Journey to Inspired Art Quilting: More Intuitive Color & Design

How do you teach someone to work intuitively with color, create improvisational designs, and find their own personal artistic voice? The answer is to expose them to a master teacher and quilt artist like Jean Wells.

— “Quilting Arts Magazine”

I find Jean’s approach to art quilting warm and inviting. When I read her book it seemed as though she was talking to me and helping me unleash my inner artist. Her sections on capturing inspiration and practicing good design gave me the foundation to start creating. Her assignments made the process easy and attainable. And the photography throughout the book makes it coffee table quality. The colors, textures and quilting create lovely eye-candy and you just can’t put this book down. When I showed my new favorite book to my sister she couldn’t stop ‘Oohing and Aahhing, ‘ over the pictures. So take a leap into art quilting and let Jean catch you with her new book.
— “Creating The Hive”

Jean Wells is a genius, and her book, Journey to Inspired Art Quilting is a work of genius. The main focus of Jean’s book is learning how to translate the design principles and elements into quilting, without losing your way and getting trapped in the details. Her own specialty is the landscape quilt, and I found that I could easily get lost and trapped in just looking at them, but she has an amazing way of pulling your through the work and out the other side.

Jean is a great colorist, and reading through her explanations of how to get all the parts working in harmony is really an education. She emphasizes finding ‘the big idea’ and working from that…utilizing color, shape, line, value, etc. to reinforce what you want to say. Even how you choose to frame your work is considered in the quest to put forth the idea.

Since this is a book primarily about design, and only secondarily about techniques, you will not find much discussion of surface design. The artist works with mostly solid colored fabrics. One exception is that she introduces adding a bit of imagery through some prints she made and cut apart and also through quilting lines. It is not a beginner’s ‘teach you how to quilt book, ‘ but is an excellent first guide to designing for yourself and stepping away from patterns. If that’s what you’re ready for, this is your book.
— “mixed-media-artist.com”

Photographs, inspirational items, sketches and journals are all part of Jean’s journey to creating her stunning abstract quilted works. She explains the elements and principles of design with special attention to composition and color. Her nine design assignments will help you to find your own artistic voice and stimulate the ideas that can inspire your work.

— “Machine Quilting Unlimited”

Teach a person to see, and they will be a quilter of art forever–if there’s not an old saying like this, there should be! Jean Wells, in her new book Journey to Inspired Art Quilting, knows if you teach a person a skill, there are no creative limits. The skill of seeing pattern and design inspiration in nature is learnable and Jean walks the reader through this step by step. Again, this might make a fun club/class. Start in the field with sketchbook in hand, share thoughts and ideas, brainstorm color selection and end up at the machine. Hold a quilt show at the end–the inspiration continues!
— “American Quilt Retailer”

Continue your art quilting journey with Jean in this follow-up book and learn how to recognize those great ideas that become the inspirational starting points for your art. This is very much a text book, or should I say an intuitive and thought-provoking guide, but the lavish color photographs are stunning in their own right. Jean emphasizes the use of keeping a journal of your ideas, pictures which provoke interest, color combinations and sketches of how to translate these elements into a piece of art work. She leads you through the process of compiling ideas and how to translate those ideas into a work in progress. Hopefully you will feel refreshed and organized in your next quilt planning.– “Fabrications Quilting For You”