Art exhibition overload

At the weekend, a friend and I visited the Nature in Art museum and gallery at Twigworth, near Gloucester.  A huge marquee in the grounds housed the annual exhibition of The Wildlife Art Society International.  In the Education Centre five artists were showing work ranging from lino and collagraph prints, drawings and illustrations to poetry on the theme of "Conversations with Nature".

Best of all, the Artist in Residence for the week was Rachael Singleton from Yorkshire.  Rachael is a textile and mixed media artist working with paper, fabric, hand stitch, printing, painting, collage, papier mache, etc.  Her studio space was an Aladdin's Cave of inspiration and she was generous with sharing her knowledge and techniques.

A corner of Rachael's temporary studio display

A very quick, scribbled sketch of part of the grounds,
together with quirky metal sculptures
(4" x 2.5")

Sewing sampler

 I was given some shiny, new threads which I wanted to try out.  I was also keen to attempt some trapunto (a stuffed quilting technique).

This piece is 16" x 4", cotton sheeting, backed with batting. For the solid coloured shapes I used Inktense pencils and fabric felt tip pens.

Yet another fabric pot

 The fabric vessel exploration continues.  

Hand painted cotton sheeting with machine
and hand stitch - 3.5" tall

Paint, print, resist on fabric

Another excellent workshop with Karen Carter at Ardington School of Crafts. 

Some of my efforts

We used white acrylic through stencils to create a first layer of resist on a variety of plain fabric samples.  The fabric was then painted with water-based pigments and diluted acrylic, with further layers being added with stamps and gum arabic transfers.  If desired, the material could later be further embellished with hand or machine stitch.

This shows just a few of Karen's samples