Hand Embroidery: Embellishing Printed Fabrics

Participants work: Textile marker and stitch on printed fabric

One of my favourite elements of my work is running workshops. I love taking an idea to people, sharing it with them and seeing how differently everyone interprets it. Last year I was asked to do a couple of textile based workshops for Tullie House's Saturday Sessions, the first of which was in February.

Set up and ready to go in the lovely Meeting Room at Tullie House

Ready to go

Selection of fabrics to work into

For a while now I have been taking printed fabrics and working into them with textile markers and hand embroidery. It struck me that this would be an excellent workshop idea. One of the comments I get a lot is that people would like to stitch but they can't draw or make their own designs. I happen to think this is rubbish and that with a bit of guidance everyone can come up with a creative design but I also think that when there's an easy solution to an issue why not try that first?

Using textile markers to add colour to the fabric and give a base for stitching

Adding colour and personality with textile markers

The aim of this workshop was to give people a starting point to explore colour and hand embroidery. By using printed fabrics the scary element of making one's own design is removed so the focus can be on experimenting with stitch and colour. At a time when the rise of the adult colouring book seems unstoppable it seems clear that the creative desire is out there, it just needs a bit of nurturing and encouraging.

Adding stitch to our coloured in fabrics 

Adding stitch to our coloured in fabrics 

Deciding which stitch to choose first

Despite a few technical hitches at the start of the day it was a really lovely workshop with a lovely group of people. The atmosphere was very relaxed and quiet, with everyone focused on their work quietly enjoying the slow meditative qualities that hand stitch offers interspersed with lots of interesting conversations. One of the participants described the workshop as a treat which as well as being a great compliment I thought was very apposite; in our busy lives it can be hard to find time to sit still and work on something as time consuming as a hand embroidery so it is a treat to have a whole day focused on just that.

Work in progress

Work in progress

Work in progress: Effective use of feather stitch to build texture and depth

I always find that workshops are very much a two way learning experience, I hope that my participants learn from me and go away enthused and with new ideas and skills but I usually find that I come away with something new too. On this occasion I discovered new artists to research and learnt about some of the characters in Carlisle's textile teaching past. I even had time to work on one of my own pieces which I really appreciated.

Bright and bold colours and stitching

Stitch, buttons, sequins and colour creating a beautiful and unique piece

Working on my own piece...

I also always enjoy seeing how people handle the same media so differently and am often inspired by their approaches. One of the participants chose to cut up some of the motifs from her chosen fabric and this really changed the technique and opened up new possibilities. I also sold a piece of work so that's always a nice confidence boost! At the end of the session I felt full of inspiration and ideas and excited about the next workshop at Tullie House (which if you are interested is making mini Textile Banners on 23rd April!)

Simple, bold colours add an interesting twist to this piece

And it changes again when the motifs are cut out

I love the colours in this bird and the careful choice of stitch

Bright and chirpy!

Felt Progression

Experimenting with additions to felt

I had an excellent session with the No Borders art group at Carleton Day Centre today. It was the penultimate session and everyone was in a good mood and working hard (I think the sunshine and toast helped!) One of the aims of this block of sessions was to give the guys the chance to develop their skills and take things further. I had already done some felt making with this group before but these sessions have given us the opportunity to really build on previous work, try new things and push their work forward.

Laying out fibres

Blending fibre colours

Rolling the felt, the hard bit!

The group has decided to make a joint piece of work, a hanging sculptural piece for the centre which will first go on display in the Prism Arts studio in Carlisle for C-Art in September. Over the past six weeks we have been experimenting with different elements of felt making such as making felt beads and sausages as well as developing our work with flat felt. All these elements are going to be incorporated into the finished sculpture. I can't wait to start putting it all together next week as I'm really excited about how it's going to turn out.

Making beads

Sliced felt beads

So, today we carried on preparing all the elements for the final piece and also working on some individual pieces. One of the things that I most enjoy about working with people is seeing how they take on and develop ideas. It is very satisfying to see someone make something with a technique you have shown them but which they have adapted to suit their way of working and their vision.

Painting the sculptures base (yes it is a lampshade!)

Arts Award Part 2: Painting on Canvasses

Some of the finished canvasses displayed together

I posted before about the skills session I did in preparation for an Arts Award workshop at The Hut in Brampton. This week I did the workshop and had a lot of fun in the process. Following on from the skills session where we looked at colour theory and texture we focused in this session on creating a finished piece of work, inspired by artist Gillian Ayres. The plan was for each student to work on an individual canvas and then all the canvasses could be put together to make one big piece.

Drawing to music

Drawing to music

As well as the primary school students I worked with before we were also joined by some of the students from William Howard secondary school as this is part of a transition project helping make the move from primary to secondary school a bit easier. All the students were great and worked really hard for the whole session. One of the things I was really pleased with was that at the end it was hard to tell which pieces had been produced by the younger students and which had been produced by the older ones, they all really got the idea and produced some fantastic work.

