A Sense of Place

Saturday is workshop day. This time in Hartlepool with the local Embroiderers’ Guild.

The project involves participants choosing a place or scene that is special to them – a favourite walk, holiday destination, or family home for example. I ask them to bring visual reminders of the place – sketches, photos or similar, and to consider how the location makes them feel.

This group had heard my talk ‘Critical for Creativity’ the previous week so they were primed with ideas on how to emphasise a mood or feeling in art.

After a talk through the process everyone quickly got busy. With scenes from Devon to Dumfries, North America to the Psychedelic lands of the imagination – each piece was unique to the maker (!).

Compositions were adjusted to enhance the form of the work, leading the eye towards the focal point. Scale was considered, in subject matter and stitch size, to create a sense of space and depth in the work.

Working to a small scale and aiming to create a textile piece that would wrap around a miniature canvas. We used bondaweb and needle felting techniques to put together the images before adding hand stitched details. I intersperse talking to participants individually about to develop their work with short demonstrations of relevant processes. My aim is always to encourage people and offer new approaches that might spark motivation for further development

This is a day workshop, the tricky bit is always thinking what to pack – there are the essentials, tracing paper, bondaweb (& ironing equipment!) threads…but as I never know what scene people will choose I have to guess what colours and textures might be useful- this time we could have done with some sheers or metallics to create watery surfaces.

This time the needle felting kit was invaluable/ used to create clouds, mountains and trees in various scenes.

This is the second time I’ve run a workshop at the Athenaeum in Hartlepool- an amazing Victorian building with very high ceilings and rambling corridors. Last time I got to use the chair lift to carry equipment upstairs and this time everything was set out on the (covered) pool table!

The view outside reflects the changes taking place in the area -from one window the peeling paint surfaces of abandoned buildings, from others, the impressive new art school and the old bus station that is now a film studio.

I will soon be updating my workshop list so take a look and see if there’s anything that you’d like to do – or if there’s something I do that is not listed let me know !