I’ve just finished setting up the studio for this weekends classes with my day a month Introduction to Surface Design students so it seemed like a great time to tell you about my new course - Creative Surface Design which starts in September 2019. I have developed the course for those of you who have had exposure to lots of different surface design techniques and have a head full of ideas but are not sure how to transfer ideas into finished cloth.

The course will be run over 5 weekends spread over an 8 month period. I’ve chosen this format rather than a day a month as being able to leave work on the bench and come back to it the next morning allows for deeper exploration of an idea; it allows you to take your time rather than hurrying to finish. Because I am ‘me’ the course will start with a focus on colour and the power of using a restricted colour set or family. There is a loose structure for each weekend but the exact content will be largely driven by the individual students. I’ll give demonstrations as needed but I am assuming a basic understanding of dyeing and printing techniques.

I’ve mentioned before in this blog that I’m not a ‘sketchbook’ type of person as I tend to work directly, intuitively onto fabric with a lot of my design process happening in my head. But I do keep a journal where I write down ideas, and importantly, where I critique my own work. I will be encouraging students on the Creative Surface Design course to keep some form of personal record - whatever form they are comfortable with - and will have a one to one review with each student each weekend to support them as they develop their ideas and their own way of working.

All the details are on my website. Or, maybe you can come see me at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate, 22 to 25 November, stand TG626!

It may be cold and grey outside but it is artfully grey inside! I’ve spent this week breakdown printing using squeezy bottles and wooden printing blocks. All in one single colour - grey. The humble squeezy bottle is such a useful tool. I have collected a range over the years with different size nozzles so I’ve been able to play with scale when using them to draw grids on my screen. And by varying the strength of the dye I have been able to play with value. I’m slowly building a palette of printed fabrics to use together.

This is the first time I have used wooden print blocks with breakdown printing. I’ve tried a couple of things. Using them to stamp thickened dye onto the screen is quick and easy but it doesn’t get much dye on the screen so I’m only getting 1 or 2 good prints per screen. This would be OK in the summer when you can dry screens really quickly but much slower in the winter. The other way I have used them is to embedded them into a layer of thickened dye. Sometimes on their own. And sometimes combined with a grid on the screen. This shows much more promise.

I love this stage in developing a new series of work. Playing with new ideas. Auditioning fabrics. Stitching samples. Figuring out what is missing and going back to the bench to print more fabric. Figuring out if I need to include fabrics made using other surface design techniques. Who cares if it is cold and grey outside!

And whilst I wait for screens to dry I have been adding workshop dates to my calendar. There are only 3 places left on my Breakdown Your Palette workshops in 2019 so I have just added 2 workshops in 2020. How crazy is it to be planning that far ahead! The sessions are on 18th to 22nd May 2020 and 22nd to 26th June 2020. Details can be found here.

I’ve also added new dates for my 1 day a month Introduction to Surface Design course and over the next couple of weeks will be announcing some new 5 day workshops and, very excitingly, workshops with some wonderful guest tutors. Life is good. Now back to my bench!

This last weekend I had my two ‘Introduction to Surface Design’ groups in the studio for the 2nd session in their ‘day a month for 10 months’ program. I had introduced the groups to dyeing in the first session by having them dye an 18 part colour wheel using the ‘dye in a bag method’. I learnt this way many, many years ago during a workshop with Helen Deighan and still use it today when I want to dye small pieces of fabric.

But in the 2nd session we got into the serious stuff. Each of my lovely ladies dyed 12 x 1/2m pieces using a high immersion bucket method in a dark, medium and light version of a single colour. These pieces will be over dyed with a different colour in the next session to create a colour family of coordinated ‘nearly solid’ fabrics. They then dyed 6 x 1/2m pieces in a gradation using a low immersion technique. And finally I let them loose using multiple colours with tray dyeing and layered dyeing techniques. My goodness but they worked hard! They each dyed over 11 square metres of fabric! And so far they are delighted with the results - it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when they share photos!

Because I teach by ‘doing’ I dyed fabric using each method each day. So Monday and Tuesday were taken up rinsing, washing and ironing a mammoth 22+ metres of fabric. And I couldn’t be happier. Not everyone likes this bit but I do …. its that sense of a slow reveal as you rinse away unused dye, as the washed fabric drys and finally as you iron it. Life is good.

