10th April - Creative Collage with Clare Wasserman

We had a fun afternoon with Clare making  creative collages.

Clare started the afternoon with a talk on collage. She explained its use in Surrealism, Pop Art and making political statements.

The word collage comes from the French word coller, to stick.

She showed us examples of work by many artists who used collage in their work including Lee Krasner, Wangechi Mutu, James Castle and John Piper.

We were then sent off to find three items to create a still life. We used magazine paper, painted papers , paper napkins etc and cut these freely into the shapes of the three items.

Here are some of our still life creations

The second half of the session was to create a self portrait using the same technique to show our personality.

This was also great fun and here are some of our branch!!!

    
                             

                                                                                                

Thank you Clare for a great afternoon

 Saturday 20th March - 'Pods' workshop - Elise Stewart

We spent a very pleasant afternoon stitching 'pods' with Elise. These were based on 'pods' that some of us had already done with Alysn Midgelow- Marsden.

Elise had emailed the pattern to us and most of us cut these out in felt. Some of the felt had already been embellished with fibres to create a more interesting surface. One of the members made hers with a semi transparent fabric . When stitched it created a very delicate pod.

We all added stitch, beads and sequins while we chatted, stitched them together and put in some stuffing.

Here are some of the beautiful results

                                            

                                                             

                                                                       

   

           

 

Thank you for facilitating this Elise.

 March 6th - Edwina MacKinnon - Colour Stories - Zoom lecture

Edwina began her talk by explaining how important colour is in her work. She explained about the colour wheel.

This first quilt called Ashes of Roses uses an 8" Kaleidoscope block and started with one fabric and the swirling feel was achieved by the use of colour within each block. It was machine quilted in circles with added seed stitch.

She collects together fabrics within a colour palette and then plays. This quilt is using  a cut and come again technique . Without the pinky red this would not have been as exciting.

Using the same technique she used a range of indigo dyed fabrics and then added a complementary X in orange . She also used orange within the quilting.

Edwina has always enjoyed using indigo fabrics and here she added compementary orange squares to 2 1/2" strips to create a 'Potato chip' quilt . She says this is a useful way of using up small strips from a stash or using a 'Jelly Roll' selection of fabrics.

With  14 former members of her first City and Guilds class 2 years ago  they put in a metre of fabric within a colour range and then had back a piece of that metre. Together with a piece from each member they added one more fabric of their own (the background in this wall hanging) and produced a selection of wall hangings, waistcoats , table runners etc for an exhibition.

The cups are the 13 other members and the cupcakes are for the 20 years celebration.

Edwina's next challenge was looking at food, in particular Sushi.

She used the colours and shapes of the Sushi and drew these onto fabric using Procion dye applied with a pen. These shapes were applied to a linen background and quilted in circles and seed stitch to represent the rice.

The next quilt shows how Edwina took the colours from hydrangeas and dropped mixed dye into soya wax shapes . The quilting uses the word Hydrangea many times and the shapes of the Hydrangea

The next piece was influenced by her visit to Matera in Italy and combines the subtle colours of the buildings with small amounts of jade to represent the colours of the doors. The honeycomb shapes come from the caves.

Edwina used Matera again to create a Screen printed piece using masking tape for the shapes of the buildings.

This piece was inspired by lichen at Coughton Court

Edwina is currently working on a Dear Jane quilt . It comprises  4" squares some containing up to 50 pieces , using a selection of indigo, potassium permanganate dyed and cream fabrics

Thank you Edwina for a fascinating talk. We were all so inspired

 20th February - Mini workshop - Bushkiri Bags

This workshop was based on the article in Stitch Magazine on Bushkiri Bags by Dorothy Morrison.

It was lovely to stitch and chat albeit virtually.

Here are some of the completed bags

       

   

                                     

 February 6th  - Susan Brisco - Coming together of Art and Science - Macro to Micro world of plants

Sue started her lecture by telling us that she had two aspects to her work - traditional and contemporary

She undertook a 3 year Diploma in Botanical Art with the Society of Botanical Artists. She made sketches of pieces out in the field and then made detailed compositions back in the studio. She was marked on scientific accuracy and colour by tutors who are both botanists and artists. Susan told us that this had made her gain great confidence in using watercolour.

While studying plants in detail for this Diploma, she became interested in pollens and particularly those which caused Hay fever. Sue said it was a privilege to be given Arts Council England funding for her 'Sneeze' project. This was to investigate pollens in microscopic detail and then use them for drawings and installations She showed us Willow pollen and Hazel pollen under 6000 times magnification. Some of them even seemed to have 'faces'.

Sue worked in collaboration with Doctors , Professors and technicians to get the detailed images using scanning electroscopy.  She than had to decide on the Art projects.

Sue's first piece was a mix of drawing, film and sound . The drawing was in the style of Michelangelo showing lungs . The film and sound were added to this

She then did a series of chalk drawings on a black surface of the pollen walls.

 











  

Studying the pollen under the microscope on slides inspired the installation below. the colour came from the dye that was used on the slides. Sue painted on glass for this piece of work with detailed drawings of different pollen grains

    

Sue also created postcards which were put together in an envelope with part of a Goethe poem ' The metamorphosis of plants' on the outside. Science is imagined through poetry. This poem also gave titles to her pieces 

Sue was pleased that the project reached 10,000 people both on line and physically.

A fascinating lecture. Thank you Sue.