When I was at Committed to Cloth, I pinned all the fabrics I was happy with up on the design wall. I grouped together the fabrics I had printed at the same time for the most part, but because on the whole I stick to the same limited palette most fabrics go with something else.
I tend to have the Venice or Florida colours of pale blues, turquoise and shades of orange and the canal themed fabrics of petrol blue/green and rust.
I started cutting up the fabrics. Firstly I cut the those fabrics that could make hangings just as they were starting with these that look like bridges., viaducts or aquaducts.
I took the two fabrics on the right of this photo and cut them both into strips.
I took the strips and randomly put them back together by pinning them on the design wall. The next task is to machine stitch the strips together and then decide what to do next!
Next I took this breakdown printed fabric and cut it into strips.
And assembled the strips ready to machine.
I took these fabrics and cut them into strips.
And yet again reassembled the strips on the design wall.
Leslie made a suggestion to swap two pieces. Can you tell which they are?
So now I have a lot of work to do! I just hope I have enough thread!
As a thank you for demonstrating printing techniques at the Festival of Quilts the team was invited to spend a day or days at the Committed to Cloth studio. I had 3 days available but ended up only using two of them, spending the third day as a day out with Roger.
I took with me all the fabrics that I have printed using breakdown printing, either at Committed to Cloth or at Urban Studio North with Leah Higgins.
Leslie and I looked at all my fabrics and took out those that needed more work. So on day one I printed over the existing fabric using procion dyes.
Above: the original printed fabric from C2C 2018 Below: Over printed and dyed. Still not a fan of the fabric
1m x 1.5m
Above part of the origianl fabric printed in 2018 which I thought was too bright.
Below mark making with black dye. The photograph doesn't show the true colour of the fabric - it is much nearer the colour of the original.
1m square
Above: the original print which had too much white.
Below: with added texture
1m x 0.5m
Above: the fabric was too pale. I think the photo above was taken before the print paste was washed out as the fabric was definitely paler than this.
Below: added turquoise and a different screen
1m x 1.5m
Above: part of the original print. Photo taken before it was washed out.
Below: added colour. Not sure about it, but I expect it will be fin once it's cut up.
1m x 0.5m
Next time: all about the fabrics I cut up and reassembled!
Last week I went to a three day workshop called Colour Families and Mark Making led by Leslie Morgan from Committed to Cloth. She rarely teaches outside of her own studio so we were extremely fortunate that she agreed to teach at Littleheath Barn Studio.
A colour family is where you take two colours of procion dyes and mix them them together using a matrix. Can you guess what colour I used?
Actually it was't turquoise on the first day! I used Golden Yellow and Scarlet in equal parts to make an Orange (top left) and mixed this with black (bottom right). Each colour that you mix is scraped on to soda-soaked cotton to keep a record of the colours.
This is the fabric washed out, ironed, cut up and stuck into my sketchbook.
During the first two days I concentrated on the Golden Yellow/Scarlet mix to black, then turquoise and then a turquoise/black mix. The first one is a paler version of the family above. To achieve this I added 4 teaspoons of print paste to each pot of the colours.
A new family using Scarlet/Golden Yellow and Turquoise.
And lastly in this series, Golden Yellow/Scarlet with a mix of 2 parts Turquoise and 1 part Black.
I used the colours in the pots to scrape onto larger pieces of cotton fabric. This was the first family I made. The photo was taken after it was washed out and ironed.
This was done with the last family shown above. This is what the colours looked like whilst the dye was wet.
This is the same fabric washed and ironed.
The next two photos show two pieces I also scraped dye onto and printed on. I used larger pieces of fabric and cut each of them in two. Half I washed and ironed and you can see below after two days of 'batching'*. The other half of each piece has been left to batch for longer to see if it makes any difference to the colour if you leave it soak in longer.
I'll tell you about day 3 next time.
Thanks for joining me today. Bernice
*Batching is a process where you leave dry dyed fabric rolled up in plastic for several days to allow the dye to sink into the fabric.
I spent 5 days at Committed to Cloth taking part in Christine Chester's new class: Poetry of Stitch.
It was full of ideas for hand stitching and machine stitching. I think it confirmed to me that I prefer hand stitching to machine although I did love this result:
At the end of the 5 days we spread out what we had done. This is Christine's photo of my table.
I didn't take as many photos as I usually do - too busy trying to keep up! - so I've borrowed another of Christine's photos to show the piece I started on the last day. I started with hand stitching. It probably needs some machine stitching as well but that will have to wait for another day.
Christine shared many tips and pieces of wisdom through the 5 days. It was a great course and well worth signing up for if you see it advertised, either at C2C or at Christine's own studio.
I went to Committed to Cloth for the workshop Unlocking the Mystery of Creative Play. Having done it twice before, I knew what to expect - sort of! Lesley changes it up a bit every year depending on who is on the workshop. But I knew there would be playing with paper and design as you have seen in my two previous posts.