Hilary Kimber: open screen over a string resist

I ran my first two day screen printing workshop this last weekend and loved every minute of it. With only two days it was difficult to know what to include. I started with a focus on using temporary resists that are readily available and relatively cheap; masking tape, freezer paper and sticky back plastic. You could probably spend two days just on masking tape resists but I wanted the students to go away with a sense of the range of options open to them. Their work was wonderfully varied.

Judy Tomlinson: masking tape resist pulled through with three values of turquoise and yellow giving some lovely greens

Jean Martin and Judy Tomlinson: masking tape resist pieces

We moved on to breakdown printing - where the thickened dye / print paste that is dried on the screen acts as a temporary resist. The weather wasn’t kind but the screens just about dried over night. I loved hearing the students ohhs and ahhs and can’t wait until next May when I teach my 5 day Breakdown Your Palette class.

We looked at different ways of using an open screen - on pinned out fabric, on scrumpled fabric and, with wonderful results, onto fabric with string on the surface. Love Hilary’s piece! And somehow we found time to play with thermofax screens.

It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling seeing the groups confidence grow in the two days! I am so glad that I took that big step into teaching. The next two day class in February is already full but there are still places on the workshop in 27th and 28th April 2019. Can’t wait.

Anita Bennett: using thermofax screens to create texture

Maggie Pearson: repeated layering of a thermofax screen

Phew, I have survived my first time demonstrating screen printing with thickened dyes on my stand, and my first 90 minute workshop using textile inks. All without a handy sink. And I managed to get through my first ever radio interview without stumbling. It was live so I was rather nervous but thankfully it only last a few minutes!

The three days at The Creative Craft Show at Event City, Manchester whizzed by. I meet some lovely people and really enjoyed talking to them about screen printing and particularly about my favourite technique - breakdown printing. It is so much easier to explain when you have the screens with you! It is always going to be difficult to measure how successful a show has been when you are there promoting workshops but I’m very pleased to have sold the remaining places on my Simply Screen Printing workshop on 16th and 17th February 2019. There was lots of interest in this workshop so I have added extra dates - it will also run on 27th and 28th April 2019 - details can be found here.

Some people would have taken a day off after a show. But not me. Instead I had a brilliant day in the studio with my second group of Introduction to Surface Design students. We talked about colour, we dyed 18 fat quarters and we made colour blankets. And we chatted, drank brews and eat biscuits. There aren’t many better ways to spend a Sunday!

It is a busy week at Urban Studio North. On Sunday I welcomed my first students into the studio for the first session of my Introduction to Surface Design course. I was so nervous that I woke before dawn and was absolutely buzzing by the time they arrived - it was just as much fun as I had hoped it would be! The students were lovely and they dyed some great cloth.

Tomorrow through Saturday I will be at The Creative Craft Show in Manchester. As well as demonstrating on my stand I will be giving a 90 minute workshop each day called Colourful Cityscapes.  With limited space and no access to sinks it has been a real challenge to develop a print based workshop but I hope the students enjoy using textile inks and acrylic shapes to print cloth which they can take home and make into a small wall hanging. I confess to being a little apprehensive - the quick turnaround between workshops is a little daunting. Fingers crossed!

And, in preparation for the show I have at long last put together some workshops that I can take out to groups. Busy, busy, busy!

Not too long ago I had a full time job that involved long days and frequent trips away from home. My art had to fit around the job and, of course around my family. I averaged 18 - 19 hours per week in my studio but in order to achieve what I wanted to achieve in that time I had to be very, very focused. I worked hard to eliminate 'distractions' and very rarely allowed myself to play with techniques or materials that didn't fit in with the different series of quilts I was working on at the time.  

That level of focus allowed me to achieve so much and helped me to develop a way of working that was uniquely me. But now that I am a full time artist and teacher things are very different - I can spend 40-45 hours a week in the studio and still have time to sit in the garden reading or watch a movie in the evenings! Needless to say, my family has had to 'adjust' to seeing so much of me. And although I have been super busy these last few months preparing classes and getting the studio ready for students I can now allow myself time to play. 

