‘Hare and the Moon’ with Nigel Cheney

Description

You will have the opportunity to select from a number of digitally printed motifs from Nigel’s drawings or for those who are confident with drawing you will be shown how to use your imagery. For this collage fabrics will be provided but these can be expanded with your own collection of your favourite fabrics to make something very personal. These can be offcuts from old clothes, damaged pieces of pre-embroidered vintage table cloths, handkerchiefs or fragment.s left over from previous projects.

Myths and folklore surrounding the relationship of the Hare and the Moon abound through many different cultures. From Mexican Creation myths to English folklore of witch’s familiars, they are a constant source of fascination for Nigel. Key elements of his practice are using cloth and image to tell stories. He begins with beautifully observed animals and birds that are digitally printed onto cloth and meticulously hand stitched. These motifs will be the basis on which your composition will develop – the size being your choice.

In this intensive 2 day workshop we will spend the first day creating fabric collages This will develop into the second day where you will explore slow hand stitching as mark making to describe both form and texture of your own hare. Other digitally printed elements such as moons and birds will be provided for you to work with.

Day1 : We are all familiar with quilting as a technique to layer fabrics together and through stitching to create a new material with different properties.  Inspired by traditional ‘Kantha’ embroidery the rhythms of the stitches and how close they are together can produce some startling results. The process has a unique charm and an organic feel.   You can work with hand and/or machine embroidery (free and set pattern stitches) with different fabrics and different patterns to sample a number of effects.
We cover : the principles of the technique through hands on experimentation.
Generate stitch patterns and structure (image and pattern) Working with existing printed imagery either as motif or texture.

Day 2: Using either the provided digitally printed hand drawn motifs, or working directly from your own wildlife sketches we will look at how to layer hand stitched pieces to create texture and form before applying them to your ground.  You may choose to stick to either hand or machine or combine the two.

You can decide whether you work on two or three highly stitched samples or one large fabric collage depicting a number of illustrations.