"Flower Power" Class From QuiltUniversity

I've spent the past couple of weeks taking Susan Brittingham's "Flower Power" class.  She does a fabulous job and I've been working harder than I usually do for an art quilt.  She really makes you think about color in ways that almost hurts my color confused head.  LOL.

The rose on the left is the one I really love but Susan said it might be hard to do in an art quilt for a beginner.  The colors are subtle and finding fabric that would duplicate the look would be a challenge.  

I came up with another flower from my backyard

but not sure I like it.  Susan said the colors were easier as they weren't subtle and there was more to the picture.  

I've been working with both pictures using the methods we've been talking about.  I can see where Susan is right about the group of flowers, but even with taking out what I don't like, it just isn't "calling" to me. 

It just hit me.  I HATE the leaves in this picture.  The flower is called a Mallow flower.  I don't like how big they are and I find them terribly distracting and cluttered.  The flowers themselves are beautiful.  I'm just not sure how to fix it if I want to stay true to the way the leaves look in real life.  I'm not even sure how to work with the leaves in fabric.

Finding fabric for the mallow flowers has proven difficult but I think I found them from a lady that dyes her own fabric.  Even if the colors are off, they will still work. 

I bought a new toy yesterday called "Bamboo Fun".  It's meant for working with photo software and has a special "pen", mouse and pad to use.  The pen works like a mouse but is used by graphic artists for getting into places where a mouse is doesn't.  I really bought it because it has Photoshop Elements and a couple of other photo enhancing software.  

Here's what I did with the rose in Photoshop Elements:

It would look AWESOME if I could do it with fabric like this.  I don't think there's a way to do the chain link fence in fabric though.  I'll have to find a darker background.

When I tried playing with the mallow flower, nothing really worked.   When I enlarged it in EQ6 it looked better.  

Oh.  I've also learned that if you put a picture in your copy machine, it prints out in reverse.  

I can't wait to start working with fabric.  If I can find what I want and like.