This week I have been playing with Indigo dyeing. Whilst I really like the way Indigo is used by Mags Ramsay and by Elisabeth Barton it is not a technique I have ever incorporated in my work. But I have included it in my Colour Your Palette 5 day retreat as an alternative to Procion dyeing so thought I better spend some time exploring it further. I spent a couple of quiet evenings preparing samples then, on Thursday, went to visit my good friend Ruth Brown where we prepared the Indigo vat and dyed the samples. Ruth is a great teacher and was very relaxed when I splattered her beautiful new studio - Indigo dyeing is rather messy! The results I got were mixed. Some pieces worked well, others didn't. I found that Indigo doesn't penetrate as well as Procion when using clamp resist or when winding cloth tightly around a pole, probably because you can't agitate your dye bath to help the dye penetrate. I'll adjust for that next time. I also found that a piece of Procion dyed Magenta cloth partially discharged in the vat as well as dyeing. This definitely needs further experimentation. More play time!

Not everybody loves breakdown printing or wants to use screen printing to create their cloth. And so I have developed a second five day retreat, Colour Your Palette, that is focused on the addition of colour through dyeing, resist dyeing and the removal of colour using different discharge processes. Although most of the fabrics I have used in my work in recent years are breakdown printed I do include complimentary fabrics that have gone through dyeing and discharge processes. For me it is important to have a broad range of techniques at my finger tips so that I can select the technique that will give me the affect that I am looking for. 

The aim of this five day course is to create a palette of coordinated plain and patterned fabrics based on your own source of inspiration.  Students will be encouraged to create beautiful complex cloth by putting pieces through multiple processes. Where appropriate we may use other surface design techniques such as thermofax printing to add detail to our cloth.

And, because I love colour, this course will be driven by colour - understanding how to mix simple and complex colours from primaries and working with a restricted set of colours or a colour family to create pieces of fabric that work together. We will exploit the transparency of Procion dyes by blending colour directly on the cloth as we put fabric through multiple processes. 

There are other ways to add colour to cloth that give lovely effects. We will look at two alternatives during the five days - indigo dyeing and rust-like dyeing using Ferrous Sulphate - and how they can be combined with Procion dyeing. It will be a full-on, fun packed week. The studio will be a riot of colour and I can't wait!

My new five day retreat Breakdown Your Palette is the course that I have been so wanting to teach! Those who read my blog or follow me on Facebook and Instagram will know that I love, love, love breakdown printing. It has formed the basis of my art for the last three or four years and will continue to do so. I love the serendipity of the printing process - I get marks that I could not get through any other method. I love the fact that every print I make is different. And I love the fact that, having spent 100's of hours making and printing screens, I have learnt new ways of creating breakdown screens; I have learnt to manipulate colour value and scale to influence the results I get and I have learnt to adjust my process to print whatever the weather conditions. Have a look at my earlier blog post here if you don't know what breakdown printing is. It is a simple process that can create complex, beautiful whole cloth that can used for clothing or as a background to stitch or it can be used to create a palette of cloth that can be cut and pieced. 

When I decided to start teaching I was cautious and only developed workshops for weekends, leaving week days for a 'proper' job. Which is a problem for teaching breakdown printing as the process involves letting your screens dry. Not an issue on a sunny day when screens will dry in a few hours outdoors. But very limiting on days when it isn't sunny. However having made the BIG decision to become a full time artist and teacher I have been able to develop a 5 day Breakdown Printing extravaganza! 

I have combined a deep dive into breakdown with my second love - colour. Understanding colour and using colour selectively is the key to creating a set of printed fabrics that work together. The course also covers using discharge paste to breakdown print which is such a useful process - it can be used to create complex layers of colour and texture and is a great tool for turning ugly ducklings into beautiful swans. And yes, I do still produce ugly ducklings occasionally!

I started promoting the course at Festival of Quilts and had an amazing response. And I got to talk about breakdown for hours!! The two courses I have scheduled are now live and can be booked via my website along with my other workshops. There is only 1 place left on the 20th to 24th May 2019 course but I have more spaces on the 17th to 21st June course. I can't wait to teach this one - it is going to be so much fun.!