Tapestry Excursion to Warrnambool

On Friday we went to Warrnambool to see several examples of tapestry.  It was a long train trip (about 3 hours each way) but well worth it.  As there were about 10 of us going, we were able to chat most of the way or sit quietly if that suited us better.
Of course, I was in the chatting group.  The trip home was a bit quieter as it was getting late and we were tired.  We caught the VLine train at about 7.45am at Southern Cross and returned at 8.30pm.  Then we had to get home from the city.  It was a long but enjoyable day.

We stopped first at Deakin campus near Warrnambool to visit the School of Arts and meet with the organiser of the distance education Diploma of Tapestry that is run by South West TAFE.  This course sounds very interesting and the exhibition we went to later was of students of this course.

As I have been looking online for the links, I have found a short course of tapestry and textiles also.  I'll have to look at this in more detail later.

A few of the ladies on the excursion were interested in hearing about the distance course.  We are wondering what we will do next year when some have finished studying and others have completed the tapestry part of the course.  We were discussing ways to keep in touch and to keep up our interest in tapestry.  We find working in groups very enjoyable and are discussing ways to organise ourselves.We may even get around to organising regular meetings and perhaps - wait for it - a group show.

While at Deakin we were lucky enough to attend a presentation by Tim Gresham who talked about his development as a tapestry weaver.  He showed his developing style of planning his tapestries and also some technical explanations of how he achieves some of his effects.  He showed some amazing drawings he had done and then how he has used aspects of them to inspire his weaving.  You can see some of his art work at his website. One thing I found especially interesting was his latest style of drawing his designs - he doesn't do cartoons at present, he draws straight onto the warp and when he has woven part, he continues the drawing directly on the warp.
Another technique he explained was to use a grid to enlarge, or keep track of, a design so that he could be accurate.  The grid is on both his drawn design and the warp.  (Obviously, this was when he was drawing up his designs.)