Blog Hop Tutorials

To celebrate the extension of Stitched to January 2013 Alma Stoller has organized a blog hop which will start in March. There will be two free tutorials a week, in fact mine, which starts on 6^th March, will be in two parts.

We hope you will enjoy them and have fun; there should be plenty of variety.

March 1st: Deborah  http://deborahsjournal.blogspot.com/

March 5th: Paula   http://www.paulajoerling.com/

March 6th: Jackie   http://stitchworks-jackie.blogspot.com/

March 8th: Mollie     http://wildolive.blogspot.com/

March 13th:  Cindy Caraway     http://artfullivingonthebluff.blogspot.com/

March 15th: Jennifer   http://sewhooked.com/

March 20th: Kelli     http://ephemeralalchemy.blogspot.com/?z

March 22nd: Tracie   http://www.radicalrecycks.com/

March 27th: Alma        http://www.almastoller.blogspot.com

March 29th: Ann Tucker    http://thelavendartree.blogspot.com/

Click here to visit Alma Stoller.

Burning and piercing.

Last Saturday was the final day of the Transform, Change, and Disintegrate workshop with Louise Baldwin. It was a very interesting course following a theme with ones’ own imagery and techniques, which produced a wide variety of work. It is so helpful to have a tutor to help you sort out what’s good and what’s not working, I like a tutor who is prepared to both encourage and tell you what needs to be worked on.

 My ‘sample’ with the waxed and holed paper had improved but was suffering from me trying to frame the edges and so this was easily rectified in a course which is about disintegrating, with a bit of careful ripping. I added the line which was so clear on the close up of the rabbit’s scull.

These are some of the papers, including receipts, which I burned, pierced and then waxed.

My new favourite tools is a Japanese Hole Punch which I have been looking at with envy for some time. I decided that life was too short to go without and bought myself one. A wise decision.
I also had both a basic go and a demonstration from Louise as to how I could progress if only I had an embellisher; so watch this space.

Tacket Binding

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend an Embroiderer’s Guild day workshop on Tacket Binding. The tutor was  HEATHER HUNTER        whose work ‘Washed Up’, with a whirlwind binding, was the inspiration for the format of my book made for the final exhibition during my Diploma course. As I don’t get to the regular meetings due to work commitments it was a treat to attend the workshop. I must admit it was something of a distraction as I am trying to be more focused on my theme this year, but sometimes you just have to eat all the chocolates at once.

My binding is unfinished but well on its way. If you get the chance to attend a workshop with Heather I would recommend her patience and experience as a tutor. This is one of her examples:

Tacket Binding is a very old form of binding in which documents were bound into paper or vellum covers in a way which meant that the papers could be taken out and replaced by new documents. The tackets act as a sort of staple.

'Transform,Change,Disintegrate'.

I am enjoying my workshop with Louise Baldwin at City Lit. in London; it is over three Saturdays but with a one week break for half term, which is nice as it gives one time to think things through a little. 

The theme is Transform, Change, and Disintegrate. In the first session we were shown pictures of work by artists who work with this theme, starting with a time lapsed film made by Sam Taylor-Wood. There was also a good list of artists whose work we could research, of course the internet now makes this so much easier. I particularly liked this aspect of the workshop because when you are out of the loop it’s good to be reminded of all the inspiring work which is around.

We then picked a few words to illustrate in samples. I worked with ‘peeling’ and slashed, and tore various papers before waxing them.

 Louise suggested that I look at the work of Antoni Tapies. I had never seen his work but this week he has been in the news having just died.

I then burned and waxed various papers to play around with. The resulting sample was not really successful, but the resulting photographs are interesting. There was also a lot of wire brushing of fabrics.

Peeling

Peeling, a photo by stitchworks-jackie on Flickr.

Paper, paint and wax.

Just messing.

Just messing about with this drawing from my bones and fancying doing some stitching, I decided to colour one of the monoprints using Ink Tense crayons.

I can’t say it was altogether successful, but fun to do and interesting to see what resulted.

Here is a link which my son gave me to an artist who does amazing paintings, you can see his fascinating process here.