Sneak Peak at Next Project

I haven’t been posting much about my newest project because I haven’t been completely certain that I would be able to finish it. I’m still not certain about that, but thought I would go ahead and show you what I am doing and see if you have suggestions……

In 2007 we spent 2 months in Oxford, England. During that time we spent a number of days in London and I spent many hours taking the Underground to various attractions that I wanted to see. While on the train, I enjoyed watching the mixture of people that would come and go from the bench seat opposite to me…..the view would change at each stop.

Like most quilters, I kept composing quilts in my head featuring these different people. The only problem with this idea was that I cant draw at all and the thought of trying to draw people was even more discouraging. Here is the sketch that I did while on the train….

Then, I bought the book, “Photo-Inspired Art Quilts” by Leni Levenson Wiener . One of the ideas that she mentioned was to use Photoshop to create your picture and then use the newly created picture as a pattern for your quilt. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I found a free online Photoshop course and have been enjoying it over the past 7 weeks. One of the first lessons was how to make selections in a photo and then how to move the selection into another photo…..EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED TO DO!!!!

I got onto the internet and did a search for photos of London trains…this is the first photo that I found and it was the perfect backdrop to the picture that was in my mind……

I then found two other photos that showed the top of the train and the bottom of the train bench. With some manipulation, the picture turned into this…..

I then started looking for pictures of people on trains but found the problem was that you couldn’t see the entire body so I changed the search to people sitting on benches. As I searched hundreds of photos, I picked the ones that would best fit into the photo

I pulled all of the people’s photos into Photoshop, cut them out of their picture and placed them into the bench picture, adjusting them so that they looked as if they were sitting on the bench. As I worked, I was amazed with how much change could be made by pulling parts from different photos and adding them to this one.

This is the final photo that I am using as my pattern…..

I am trying to remember exactly how many different photos were used in this shot….

1 – the bench itself, 2 – the top of the train, 3 – the bottom of the bench and floor, 4 – the scene in the window, 5 – the “Underground” sign, 6 – the boy on left, 7 – the bottom of his legs (original photo was cut off at the knees), 8 – his shoes, 9 – the woman, 10 – her sleeves (she was in a tank top and the others were dressed warmer), 11 – the girl, 12 – the man on the right, 13 – the yellow poles, 14 – the pole holders

SO, the pattern is ready…..made up from parts of 14 different photos.

…..more to come…..