Cracked & Peeled with Kathryn Harmer Fox
Course Overview
This workshop focuses on using your sewing machine as a creative tool. Snippets and scraps of fabric are used like daubs of paint and the drawn line is stitched with machine needle and thread rather than pencil or paint brush. Red or blue birds peer from a crack which splits the textured background created from distressed, frayed, and torn linen, hessian, lace & cotton.
The play between realistic and abstract is separated by a gold encrusted break inspired by the beautiful Japanese philosophy of fixing that which is broken and valueless with something as valuable as gold making the object not only usable again, but also valuable.
Students will first learn how to transfer the image (of either the blue or the red birds) to a piece of canvas (provided for in the kit). They will then cut shapes from different pieces of material (from the collection of scraps that they have brought along with them) These shapes will be stitched on top of the line drawing that they will have already created on their canvases. They will then begin the processes of “colouring in” and “contour drawing” using different coloured sewing threads (that they have brought) on top of the cut shapes. Once the subject matter (i.e. the birds peering out from a gold encrusted crack) has been stitched into place, then the abstract background (using textured fabrics like hessian, linen, upholstery cottons that the students have brought with them) is distressed, positioned, and stitched onto the blank canvas around the subject matter. Finally, once the face of the piece is completed, 2 heavy weight pieces of fabric (supplied by the students) are stitched, wrong sides together, to their art pieces, creating the platform or frame that supports their pieces.
Techniques learnt:
- How to transfer an image to the canvas
- Fibre embedment using scribble stitch
- Free motion machine embroidery
- Ragged cord edging (extra – not actually used in this workshop)
- Spider Webbing (extra – not actually used in this workshop)
Teacher Profile
Kathryn is a mixed media artist who works predominantly in fabric and thread. She believes that the ability to draw frees her as an artist and uses this learnt skill no matter the medium or tool. When she draws her pencil moves over the paper; when she stitches her canvas moves beneath the needle. While her teaching has taken her to Australasia on many occasions, her art work has travelled and found homes in countries all over the world, from South Africa to France, to the USA, to Japan, to Australia, and many other destinations. Kathryn believes that making art is intrinsically healing, taking her into a meditative state which has neither borders nor time restrictions.
Materials List
Workshop Terms
While our fibre art workshops are usually held in the gallery's historically significant workshop space, the workshop venue may change according to the needs and wishes of the artist tutor. Likewise, the times of the workshops may vary depending on the type of workshop and its presentation.
Timeless Textiles Gallery will, at its own discretion, where a participant is unable to attend a fibre art workshop, an exchange or credit note will be made available or a refund of the deposit or payment in accordance with the following Workshop Refund Policy.
Major commitments must be met, and in fairness to all, the policy concerning the refund is:
Cancellations 3 months prior to workshop date - refund 80% fees paid
Cancellations 2 months prior to workshop date- refund 50% fees paid.
Cancellations 1 month prior to workshop date- no refund.
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