Creative Potential 1 Jan 09

I have just started a monthly class with Brenda Boardman (at The Bramble Patch) called Explore your Creative Potential.

This is the piece that I started in my first class on Jan 10th 2009.
It is based on a photo of plane tree bark.


I decided to take just a small part of the image. I did the background (flat) areas during the class and here I have just started to add some surface texture using different fabrics.


I now want to add more texture using scrims etc.

Turner Exhibition Courtauld Gallery

Went to the Turner exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House, The Strand which had some lovely pictures and very interesting texts and labels. But our favourite picture in another part of the gallery was this Francis Towne (Llyn Cewlllyn near Snowdon). I love the clear light and the starkness of the lines. An added bonus was the gallery was free to UK university staff.

Burnham Beeches

A cold and frosty walk in Burnham Beeches. We go here often and I love seeing the changing seasons in this magnificent woodland.

Workshop day 5

Restructuring fabric is what this is all about and today I have to admit I started to slack a bit. In fact I'm exhausted but still excited by all the ideas going round.

I decided to not start another big piece but started on some tiny studies.

I like the square and rectangle and I like log cabin type blocks. So I tried cutting stips of stripsets and making rounds of squares within squares.


So that's it.
An unforgettable week with Nancy.
I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Workshop day 4

Make a strippy quilt based on some of the strip sets you have made plus added strips, shapes etc.

I ended up making something that looked more like an Ashanti cloth than anything else.
It all ended up looking a bit sombre.


I might leave it as a throw or I could cut it up and use it in something else.

I realised that I don't have enough value contrast. An almost all of my fabrics are a bit dull!!!

Workshop day 3

Another day making more strip sets.

This time using printed fabrics.
I found this a lot harder as if there were too many choices.

But I had fun making lots of different types of fabrics.

Transforming ordinary fabrics into something really different.

Workshop day 2

Then we had to make loads of strip sets.

You had to work so quickly that it made you make decisions about what colours and widths to use. Without agonising about it or even trying to make it TOO pretty.

Lots of different combinations of neutrals, colour families, gradations etc.

Workshop day 1

Well its' true.
You have to work really hard just to keep up.
On day one it seemed impossible. By the end of the week we were doing 10 impossible things before breakfast.

First thing.
Make black and white strip sets, cut them up. Make two compositions
One a plaid and one a check.



They should look different.

And all before bedtime.

A new start

I've decided to scrap the old blog and start again. it never really got going and I didn't really have a use for it.

BUT

I have just spent a week at a workshop with Nancy Crow and it just blew me away. I worked so hard that my brain hurt but at the same time I was so excited that I couldn't sleep.

In the next few days I'll try and post the work that I did during the workshop and then week by week the stuff that I am now doing to follow up on that.

I hope that you will comment on them, hopefully in a friendly and constructive way, so that I can try and cement some of the many things that I tried to follow during the workshop.