But I wanted to spend some of the time investigating what I am going to do with my work in the future. I've been working through the Head, Heart and Hands workbook and found that to be really useful. The activities are about finding your creative voice.
This is one of the things I wanted to talk to Leslie about. I was very fortunate to have a session with her every day, just to talk. In between I did the paper play activites but mostly thought and journaled. I answered some of the questions that Leslie asked, which often provoked questions of my own. Here are a few of my answers.
Why do I go to so many workshops?
I enjoy learning new processes and techniques
The 'cross-pollination' of working with other people and their ideas
Why should I stop going to so many?
I don't spend time afterwards playing with what I 've learned or making the process my own
Procrastination: a workshop can be a 'worthwhile' way of putting off doing my own work. Why is that? Lack of self belief in my own work.
Money spent on workshops could be better spent on quality materials for my own work
Free up mental capacity for my own work
Leslie talked to the whole group about 'finding joy' in our creations and our creative process. She and I talked about numbing and how Brene Brown says you can't numb one emotion on its own. If you numb one emotion you numb them all. I wrote about numbing in January 2014.
I journaled about joy - or the lack of it. I journaled about the investment of time and money. I asked myself questions and came to a point where I felt there was a choice:
Give up creative activities altogether. Clear out all the media and fabric and find a new thing.
or Become committed totally to what I do. But do what I want to do - no courses, no exhibitions, no deadlines - just play.
I decided on the latter. I made a list of what I need to do.
Narrow down techniques I like - make a list.
List the colours I like to work with.
List materials I like to work with - narrow it down.
Take responsibility for my own creativity.
Develop my curiosity.
Go on Artist's dates.
Value my work.
Play
As I have written this blog post, all of the above seems so easy, but at the time - those 5 days away - there was a lot of angst. I knew things needed to change but I don't like change. I like to think I'm open to change but in reality I can be quite resistant.
I'm still working through the questions and journaling. I looked back through my creativity journal and found that I was asking these same questions in 2017. Hence the spiral staircase analogy. I'm climbing the staircase and believe that I am making progress and seeing the same point from a different perspective.
Continuing with my design work and playtime at Committed to Cloth.
My previous post showed me working with squares. In May I am going to C2C to do Improvisational Pieced Cutting which is basically playing with fabric and a rotary cutter. So for the latter part of my playtime week, Leslie suggested I played with curved shapes. I had this photo with me.
Thankfully I realised fairly early on that trying to replicate this photo was difficult and I should just take shapes from it. This led to these designs.
I took some close up photos of areas that looked interesting.
Eventually we realised that I had been working with the photo upside down. It's of lifting gear in a a cafe in Savannah.
On Sunday morning I returned to my comfort zone of small collages in a zigzag book.
And finally my show and tell design wall with lots of b&w photocopies.
I had an unusal 5 day retreat - a mix of play, some angst and some serious self investigation. More about that next time in Climbing the spiral staircase!
Some of my friends feel I should join Workshops Anonymous! If there isn't such an organisation perhaps I should start one.
I spent many months this year saying I wasn't going to book any workshops in 2020. But then signed up for 3 in January & February. Then I said I wouldn't book any past March. Yeah right!
So what have I signed up for?
January: Unlocking the Mystery of Creative Play with Lesley Morgan.
‘How do I make better work?’ We will look at simple language and principles of design found in the physical world. Working from a personal starting point, discover tools to create contrast and harmony using colour, value, size, shape, and texture. Bring your curiosity to discover what you like and how to achieve the elements you need to work with your theme and create effective compositions.
February: Abstract Calligraphy with Simon Sonsino
In this workshop we will explore abstract calligraphy with expressive form. We will work through exercises creating abstract letter form with different mark making tools.
February: Poetry of Stitch with Christine Chester
There will be a concentration on using the sewing machine, but also looking at hand stitch as the heavier and more ‘spotty’ marks that is tricky to do on the machine (though not impossible). We will explore your machine’s potential through use of tension, straight and swing stitches, and the occasional use of an accessory or two. There will be an emphasis on trying lots of small sample pieces rather than working towards a larger piece, but these can be combined to form a book towards the end of the course.
April: Colour Studies with Lesley Morgan
We will learn how to use procion Mx dyes to develop an extensive palette. Build harmonious colour and value schemes to create contrasts that will enrich, energies and pop! Use mark-making to create a visual reference of colour relationships and establish a method to explore any colour and value scheme of your choice.
May: Improvisational Curved Piecing with Leslie Morgan
Improvisation is the act of coming up with something on the spot. Improvisational Piecing is drawing with a rotary cutter. The act of improvising is to act or to start a piece without planning ahead, spontaneously making decisions as you go. Improvisational piecing promotes muscle memory, intuition, innovation, creative mistakes, repeatable mistakes, freedom ...
