Judy's art quilts, especially the latest series based on Dora Creek in all its moods and variety, are different from her pieced work from years past, and what we did in the two days of the workshop was to try to develop a "sense of place" - based on the room we were in, using its colours and patterns, trying to pay attention to proportion of colour and to use both shape and line. An exercise that we could take out into the real world afterwards,
Judy gave a demo of painting bits of paper (I'm fascinated how different people mix their paints) and of using water-soluble crayons -
Then we set to work to create our own resource for the collaging next day. These are my first timid results -
Among my supplies was a pad of neon papers, so I challenged myself to use them. A palette knife is a great way of applying paint -
If anyone from the book arts workshop at West Dean is reading this, you might recognise the background - it's the blue plastic I rescued from the wastebin.
Its creases proved very useful in helping to pattern the papers and fabrics that we painted and printed in various ways -
Soluble crayon on some calligraphy practice paper -
Using what's on hand for stamping - the bottom of glue sticks, a pencil sharpener, a pencil end ...
Helen had some embossed wallpaper, which was great for printing from -
Another challenge I set myself was to be bold with line - at the end of the day, this appeared -
It all amounted to quite a collection - including lots of neon colours -
What came out of this for me, apart from all that painted paper and a lot of fun making it, is the recognition that I don't like to get out the paints "just to have a play" - that feels too unfocused. Also, I can happily get sidetracked, eg into covering the neons any old how, rather than being aware of what I intended to be doing. And - it's helpful to stop and reflect, every now and then, rather than enthusiastically carry on barging ahead.
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