Jo Owen Workshop 26th June 2011

Sheffield based textile artist Jo Owen is an experienced artist and tutor; her work reflects an interest in the human form through clothing the body and figure drawings. The fascinating pattern and textural qualities produced by painting, manipulating, layering and stitching fabric and paper are endlessly explored in her work.



Michelle's prints - never underestimate the humble potato!

Extract from the kickstart book: "Bodies in water and water movement are endlessly fascinating. Swimmers, divers, sporting events or people playing, they all become distorted by water movement. The combination of bodies, costumes, tile shapes, water, reflections, lane markers all add to the pattern formed."

Capturing moving images can be difficult, movement can be difficult to draw, and Jo worked with quick sketches and lots of words to capture the moment. She used reflection as a design source and as a method of reminding herself of what she had seen.

Pva'd tissue, marbling, photographic images, and repeat pattern are all sources for imagery distorted and fragmented by the movement of water, and the play of light and reflection on its surface.

Sarah's swimmers

 In the morning Jo guided us on her own journeys through water, with exercises and design ideas; the weather was glorious and all our efforts on paper and fabric dried quickly in the sun enabling us to move on. We used sheers and shimmer, calico and paper, layering and stitching to build a number of ideas to take away and move forward.

printed sheer fabrics

Jo Gave her time to everyone individually in the afternoon to discuss ideas and ways to move forward. It was a hot bright day - probably the hottest this year?

The humble potato (with a little dressing of acrylic paint for good measure) allowed the creation of crowd scenes, cycle helmets, poolside and splashes... everyone had a thoroughly rewarding day - thank you Jo for your inspiration and guidance, the comments from the feedback sheets reflect the success of the day:

'This is my first Kickstart and I'm really pleased I've joined'
'..in all extending my horizons..'
'Interesting techniques, very good tutor'
'Jo spent lots of time talking to each person about their work and making suggestions...'

layered viewers by the poolside?

Graeme Reed Workshop 25th June 2011



Jenny's Ice Hockey Player



Creating Crowds

Watching the game

Toni in creative mode

An excellent workshop today with Graeme Reed, an Ashbourne based artist/illustrator.

An extract from the Kickstart book suggested crowds:

 “Lots of people! What a daunting thought.

… skiing … felt as if the slopes were crowded with skiers all rushing at me. To capture this feeling I traced a line diagram from a ‘How To’ book. I then drew it again and again until the page was full of overlapping figures. 

The drawing could be worked on to make it more abstract. The figures could be coloured in the bright colours that skiers wear. The outline could be quilted. The figures could be drawn in much more detail.

If you imagine an aerial shot of The Great North Run crossing one of the bridges over the Tyne, all you can see are the heads and shoulders with only the figures at the front and sides having bodies and legs. This is true for lots of crowd shots.”

Graeme identified ways of interpreting crowd scenes; he was generous with both his ideas and his resources,.

We started with quick warm up drawing exercises using photographs of crowd scenes (and imagination); we created line drawings to try and capture the mood of the crowd, continuous line and blind continuous line drawings, using pen and pencil.

Graeme then introduced mono printing techniques and various coloured inks; throughout the day we worked with 4 versions:

Line drawn, Stencilling with vectorgraphic images, Wiping to create dark and light, and Painterly mono prints introducing more colour.

Some images were more abstract and created the ‘feel’ of the crowd, some were clearer and representational; quality of mark and line, colour shape and tone were all employed differently to produce an array of images to move on into stitch.

Comments from the feedback forms:

"a thoroughly good lesson!"

"Wonderful  Tutor"

"Really inspiring workshop  thank you"

"really enjoyed the workshop, could have happily carried on for much longer" 

Thank you Graeme for a brilliant day!

Artist-led inspiration days coming up next weekend

 Saturday 25^th June 2011 at Risley Village Memorial Hall Nr Derby, with Ashbourne based artist and printmaker Graeme Reed. 

Sunday 26^th June 2011 at Risley Village Memorial Hall Nr Derby with Sheffield based textile artist Jo Owen

There are still a few places left so get in touch if you would like to join in

Chocolate - The Exhibition - at Cromford Mill

Now Closed! It was an eclectic and vibrantly colourful mixed bag of sweeties... lots of sparkly wrappers, full of cocoa beans.
If anyone would like to submit photos of their entries for publication on the blog let me know