July: Land - Marks Summer School with Cas Holmes
A mixed media workshop exploring the qualities of cloth and paper for creating a mark and as a surface for print. Spend the first two days printing onto layered cloth using a variety of techniques, and the last day using some of the pieces to create a stitch - collage.
November: Layers in Land & Sea with Amanda Hislop
A 2-day workshop to explore land or seascape imagery through a process of layering; working on a fine background to build layers of recycled and specialist papers, natural fragments and threads. Experiment with ways of changing the surface of papers which will then be incorporated into landscape compositions developed from your own personal material. Acrylic paints are then applied using techniques to enhance and give depth to the colour within the piece.
And that ought to be enough!
However Liske keeps adding temptation at Littleheath Barn Studio. It's 25 minutes away and I can live at home. Sooo tempting!
But looking on the bright side! I've only signed up for one online course: Wanderlust.
I had booked the workshop because Leslie Morgan (owner of C2C) assured me that it was something that I should do. I went with some trepidation and uncertainty as I didn't really understand the description of Tactile Notebooks:
This workshop will help you to find your own living language through the creation of a vibrant notebook practice. Motivated by ‘haptic’ considerations we will use the sense of touch to stimulate and awaken perception to guide the making process, and to revive sensitivity to the way we communicate both visually and verbally. We will create tactile pages, playing with materials, techniques, and words to make concrete the vital elements of our experience. The goal is to heighten your sensory experience, expand understanding in unexpected directions, and deepen your artistic vision.
The supply list didn't give many clues as it matched in almost every particular the tools and media I would take to an art journaling workshop.
The first day started with the group gathering around the table whilst Sandra talked about many things including what the workshop was about. Each day started with this gathering and the setting of the timetable for the day. Sandra shared generously from her abundant knowledge, backed up with photographs and quotes. This photo shows just a few items from the first session.
Unusually the first day was spent making the cover for our notebooks - to make the notebooks precious. Most folks I know make the cover when the notebook is finished. I had taken some ice dyed fabric which I cut to fit my 6" square notebook. I found the bit of turquoise in one of the bags of bits I had taken.
Inside
I beaded the spine.
On the second day we talked about paper and made a group list of things you can do to paper. I had also taken a 4" square notebook with me and found I had enough fabric to cover this to match. I spent most of the day making a record book of the different actions from the list we had made.
One of the things that Sandra emphasised was that these notebooks were for our eyes only. They were not for public consumption. We did share the pages with her as she went round talking to each of us. Her encouragement and support was limitless.
I decided that the first page needed to be a privacy notice as a reminder to me, especially as I tend to share, (some may say overshare), much of my work on this blog.
I really didn't get going in my notebook until day 3. I had played with one or two pages, but had put all my discussion notes and quotes in a separate notebook whilst I came to terms with all the input from Sandra. I wanted a record of everything but not necessarily in this tactile notebook.
I was very taken with the poem Love After Love by Derek Walcott
We had each been given a nightlight which sat on the foiled paper. As I wasn't planning on lighting the candle I glued the paper into my notebook to represent the mirror in the poem.
I'm not going to show you all the pages I did. However I will show you a sequence of pages I did after watching this video:
Sandra had described a metaphor for the workshop. We were to imagine we were all on a barge with the banks close to the sides of the barge so that we could get off whenever we wanted to. We could follow wherever inspiration took us.
One word written in many different ways to fill the page.
My response to one of the poems we read together. It rained quite heavily whilst we were at the workshop.
By the end of the group session on the fifth day there was a phenomenal amount of inspiration on the walls - and notes in my notebook!
We were each given a piece of red fabric and asked to look at all the information on the walls and pin our cloth on the image or quote that meant most to us at that moment. I chose this:
I photocopied it to put in my book and wrote about why I chose it.
We were also asked to go back through our notes and notebooks and make a list of 27 words, phrases or sentences that stood out to us as a summary of our time together.
You will see that #27 says new life. Our granddaughter was born whilst I was on the workshop.
Over the years I have wanted to have a daily journal practice, but it just wasn't me. I didn't enjoy the act of writing. Strange as I love writing here. As you know I do art journaling but that isn't daily. I've tried writing a diary but that gets very boring - there's only so much you can say about my day - got up, had breakfast, read my emails, spent far too long on Facebook, etc, etc.
As I spent time going through the notes and my tactile notebook to gather my 27 Words, I noticed that I had picked out some things about journeys. As you probably know I like to travel and I often make travel journals for my trips. I realised at that moment that if I treat my tactile notebook as a travel journal - a travel journal of my life - that I would be able to find a way into keeping a journal. Especially as having a daily notebook practice can be about mark making or stitch or gluing a picture in. It doesn't need to be a diary with a written account everyday.
It was an inspiring and life-changing experience. Thank you Sandra and thank you Leslie.
