. . and more from Art Van Go - part 1

 One of the 'flipped out' exercises.

It is unusual for me to teach two similar courses consecutively, but what a treat for me that it was my favourite workshop. I will concentrate on the end result of the workshop at Art Van Go.www.artvango.co.uk

as you will already have seen some similar work in the previous few posts.

My workshop Design, Inspiration and Interpretation is part of the design core that was part of my original four year course - Experimental Textiles. I am now teaching a shorter one year course of the same name at IDC/The Old Needle Works in Redditch. To have a look at what is involved in that course and for next years dates go to www.experimentaltextiles.com

 

Another 'flipped out' exercise.

It can be difficult to generate designs on demand. Even those of you with bulging sketchbooks of ideas can sometimes feel a bit lost when looking for inspiration. The formulae that I use to get students thinking about spaces in between and positive and negative space are not new and several other tutors use them - but they produce different results every time you do them. 

Creating original designs is so important in any line of work and whilst these exercises are methodical they can produce some fabulous results.

I am enjoying going back to basics with my workshops and am developing some new courses for next year. There are many workshops on fabulous and exciting techniques - but few on the basics, it will make such a difference to you and your work if you are confident on the basic use of colour and design.

This will be a two part post as the students created so much fabulous work.

Sue isolating a design from her 'journey'.

Once the students had isolated their designs and traced them off they were transferred into their sketchbooks. These designs were painted in two colourways - experimenting with contrasting and analogous colours and then whatever they fancied. These exercises are very basic - we all know how to do them - but we never take the time to do them. It is amazing how much you can get done when a tutor is standing over you . . .

Kate painting her designs.

 . . and Sue painting her designs.

Jackie produced this printing block (on the left) from one of her designs and this was the first print. She then had to decide if she wanted to overprint.

It is one of those things that you just have to try, if you don't try - you wont find out. If you don't like it - you can always print another sheet of paper.

Jackie was very pleased with the alternate overprints. she then had to decide whether to over print the rest.

. . . she did overprint the rest and this is the result - FABULOUS!

I always thoroughly enjoy teaching in the Art Van Go Studio, Kevin and Viv always look after their tutors and students so well. I am looking forward to working with Viv to develop some new 'Back to Basics' workshops.

I will show you what Lana, Kate and Linda got up to tomorrow . .

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All the exercises featured in the past few posts can be found in my book Experimental Textiles.