Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Shelley Rhodes workshop.

I spent last weekend with other Distant Stitch students at Farncombe.I chose to work with Shelley ,the other workshop was with Sarah Burgess.The  workshop was titled 'From Outside In'. We had to collect six objects from the grounds which we used during the weekend.We had taken a selection of papers and had to blend them together using gesso or plain old emulsion.
The photos are not the best I 'm afraid,got so bound up the light was often bad by the time I remembered to take them.Shelley uses layers in her work and said she will go back to her work adding in ,time after time.
We had to choose to use one of our objects as a drawing implement.A page was divided into five and we wrote,in pencil ,words,descriptions of each of the other five objects ,filling the shape completely.We then took ink and drew marks from the objects over the words to fill the boxes.


My objects and the finished page.We folded this into a book,but mine is laid out .
We also had to go out and collect items to put into a press,to be printed with later.We were given a long ,narrow sheet of paper to go and record a walk,stopping and noting down marks we were drawn to.


Mine is at the bottom,along with some pages with trapped items,we were encouraged to introduce maybe one colour,and to go back and work into the papers.


Shelley gave us each a matchbox which had to be decorated and filled with tiny little treasures.This was then used to draw from,onto a large sheet of paper using a drawing tool attached to the end of a long bamboo stick.this encouraged looser drawing .



The object,once again was to create a set of marks .We had also made some drawing implements and had to add to the drawing with these using ink.


We collected items ,painted and wrapped them and were told we might try to construct some 3D objects using the collected items to work from.I used masking tape and wire to create a flower head and an iris seed pod.

Using the items we had put in a press we created prints,we could add in a second colour if we chose.Once again we were encouraged to layer and work back into them.

These were the elements we had to work with to begin to create a resolved piece.

It was a very full-on workshop with lots of tasks to do ,we created a great deal of work and a lot will filter through into pieces.I really enjoyed it and can already see how I will use the ideas.I began a small piece but will have to photograph it as I was too busy looking at all the incredible work produced by others there.










4 comments:

Max the Lobster said...

So pleased you had an enjoyable and productive time. It looks great. I am looking forward to TSG summer school where Shelley is one of the tutors. It sounds like she might be doing a similar course there.

Fibrenell said...

Hi Jen, thanks for the detail, sounds really interesting, must have been fun. Like Anne said, we're both at the TSG summer school soon and it will be fascinating to see how the theme is interpreted there.

Garnered Stitches said...

I was so engrossed with this workshop I forgot to take any 'each stage' photos which is so unlike me!

I had a thoroughly brilliant time, I have had to be quite regimental in what I have been sewing/embroidering
so far this year so last weekend was very liberating.

Great to see you again too!

Catherine said...

Beautiful work Jenn and I love your colours. You are so organised to have posted it on your blog already. It was great to see you again at summer school.