ExTex 4 Weekend 1 June 13th & 14th

The girls getting stuck in.

 We have started again - Experimental Textiles 4 has begun. There are 9 students in the group, Trisha, Karen, Caroline, Rosie, Anna, Jackie, Catherine, Joe and Nadia. They are a fabulous group, coming from all areas of the UK, Scotland, Manchester and North Yorkshire as well as the Birmingham area. We had a great time together over the weekend. In the first session we work on design formulae and isolate designs ready to make printing blocks in the next session.
We started off by painting 'The Journey'.
Building up the shapes and lines. The students are asked to paint a journey, it could be a walk on the moon, through an enchanted forest or taking the children to school. It doesn't have to be representational.
The 9 journeys all lined up.
Sections taken from the journeys.
The next design exercise was one I use called 'Expanded'.
And then the next exercise was 'flipping out'.
The next stage was to take 2 sections from each exercise.
Taking sections with 'L' shapes is very simple. Working with 'L' shapes is a great way of looking, deciding how much of one shape to leave out and which line to leave in.

Once the designs are isolated they are traced off using tracing paper.
The designs are then transferred onto cartridge paper or into a sketchbook with carbon paper. 


 
The transferred designs are then painted in 2 colours.
 
Playing with colour. It's good to work with different 2 colour combinations
Another way to use the designs is to flip and mirror them. This is really simple with carbon paper.
Some of the flipping and mirroring.
 
Anna taking a section . . .
Flipping and mirroring the design using carbon paper.


New designs are then created. I do love this technique. You can do this by scanning your design into your computer and flipping and mirroring in whichever photo/art program you use. 
But I like to do this the old fashioned way.

Our next session is in July - but before that there will be the first session of ExTeXtra, the continuation course for my ex students. July is going to be a very exciting month. 

***

This Saturday I will be delivering a lecture - Textile Travels - at Gravesend library for the North Kent Embroiderers Guild. It's good to be back at work.

x


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