The Title Of This Work Is SQUIRM

Exploring composition in this textiles piece created from hand dyed indigo vintage linens and painted papers and cloth. The palette and angular composition respond to studies of a bright yellow skip, tarnished and ravaged by the weather and covered in marks created by nature. Wiggly, insect tracks, rusting and graffiti inspired colour, texture and piecing the final outcome.

Ideas are also being developed for possible poster designs. Using the cut out hands as a motif to link with theatre, shadow puppets and the theme of LOVE for Romeo & Juliet perhaps, in simplistic formats, that hope to communicate this to younger audiences or a visual references to entice people to the theatre. 

Amazing fashion illustrations by talented AS Textiles student.

Excellent use of ‘extreme’ paper collage on Vogue fashion imagery to personalise her own designs. Love these!

#paper collage #origami #time consuming #fashion illustration

Plastic fantastic! Crazy, melted, recycled plastics embellished to eye-popping brilliance by FAD student. Love ‘em!

Fifty Bees #4 exhibition at Frome’s wonderful Black Swan gallery. 

This is my response to the habitat and lifestyle of the Lobe Spurred furrow bee.

I enjoy using found and repurposed materials in my own arts practice, so this is created entirely from fabric washed up the beach at Charmouth and fishing line, horsehair and natural fibres to stitch with. This bee was virtually extinct in the 1980′s but then made a dramatic come back, to now becoming a species with no risk to its population. My quest to discover the reasoning behind this encouraged a journey of discovery and research to try and understand its story.

I travelled around to visit habitats of known sightings, scrubland, agricultural sites, beach cliff locations but did not find my bee. I did discover though,  that the prevalence of Oilseed Rape planted on a mass scale across the UK in the 80′s had a detrimental impact on many indigenous insect species particularly bees. The nicotinoid pesticides used in agriculture was the culprit but fortunately for the lobe spurred furrow bee, it thrived on the blooms of rape and where others perished it increased in number.

My piece uses loopy stitching and intense surface coverage to signify the bees activity. The yellow plant dyed colour references the rape blooms and the undulating surface is linked to the patch of land investigated on site.

So happy to be back in the Textiles zone, working with new Art Foundation students creating shadow paintings to develop into print and stitch this week.

It’s always exciting to start the new term in September but so necessary after such along period away from creative Strode sessions. I have really missed working with our incredible Art students. Welcome back to you all. 

These paintings will be used to explore screen printing, heat transfer printing and surface designs with stitch for the 3 week workshop sessions in textiles.

A great start!

#lovemyjob #creativetextiles #printandstitch #letsbeatthevirus #creative #backinthezone

Developing abstracted compositions, cropping and enlarging to explore sections for repetition and textile designs for garments. The loose, expressive marks and gestural brushwork retain the spontaneity of the original line and translate an urban, edgy print as a theme of unisex wear.

Russian Constructivism as a design influence is a wealth of pattern inspiration.

These are designs for possible products for a gallery shop as part of a graphics project. They started by playing with limited colours of paper and card to create repeat patterns to use as design ideas to apply to products.

Developing ideas for printing on fabrics. FAD Textiles workshop rotation 2. Great work so far.

Accuracy and advaced pattern drafting at Strode with the Textiles team. Expert FAD student work plotting and creating new tailored pattern blocks to be translated into cloth.