time out

The last week has been mad, work-wise, so not much happening, art-wise. I worked in my sketchbook a little, and got round to watching a very interesting ITV1 programme – Harry Potter: The Costume Drama. Ben Shephard was talking to a range of people in the wardrobe department about the way they created the costumes for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. They even have a ‘breakdown department’ where people spend their whole working day distressing the garments after they’ve been made or bought. Why did no-one ever tell you about that kind of job at school?

I was particularly struck by the head of the wardrobe department, Jany Temime, and her approach – how the costumes themselves contribute to the acting – fascinating. She also said – never let your ideas be constrained by what’s practical – you can always find a way to do it. Though I’m not quite sure this can be extended to everyday wearable art (the really wearable kind, I mean) since she also said later on that many of the costumes can’t be washed (they make several of each instead)!

[Here I edited this post to delete a link relating to the programme, for copyright reasons.]

Part of my work week was setting up a gallery for all the entries to a competition run annually by the UK Embroiderers’ Guild for its members. The 2007 theme was Water, and the brief was to create an original design, primarily hand stitched, though the work could include any technique. Working with all those lovely watery images was very soothing… If you’d like to immerse yourself – the gallery’s on the Embroiderers’ Guild web site.

weekend’s work

I’ve been painting some colour wheels for OCA Textiles 1 – they didn’t turn out quite as I expected, though. I was using Brusho inks and I don’t know if it was the way I mixed them but the lemon and the golden yellow were so similar in hue that I didn’t get all the variations I was expecting. I’ll have another go with some gouache paints. Then I spent a bit of time mixing tints and tones in acrylics and experimenting with mixing in touches of a complementary colour. I could do this kind of thing all day long – I just love it.

mixing colours

I’ve also been painting silk organza and pongee for my appliqué hanging for City and Guilds – one piece of each in reds, one in greens and one in purples. These are fronts and backs to go with these felts. The next stage is to machine quilt the three layers, incorporating shadow applique, then cut back into it to expose some of the felt. The organza will be the top layer.

silk

I found this picture on the camera as well – it’s the sky from my office window, one evening a few weeks ago when it wasn’t quite as wet as today!

Kendal sky

in Aveiro

I’m writing this from Aveiro, in the west of Portugal. Alan’s come here to examine a PhD viva in Lisbon tomorrow, and as it’s a cheap flight from Liverpool I was able to tag along. We’re staying with Palexa, who is one of Alan’s students, which is lovely, just sharing a little of life here for a short while. Last night there was a get-together in our honour, traditional Portuguese food and good company on a roof top terrace near the beach, with Fado playing in the background, and a full moon. Magical.

When she’s not at the university, Palexa takes her work down to the beach and spends the day there, in a café. Many other people were doing the same – no pressure to drink up your coffee and leave – we were there for 6 hours, working, chatting, eating when hungry, sometimes walking by the sea. It’s the open Atlantic we love, wild, crashing waves, but under a deep blue sky.

My camera is misbehaving, sadly, so there won’t be many photos. I’m drawing and painting but not skilled enough (yet) to really capture what I see. here is one photo I did manage to take – it’s part of a tiled mural – there are lots of them here, these are spectacular and cover the frontage of the old Aveiro station. They show many scenes from Portuguese life in the past. tiles at Aveiro station