I did a weekend course at Hawkwood College, just down the road from me, with Gizella Warburton at the end of October, entitled Colour, Mark and Composition. I didn’t know what to expect, but as I had had to cancel other courses I had booked earlier in the year, I thought it would help me find my creativity again and I liked the look of Gizella’s work. It certainly gave me a new perspective on how to look at things. We started by analyzing the colours within a small strip of a photograph and recreating the strip using scraps of fabric, threads, etc. We did various other exercises along the same vein, printed papers and fabrics, cut everything up to recreate something else. These were my final two pieces, both on a heavy cotton background, which I feel summarise the weekend for me. Much more abstract than I am used to working with, but a lot of food for thought.
Mixed Media with Jo Dixon, Oxford Summer School 2012
The following are samples of work I produced during five days of working with Jo Dixon. We started bu making backgrounds, mainly on tissue paper and tissuetex, using acrylic paints and brusho inks, using stencils and blocks and rubbing over various textues.
More work for module 4
Apples – I had only worked on the right-hand page so felt it needed something more. The heap of apples is stencilled in using pastels. I used a stamp made from funky foam for the ‘branches and an expanded foam stamp for the leaves. I also used some gesso on the top part of the phot to blend it in better with the page. I am not toally satisfied with the page – I’m not sure it really hangs together very well.
Bringing it all together
This final module introduces the techniques of stencilling, the use of pastels, pockets, extensions as well as ideas of how to put everything together.
Creative sketchbooks Module 3
This module focusses on printing.