Art Quilt Claremont

Leslie’s skillfully combines various fabrics through an appliqué technique augmented by acrylic paint. During the span of his career, Leslie has completed numerous commissions, both private and commercial and has exhibited his work extensively in Europe and North America. Fiber is Leslie’s primary art medium. His affinity for fabrics grew at the Art Academy in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. While a student at the Academy, he was exposed to, and enthusiastically embraced, all possibilities, working in ceramics, textile design, graphic arts and painting. He found handling textiles very satisfying, partially because as a child he was surrounded by fabrics of all kinds and sewing machines as his mother was a fashion designer.

Leslie’s material is fabric although he considers himself a painter and draftsman; a painter in the manner he uses transparent materials as glazes combined with random pieces of fabric and acrylic paint; a draftsman in the manner he uses threads to create contour lines. A constant element in his work is the question of illusion of the medium.

Visit Leslie’s web site

http://gabrielse.com/

Workshop Description

Discover the range of possibilities and varieties of playing with positive and negative shapes and space. All the layers are in the game! We will explore layers of fabric flipping over and under each other as opposed to the more traditional: bottom, middle, and top layer approach. This method lets your imagination develop the full range of possibilities in creating your own quilt.

My goal is to let students achieve an understanding of working with layers of fabric and to demonstrate how each layer becomes an integral part of the composition. We will explore positive and negative space and shape from simple sketches you will make. Keep it simple. Shapes and textures can be refined with stencil technique. One morning will be devoted to stencil technique. The pieces will be sewn by hand with DMC pearl cotton #5 yarn. The hand stitching method can be an important technique that supports various elements of the composition.