In the Colour course this term, we have been studying the works of Van Gogh. Part of the study has been to take a greyscale image of a Van Gogh painting, and paint it to a scheme specified by our teacher Abigail Downer. My scheme was secondaries with a primary link. We could use any or all pure blues, reds and yellows provided by the college, plus white, but no black.
My A1 sized painting has evolved over several weeks.
What will happen next?
A morning spent at the Chihuly glass exhibition Kew Gardens culminated in the Lily House, with wonderful contrast between white glass and green gourds.
I have taken the plunge and have submitted two quilts to the Festival of Quilts this year. Parcelled up and ready to go.
The rain has decimated the petals on many of my garden poppies, but has encouraged the bursting buds and left behind beautiful pods.
This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a workshop with Emily Jo Gibbs, on using transparent organza to make stitched interpretations of photographs. Emily’s work is exquisite in its simplicity, that also manages to capture the essence of an individual or of an object.
The workshop was held in the beautiful, historic rooms of The ArtWorkers’ Guild in Holborn. The rooms and corridors contain works by previous and current members, inspiration before we even met Emily.
We were asked to bring a basic sewing kit, a variety of threads, scissors for cutting papered cloth and a favourite photograph. Emily provided a pack of different coloured silk organzas and two pieces of white linen for each of us.
The workshop started with an explanation of Emily’s technique, and an opportunity to examine her original stitched portraits of her children. We then created a small abstract collage, A5 size, to practice the techniques that she had demonstrated.
What joy to sit with a group of strangers, who quickly lost their anonymity as we stitched together.
We then started a new piece, based on our photographs.This was much more difficult and a black and white photograph would have made it much more straightforward to discern tone rather than colour. However, by the end of the day, i had this, based on a favourite picture of my elder son when he was 10.
To have got this far, while enjoying the company of others, in a beautiful setting was a gift. Thank you Emily.
If you would like to see Emily’s work in person, she is exhibiting at Mint London from 9th - 12th May.
Quilting to show that black and white arguments are not straightforward
and often contain many shades of grey