Drawing to music

Designs for canvasses

To get everybody warmed up and into a creative frame of mind I started off by asking the students to draw to music. I played three different pieces and asked them to choose their colours and the type of mark they made according to how the music made them feel. Although I think some of them found this quite difficult I think it was a good exercise to get them thinking about colour and mark making and how it relates to feelings in a piece of art. It was also interesting watching them as the atmosphere in the room changed considerably with each piece of music.

Picking one area of a design

Simplifying shapes and applying paint

After this exercise we had another look at Gillian Ayres work and this time I asked them to focus on the different shapes as well as the colours and textures. I then asked them to work on a design for their individual canvasses, focusing on bold abstracted shapes. For a lot of the students this was very difficult, they are used to observational drawing and being asked to make things look 'real' so to then have to change to making something abstract was quite a challenge. One of the ways I encouraged them to get round this was to pick a small area of their design and make it bigger so that it became abstract and to simplify their shapes as much as possible. I was very impressed with the students because it was quite a challenge for them but they all managed it really well.

Adding flour and sand for extra texture

Colour mixing

Once they had their abstracted designs we moved on to painting the canvasses, drawing on the skills session to encourage the students to really think about how to apply the paint and how to create lots of texture. There was a really good atmosphere in the room and everyone got involved and some fantastic pieces were created.

Bold colours, shapes and textures

Different approaches

It was great at the end of the session to lay all the canvasses out and see how much work they had done, they worked through all morning without a break (or complaint) and the finished pieces are very impressive. Hopefully they are all going on display in Brampton and I can't wait to see them. I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project, the teachers and students were great and I think they've created a beautiful piece of work.

Some of the completed canvasses

Finished canvas

Finished canvas

Arts Award Skills Session

Creative approaches to paint application

I had a fantastic time at Fir Ends School on Friday where I ran a skills session in preparation for a workshop at The Hut in Brampton. I was working with Year 6 students from three different schools (including Fir Ends) plus the Year 5 students from Fir Ends. The workshop I'm doing is going towards the students Arts Award and the Arts Award project is being done in conjunction with William Howard School (the local secondary school) as a transition project to help the students move from primary to secondary school. I think that anything that can help students through this difficult time is a good thing and having just done my Arts Award Advisor training I was really pleased to get involved with an Arts Award project.

Colour theory

The students were looking at artist Gillian Ayres, an abstract painter who works with vibrant colours and bold shapes. For the skills session we looked at some basic colour theory and then at ways of creating texture using paint, pastels and other media. I wasn't familiar with Ayres work before and I very much enjoyed researching her life and work, it is always good to be introduced to new artists and although my work is very different to hers it is always interesting to learn about different artists approaches and thoughts.

Colour mixing

Colour mixing

To help demonstrate colour mixing and show how secondary colours are made I used jars of water with food colouring in. I asked them what would happen when we mixed pairs of primary colours (red and blue, blue and yellow etc.) and then we tried it. I then asked the students to make their own colour wheels and to mix the secondary colours themselves using either pastels or paint. They picked it up really quickly and it was great seeing them experiment.

Adding sand to paint

As the work of Gillian Ayres is very textural the second part of the skills session focused on looking at how to apply media and how to mix materials to create different effects. I'd brought lots of different things for them to experiment with and it was great watching them get stuck in and try things out. I was really keen to get them to think about different ways of using familiar materials, so rather than applying paint with a brush getting them to try applying it with a knife, for example. I think this approach makes art a lot less scary as it removes some of the fear of getting it 'wrong' and it also makes it fun. I believe that taking a creative and experimental approach is not only good in art classes but helps students think creatively and become better problem solvers in other areas too.

Using different tools

Using different tools

As always there was a wide range of approaches taken by the students but it was great to see them grow in confidence through the session and start to really experiment. I love it when they find something they like and come over to tell me about it, one of the things I talked about was the importance of finding your own personal approach to art and to see them take that on board and put it into practice is incredibly rewarding.

Using different tools

Using different tools

I was also asked to give a small presentation about my own work and what it is like being an artist. I was quite nervous about doing this but it was actually quite a useful exercise as it gave me an opportunity to look at my work and think about how it has progressed and developed. I was also happy to be able to talk to the students about 'real life' as an artist; at school I loved art but didn't think you could do it as a job, hopefully seeing that people can make a living from art may help one or two of the students further down the line.

Experiments

Different approaches

Different approaches

I'm really looking forward to the workshop, I had such a good time at the school working with the students. Sessions like this are so inspiring as you never know what new idea or way of doing something the students will come up with and it's great being able to share my skills and see the students all fired up and enjoying themselves. I love my work!