony and his wife Elizabeth. I wanted to do something special for this landmark. Elizabeth is an avid reader and one of her favorite series is the Harry Potter Books. One of the things she does in our family is to make sure all of the nieces and nephews get copies of current books. So this is her quilt.

This is the collage of pictures that seemed to appear on the design board. LOL

Right away I knew this art project was going to include Hogwarts School. It has fantastic architectural features. Do you remember that great spooky sky picture I took? It became the perfect background. The tree and owl were added as I went along.

Drawing and painting the school was a bit tricky as I struggled to keep everything straight. I went back later and added the shadows with the inktense pencils. Notice the last tower to the right? I had this wonderful idea to outline the school with my pens and then apply the paint. Well, right away it wasn’t the look I wanted. I stopped with the pen and did the rest with a pencil. Much better.

Working on the school and rocks was a lot of fun. I think the picture gives you a sense of the school resting up on the hill. Now on to the sky and moon.

After painting the sky and moon I felt something was missing. For one thing, the moon just wouldn’t pop out of the clouds. Another thing I thought the school was the focal point of the design. That is when I decided to add the owl and the tree. The owl became the focal point. First, though I used the rule of thirds to make sure the owl was in the right place. Here is a picture of how I folded the picture into thirds and then used the creases to attach the owl to the bottom right quadrant.

The tree was the last element painted in this art quilt design. I painted the owl first and then the tree around it. Notice that the tree limbs cross over to the moon to get your attention. That tree connected everything together. Very glad I made that decision.

I love how this one came out. Hopefully she will be blessed by this ode to one of my favorite daughters…