Friday, 29 July 2011

Translation days

 The next workshop will take place in September this year - not long to go...

If you didn't manage to get to one of the artist led workshops, and feel you would still like to join in Kickstart this year Pam Keeling will be running two 'translation days' for those who feel they would like advice and/or guidance on work they have started either on their own or at one of the summer workshops.




skiing repeat image from the book courtesy Toni Stanford

For those who have done at least one of the summer workshops, there will be some suggestions as to how to interpret the paper work into fabric and thread. 

For those who didn't, but may have started to produce ideas on their own - not only might they be able to glean ideas coming from the workshop suggestions, but individual tuition will be given to all.

These workshops are priced at £28 for the day, and you will need to bring your ideas and resources with you (and, of course, lunch).

Pam will cover a range of product development ideas, useful developments from your  inspiration into textile production for the exhibition.

1. Saturday 17th September 2011
at Swinford Village Hall, Chapel Street, Swinford Nr. Lutterworth, Leicestershire, LE17 6AZ

or

2. Sunday 2nd October 2011
at Dunholme Village Hall, Honeyholes Lane, Dunholm, Lincoln LN2 3SU
Please contact Penny Marsden to book a place: pennymarsden@gmail.com

One of our book sponsors





Monday, 25 July 2011

Collograph play day with Janine Pope

On Sunday 24th July a few more Guild members cut, stabbed, punched and shellac'd their way to creating a collograph plate for printing purposes.

Work in progres


Janine, part Scandinavian, is an artist working with print, text and fabric to create individual pieces. An award winning bookbinder she began the day showing a few of the things she creates under the pseudonym of
Mud Rabbit.


One of Janine's glorious collograph plates

We built up low relief textures on mount board, carving into the board too,; we used bits if vintage haberdashery, eggshells, shiny surface card etc to create texture - this became our printing 'plate.'


Pam's synchronized swimmers

Everything was held down with wood glue and varnished with shellac; the plates dried in the sun outside while we ate lunch before getting our hands dirty.

Janine discussed the work of artist Rex Ray - and Lance Letscher, artworks made by a similar process of collage.

Heavy weight cartridge paper and 'Fabriano Rosaspina' paper (there's a name to conjure with)  were cut to size and put to soak in a water bath whilst we were shown the methods of  blind embossing, inking plates and running plates through the roller press.


Janine with Pam at the small press

The rest of the afternoon was ours to experiment - with sandwiches of newsprint, inked (or not) plate, fabriano, newsprint, blanket and a good bit of exercise for upper arm definition we all came away with printed designs.

Nichola exercising on the big roller


Many of course worked on fabrics - we're textile artists, what else? Some had followed ideas around the kickstart theme, and water played a significant part in many ideas; others just played with the process.


Carol inking up her watery themed plate

Another generous artist, providing multi coloured inks, papers, and all the equipment necessary for a fabulous workshop - thanks Janine!

Blind embossing - inspired by the previous days' cartoon workshop


Comments from the feedback sheets:

"A very enjoyable day - lots of energy from the tutor"
"...this tutor was absolutely brilliant!"
"... excellent - fantastic day"
" completely ignorant of technique but by the end of the day I had made three good prints - excellent tutor!"

Saturday, 23 July 2011

Cartooning with 'Gilby' 23rd July 2011

A small but select group got together at Asfordby Village Hall on Saturday 23rd July to learn cartooning techniques with Derby-based artist Andy Gilbert.

One of the lines written in the Kickstart booklet suggests using the lines used in comic strips to denote movement.

On the basis of that we booked Andy as something very different to the usual textile related workshop format.

Andy had provided everything for the day- each participant was given a new sketchbook, pencil and marker pen to work with. It is unsual to attend workshops with little or no requirements list and for this seasons Kickstart we have been very fortunate in the generosity of our tutors.

He introduced us to the world of commercial cartooning, in particular the greetings card market; how he goes about designing and ideas for humerous captions, and all interspersed with guidance on drawing the cartoons.


Tricks were introduced in order to simplify designs for print reduction, giving direction to the eyes of the character, hairstyles, and detail to create individuals.


hairstyle alone can change gender, but add an earing and eyelashes and Hey Presto!


Changing expressions - here we started with the same basic character drawn four times on the page
By changing the placement of the iris, the shape of the mouth and the hair and eyebrows we have four very different characters.


Pam's Pooch

A child is created by making the eyes more circular, the nose smaller and the face more squashed and not elongated - add freckles a smile and his favourite pooch ......If only it were that simple?

After a lunch taken away from the work, and a good chat, we returned to be set a 10 minute challenge - given the suggestion of 'cooking' we each had to draw a characer in a setting with a caption - humerous if possible.   I am sure we all felt a bit daunted but everyone rose to the task and we had men with camping stoves, dogs and lobsters doing the cooking, wonderful kitchen settings with pots and pans and many varied characters.

as the comments on one feedback form suggested: "It was good to have everyone moving together as a group"

We then learnt to add the bodies to our characters and make them move: walking, jogging and running:


Dawn's whistling jogger

Andy provided some wonderful bright, vibrant color markers to complete the sketches:


Joyce's first lady?



and each participant was provided with a good quality A3 Bristol Board to make a final piece of art




Everyone had the opportunity to ask questions throughout the session, Andy very obligingly gave suggestions of ways to draw many characters on request from Lions, to Mice, to a snoring man in his bed  - the antithesis to movement perhaps?

comments from the feedback forms:

"Tutor able to answer all specific questions from individuals - very pleased to help and illustrate what he meant"
"Confidence to attempt some cartoon drawing - a brilliant session!"
"learnt how to draw cartoon characters; very useful for my kickstart project. A lot of showing + doing + practice - very well led session"
" the use of simple lines to create movement, atmosphere and emotion - achieved all my learning objectives"

Thank you Andy for an inspiring and fulfilling workshop.

Saturday, 16 July 2011

Muscle -moving on?

Take a typical image from a medical dictionary:
look at ways another artist may depict similar images. I like the work of Peter Randall Page and whilst I don't think this is where he gets his inspiration I can see some similarity to muscle tone:


on Google I found a student designer using Peter Randall Page as inspiration in 2009;
By 2011 Scottacus Anthony was producing this:


and it isn't too far of a stretch of the imagination to look at Peter Randall Page's aquatint etchings to see where it might have come from:
and all this from looking up muscle images...

Movement

Check this blog out for ideas in movement:

http://theartofed.com/2010/06/08/showing-movement-in-artwork/

Thursday, 7 July 2011

Inspiration...?

How about this for a pixelation of an idea for sporty goings-on? A friend has taken her son and friends to the snowdome to celebrate the end of GCSE'S and this pixelated picture - posted on facebook - already looks like a piece of textile artwork

Friday, 1 July 2011

The next workshop days are looming fast!

The four Artist’s Education days are concerned with starting points and looking at how other artists may develop ideas into designs that will be useful for a variety of techniques and processes (research and design development). The workshops are all 10am to 4pm and cost £28 for the day- excellent value!
The first two have taken place - see blog posts below.
 
The third is on Saturday 23rd July 2011 at Asfordby Parish Hall, Asfordby Nr. Melton Mowbray, with Derby based cartoonist and humorous illustrator Andy Gilbert.
The fourth is on Sunday 24th July 2011  at Asfordby Parish Hall, Asfordby Nr. Melton Mowbray, with artist and printmaker Janine Pope.

E-mail pennymarsden@gmail.com to book a place asap