Class with Kathryn Harmer Fox

As the title says, I have been lucky enough to have a 5 day class with Kathryn Harmer Fox (4 and a half days, strictly speaking).

I attended my annual treat to myself, the Ballarat Fibre Arts workshops in Autumn.

Kathryn was a wonderful teacher, taking time to talk to everyone about their work whenever we needed her, doing a daily class crit of where we were up to, what we were doing, etc.

She was very observant and noted our different working styles and was able to tell us how we worked, which we were not necessarily aware of. It was all done in a very positive way. Our strengths were pointed out and our blockers also.
One person was having trouble with the image she had brought. Kathryn suggested she do it upside down. Apparently, it was much easier after that. Not that I could even attempt to do faces!

So now I have a clearer idea of my method, which seems to be having an idea in my head, prompted and helped by an image but not necessarily adhering to the image. All this makes it rather difficult to know how I am going with the work, as I seem to make it up as I go.

My inspirational image, used previously for a tapestry. I didn't want to use it the same way and didn't take the original image.  I also took some earrings that are ammonites. They had a slightly different design, which meant I was using two different images for inspiration. I also had a black and white photocopy of another ammonite. Three slightly different images to work from, not a sensible decision, really.

Kathryn's work is much more realistic or representational than I like to do but that didn't stop her from being able to help me a lot. She is a wonderful teacher as well as artist.

We also worked on one piece each for the whole workshop (well, I did spend the first day doing a small piece but it didn't work out,

then I worked for the rest of the workshop on my bigger piece).

However, when it became obvious that we would have to rush to have a finished piece for the final exhibition, Kathryn told us not to rush, that we would ruin the work or make bad decisions. It was not necessary to have a finished piece. I found this wonderful! It took the pressure off and meant that we were not making big decisions in a hurry.

The almost finished piece. Still not sure how to mount it. 

Kathryn hanging the works from our class. 

All in all, a wonderful week away.