Surface, Structure, Stitch at City Lit: Week 6

  Week 6 already of  Surface, Structure , Stitch  with Louise Baldwin  at  City Lit  and we were looking at  joins, seams, darts , pleats , and  tucks.  I'd done some homework   looking through some of the many books I own , especially the ones above.  We looked at the work of  Karen Nichol,  Caroline Bartlett, Joan Livingstone , Debbie Lyddon,  Tanana  Takite

 Louise had  lots and lots of samples : use of darts to give volume; pleats on different fabrics, manipulated into shapes;  joining  different fabrics( the seam of the 'back' being just as interesting); inserting small pieces  into seams; pintucks in different directions  with waxing ; working on the bias  with zigzag giving ' lettuce' effect ;  working with  various weight/types of fabric, giving different effects; smocking, suturing , faggoting  stitches  to join  edges. 

 One technique   caught the imagination of several of us  -  using  a bobbin of  tightly wound shirring elastic ( or ' knicker elastic'  as someone referred to it !)   on very taut fabric held in a hoop, stitching from the top with ordinary thread, 

  I didn't have  a chance to do a ' before' shot  as the tension  while stitching finally came too much  and it burst out of the hoop !  Nice effect but  would need a lot of practice ( and hand winding the tensioned bobbins was hard )

 Thinking of my limpet shapes, I spent  time just using  different  weights of calico and  muslin , using darts to make the shape and then using pin tucks in between to give structure ( Louise suggested I could insert kebab sticks in the pintucks to give it even more form )  

 I'd bought some of my ecoprinted fabrics with me  and started to apply  the same processes to that 

 Then  while I was in pleating   mode,  Louise suggested I use the 'Princess Pleater' smocking machine .  Caroline Bartlett  ( who also teaches at City Lit)  puts yards and yards  of it through  to make her work .  

  This is my  16 needle Read Pleater which I bought secondhand  years ago   for shibori but have used very little,  but I'm keen  to experiment  with after   seeing its potential.

 The hardest part  was threading the needles as I'd cut my left thumb badly and the plaster made it difficult  to hold.  The trick is to use long lengths of threads   to push the pleated fabrics off the needles .  I put through  strips of muslin, folding it as  I turned the handle;  cotton organdie  and the ecoprinted  linen ( which being so soft   was lovely to work with )

 This could get addictive  but I need to concentrate on sorting out what I'm going to take on my annual textile retreat   at Glenthorne in the Lake District  next week ( it'll be my 9th trip) .  As I'll be missing a class , Louise   went through what we'd be doing exploring the possibilities of using one shape in a variety of ways , manipulating and making multiples so I have homework to do !  

Daily Drawing : 30DaySketchbookChallenge2020 Part 2

Well I completed the #30daysketchbookchallenge2020   and stuck to the prompts ( mostly) although some of my interpretations  were  a bit  off piste. With the confidence of have drawn for a year, I didn't count it as cheating that some were done in collage, Photoshop, a piece of fabric or a copy of  some artwork done previously rather than   conventional art materials , it was more important that  what I  did   meant something to me or came from my own images . 

Like last year, for January 31st  I did a page of thumbnail sketches ( above) showing my responses to the prompts.  It was great to share my work and to see the imaginative  interpretations  of over 5000 participants (  and several of my friends also took part )     

 Day 15  'Something that Floats'    Day 16 'Something that smells good' 

Day 17 ' Something that smells bad'  Day  18 'Supermarket' 

Day 19 'Technology'           Day   20 'The Four Seasons'

 Day 21 'Reflections'  Day   22 'Cartoon'

Day 23 ' My Hobbies'    Day 24 ' The Zoo' ( woodlice in my compost bin and all the vernacular names for them) 

 Day 25 'Famous People' ( Zandra Rhodes in fluorescent markers)   Day  26 'Fairies and Goblins'  ( ancient goddesses )

Day 27 ' Weird Science'    Day 28 ' Favourite Place' ( Fleet Lagoon while I was there! )

 Day 29 ' Film'  ( Chesil Beach)     Day  30 'Goals'  ( Stitch Samples )

 1 and 2  February  :  Views from underwater camera at Fleet Lagoon;  Streets of Chiswell  

 The prompt for ' My Favourite Place'  was excellently timed for when I was actually at my favourite place, the Chesil Beach visitor centre overlooking  Fleet Lagoon !  And  I made a  good start continuing  in February drawing   while on  holiday in Weymouth.  

Surface, Structure, Stitch at City Lit: Week 1

 I really enjoyed the first session  of  ' Surface, Structure, Stitch'  with Louise Baldwin  at City Lit. Although I've done lots of drawing and painting courses there, this was the first textile  course I've done . The session with Ruth Brison  during EDAM gave me a taster of the possibilities of combining drawing and stitch and I'm interested in moving more into 3D  work so it seemed the prefect combination.  I love  Louise's work, and bought a small piece for  our wedding anniversary in 2016 and I'd heard  from other students  that her teaching  and encouragement  were excellent. 

EDAM  Limpets in paper and stitch 

 The course  is 12 weeks , the first 7 weeks exploring techniques  and the final 5  applying them to a  theme  ' Held by Nature' . We started off with a  mind-mapping session in small groups exploring ideas around the starting point of  containers that occur in nature. 

There was a wide selection of shells,  seed pods etc   available and we made  several sketches of the textures  on sheets of paper divided up with masking tape ( good tip   to give frames around the marks ) 

After lunch we worked from these sketches   using  a variety  of different white papers  ( tracing paper , photocopier paper, tissue paper etc )   and gluing, stapling , stitching  to hold them together .  

 I loved the effect  of crumpled tracing paper   and once home , I scanned some of my  paper textures  ( Louise had taken some peoples work to photocopy, to show the effect  of  change of scale  and multiple copies )

 When she came to see what I'd been doing,  seeing how prolific I was  ( !)  she suggested taking one  or two of  my ideas and producing lots  and lots of them and join them together  in different ways

  I had good intentions to make more of these knots  but concentrated instead on ripping photocopier  paper and gluing  them down  with  torn edges slightly raised ( based on drawings of oyster  shells.)

  We finished with a Powerpoint showing images of  how  a variety of artists had interpreted natural objects , creating relief or 3D structures . Some like Debbie Lyddon  ( who I'll be doing a course with in July )  I was very familiar  with,  others less so.  

The next session is on machine quilting ( my main challenge will be getting used to  the college sewing machines !)  and homework  to start collecting images  to do with the theme. 

  I'd certainly like to  continue to explore  mussels  further. 

 From last years sketchbooks I'm inspired by the ' pod' forms of Junko Oki  and  Fabienne  Dorsman Rey 

  Chestnuts might feature 

   And  limpets of course!