Jean Draper

I recently spent 3 days at Bobby Britnell's studio on a workshop led by Jean Draper.

The course description:
The aim of this workshop will be to begin with the study of examples of small details from natural objects, leading to the development of different personal ideas for work in stitched textiles. Structured experimental drawing and design exercises, investigating the scope offered by changes of scale, tone, texture and colour, together with demonstrations, will encourage students to choose ways to develop their own ideas both 2 and 3 dimensionally. Throughout the course, emphasis will be placed on making notes and sampling in fabric and thread in order for more resolved work to continue later if wished.

I signed up for this because I really wanted to know how to get from design to stitch.  Even though it meant drawing!

We were asked to take a collection of some natural things and I took some shells.

I chose to draw this one.

I eventually drew something that looked freer but sadly didn't photograph it on its own.  It will appear on my display board later.

Jean asked us to cover a sheet of paper with willow charcoal and then draw using a putty rubber.

The next day we photocopied parts of our various drawings enlarging them as much as we could.  I liked this day.  Lots of paper folding and mark making.

I eventually realised that I didn't have to copy my drawings but could be inspired by them.  I cut shapes out of the photocopy and added black paper.

 I photocopied the piece above and cut away the white on the right and folded it.  I love the shadows.

 I cut into this photocopy and folded the cuts.   The orange paper behind really lights up the holes.

On our last day I did some fabric manipulation and stitching.

Here's the final display board at the end of 3 days.

I'm not sure yet how much these 3 days will influence my textile practice.  I need to process it for a while.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Extex 5 Session 4

At the beginning of each session we have a show and tell of what we have done for homework.  There is such a variety of things to see as people go off in different directions.

I had sewn three of my six 'panels' and will continue with the other three during the next few weeks.

Session 4: Still Life
We had each been asked to bring three items from home for Kim to set up a Still Life for us to draw and to paint.

Kim's photo

I did these on the Saturday.

On Sunday we had to choose one of them to tear up so I used the picture above and then reassembled it and started to stitch.

Kim wasn't very impressed with the dark stitching up the right hand side and when I showed it to Roger he wasn't either.  I decided to remove it.

One of my issues with work I do is that I often stop too soon.  Sometimes it's because I don't know what to do next and sometimes because I just get fed up and go on to the next thing!  Kim encouraged me to keep stitching and this how it looks now.   I'm looking forward to showing it to Kim today to see if it's done or whether there's more to do.

In addition I sorted out some more of my workbook.   I had taken photos of the 'panels' and had printed them out in case I wanted to work out where to stitch on them.  I tore them up and collaged them onto a page in my workbook.

I cut rectangles from another page so that parts of the collage peek through.

I printed out the photos of the Still Life and put them into my workbook.

I put together some of the torn paper left over from the large picture and put that in the book with a photo of the original.

And photos of the work in progress.

I'm looking forward to this weekend which is about knitting, felting, needle-felting and weaving.

Thansk for stopping by.
Bernice

A workshop with Cas Holmes

I spent the weekend at a Stitch Retreat organised by the amazing Nichola.  The workshop I was on was taught by the fabulous Cas Holmes and was called Edgelands:Layers, Stitch and Marks.

I usually go to workshops on my own and unless it's at Art from the Heart I don't know anyone at the workshop.  This leads to some anxiety on my part on the way there and a stern talking to myself about being friendly and talking to people.  The ladies on the course were all friendly and the three ladies at my table were really lovely and shared ideas.

The workshop started at 4pm on Friday afternoon.  And it started with what I hate most.  Drawing!  Yet another stern talking to myself inside my head about not bursting in to tears or walking out!  Cas took us through the drawing exercise and then we had to give our drawing to someone else.  At this point I was screaming inside - draw in someone else's book!  Have someone draw in my sketchbook!!!!  Arrggh!  Anyway after I had come down from these thoughts it turned out we were tracing over the person's drawing.  Phew!  And then we had our sketchbooks back and incorporated the other person's drawing into our own page.   My drawing is on the right.

I wanted to be able to work on my Venice theme rather than nature based topics.  Cas suggested that for my 'homework' I should use the same drawing exercise but use a piece of Venice source material.  I had this with me.

So later, after a large glass of wine!, I drew this.  The point of the exercise was to start drawing and not lift your pen off the paper until you had got to the end!

Tomorrow on my weekly Venice project blog post I'll show you what happened with this.

The whole weekend was great.  Once I calmed down from the drawing exercise and saw how Cas worked I had such a lovely time.  Doing the exercise was one way to get us to not be so 'precious' about what we produce and helped Cas to see how we worked and how to adjust her teaching plan to the makeup of the group.  Brilliant.

Over the rest of the weekend Cas shared her processes and demonstrated some techniques.  The rest of the time we worked on our own projects and Cas went round suggesting ideas or asking us questions.

Despite a full on weekend I came home really energised about my Venice project and how I can move forward with it.

My really bright light-bulb moment was sometime on Saturday when I realised that my artwork didn't have to be a true representation of my Venice photos but that it could be a reflection of those things that attract me in the architecture.

A page in my sktechbook

You can find out more about Cas' work and her processes in her books The Found Object and Stitch Stories.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

A great day out

On Wednesday, Roger & I drove over to near Bridgenorth, where I was dropped off at Laura Kemshall's new workshop studio to spend a day playing.  Roger went off walking on Clee Hill.

And here's some of what I did.

 

Here are some of the bits glued down in an unfinished composition.

I came away with a head full of ideas.  Of course whether this gets finished or gets chopped up into something else is anybody's guess.

But the day was fun and the process was great.  And that's all that matters.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice