Mentoring weekend sadly cancelled

Sadly our mentoring weekend was cancelled as Hilary is ill.  I hope she feels better soon.

Rachel and I got together and tried mentoring each other today, it's a very difficult thing to do.  I'm not sure if either of us felt we were further on.  We did have a nice lunch and a chat and then went to Gallery 49 to have a look at the art, so this mitigated our disappointment somewhat.

I had worked very hard over the last week to resolve my dithering about what I wanted to do.  If I hadn't been planning on going to the mentoring class I wouldn't have done that,  so that wasn't wasted.  I have decided that I will keep trying to emulate my painting style in fabric and thread. Rachel did ask me why I would want to do this, and it's difficult to say, other than that I love working with fabric and thread.

I started to improve in my painting when I started painting a lot (at least 4 paintings, and preferably 7 pieces of artwork a week).  I realise that I won't be able to produce that sort of quantity in textiles, but if I can produce one sample piece each week, then I will be very pleased.

The pieces will have to be small - no bigger than say 12 x 12, and probably a lot smaller.  This will be difficult for me as I usually work much bigger, but if I am going to get work done, then I need to do this.

I have also decided that the work, however loosely based, has to have a figurative source.  I don't want to produce realistic pieces, but I don't want to make patterns either at this point, so the source will be still life, landscape or seascape.  My theme of 'Coast' is going to have to take a back seat for a while, as will the conceptual ideas I have had.

This piece is one I started a couple of weeks ago.  I'm not happy with it, but it's a start in the direction I think I need to go towards.

Still Life, 8 x 8 inch, mixed media

The back ground is painted onto calico, then drawn onto with Inktense pencil and some collage added.  Then I machine stitched the pears completely, and the flowers lightly, then outlined some areas.  I wish I had left some of the painted cloth of the pears showing as the dense stitching makes them come too far forward.

I hope to produce lots of this size of work over the next few months, using different techniques and materials, experimenting until I get to a point when I feel OK with them.

I start the Sketchbook Practise course with Jane Davies on Wednesday, which will be huge amounts of work, so I will be pushed over the next six weeks to get everything done.

Saturday already.

The time seems to fly by.  

I managed to get the two felted bowls finished this week, and I also brought my Coast workbook up to date, but that's about it.

Felted bowl, approx 7 inch across, 3 inch high

I went to the first meeting of the Foston Studio Art group on Wednesday.  Organised by Rachel, it was a very enjoyable day, the first of many I hope.

I have started on a new technique, but based on Still Life rather than 'coast', although some pieces include coastal views.  I have talked a little about it on my other blog lynneporterartmatters.blogspot.co.uk.  It involves painting and collage on thin canvas, which I will then machine stitch, and add mark making with pencils and charcoal.  

Trying out a new technique is by it's nature, a slow process, with many rejects.  So I may not have anything to show by next Saturday, but we can but hope.  The reason for these blogs is to encourage experimentation, without judgement, and I need to grab new ideas and go with them, even if it means leaving 'coast' for a while.