Missed it

There was another total eclipse of the moon last night, and it was going to be another blood moon too.
I went to the opening of an exhibition and rushed home to see the lunar event.
The full moon was lovely in the sky - then it went behind he clouds and stayed there. Oh well, I saw one recently, suppose I can't be too greedy.

And I did enjoy the earlier event - the opening of Cresside Collette's tapestry weaving exhibition.
We weren't' allowed to take photos inside, so here is a picture of the outside of the venue - the Manningham Gallery has moved!

There has been building going on for ages and I obviously didn't take much notice of why - the gallery has moved from one building to the new one. Lovely space, right beside the library too, and a cafe if you are feeling peckish.

The exhibition opening was actually for two people, in two separate spaces. Regeneration, by Enid Ratnam-Keese and Woven Worlds: 10 Years of 'en plein air' tapestries by Cresside Collette.
I concentrated on the tapestries, I had seen some of them before but this was a collection of works done by Cresside 'en plein air' over a period of 10 years. The 'en plein air' aspect is different from painting as the weaving is such a slower process. I have been to two workshops with Cresside where we worked 'en plein air' and one of the challenges was that the light changed - the world continued to spin even though I wanted it to keep the image the same. And the weather changed from one day to the next, very inconsiderate of the weather gods.

Cresside's weaving used very fine yarns and she manages to get so much detail into such tiny images that it is amazing. The lighting really picked out the works beautifully. Cresside is giving a floor talk next Saturday and there are opportunities to do a bit of weaving on a community tapestry she is working on, overlooking the local hills, from inside the gallery building. I must try to get there on one of the days.

October meeting of our new tapestry group

We had our second meeting this weekend and we have a new member!!  Very exciting.  Marion was looking after her, showing her how to start basic tapestry weaving, on a rigid heddle loom.  I have no idea how that is going to go but Marion is confident.

We had two other new attendees also - at a time when students are busy finishing off their assignments and some of us are getting ready to graduate, so we are pleased with the attendance.

We looked at some ideas for the Circles and Squares theme and generally had a good catch-up again.

Someone is working

Sharing ideas

Weaving on a rigid heddle loom

New Tapestry blog

I have just become aware of a new tapestry blog by Kristin Duckworth that looks interesting.  As the end of my course approaches, I find that I am having to think about what it is that I actually want to do next year.  It is seeing what other people are doing that keeps me interested, keeps me aware of what can be done.
I haven't done much tapestry at all this year, except for the small piece I did in France.

Here it is, still on the loom:  my finishing off leaves much to be desired, so I am not showing that one.
It is approximately 16cm x 10 cm.

The house the tapestry was based on.

My en plein air weaving spot.

I am currently studying Experimental Textiles and am focusing more on machine free motion embroidery and the possibility of designing an art quilt.
I need to decide what direction I want to go although I suppose it isn't necessary to be exclusive about one technique or another. However, to do a thing well, it is necessary to devote time and effort and not be distracted by trying to do too many things at once.
I enjoyed the tapestry weaving last year and want to do more but I am missing the focus provided by assignments.  Luckily, it looks like a group of us students and ex-students will be able to meet on a monthly basis to do weaving.  So now I had better get organised so that I have something to take with me.  More about this later, we won't be starting for about another 6 weeks.

Visiting the dyer

Most, if not all, of the wool we saw being used in Aubusson was dyed by Thierry Roger.  His expertise was astounding.  He was dyeing some wool to match a sample that had been sent to him - this is a common occurrence apparently, people send him samples of the colours they want and he dyes the wool for them rather than simply having people choose from his range.  He was dyeing a batch while we were there.  He would pull the wool out of the dyebath, check the colour, then add what seemed to be a few grains of dye and let it soak again.  He did not measure the dye, he just used his knowledge of what he wanted and his experience with the dyes.  He did this several times until he was happy with the sample.

Sometimes the artwork for a tapestry is sent to him and he dyes wool from that, ready for the weaver to use.

Of course, he does have skeins of wool that you can choose from.  I couldn't resist buying one skein as a souvenir.  I was a bit stingy with the amount I bought, mostly because I didn't want to fill my suitcase but also because I knew I was going to do some en plein air weaving after this and didn't know what colours I would be wanting (and I wouldn't need very much for an en plein air weaving).

Visiting tapestry artists

As part of our tour in Aubusson, we visited several tapestry weavers in their studios.  One of the first was France-Odile Perrine-Criniere.  She graciously allowed us to ask her questions as she showed us her work in progress.
She also has a large low warp loom.  Once again, I was amazed to see the number of bobbins in use - all kept under great control.

You can see the image reproduced in various sizes lying on the warp.

France-Odile explained her design work to us.  For the above work, she painted a small image using gouache and then manipulated it in a computer program, enlarging it finally to the size she wanted to weave.  The cartoon is under the warp and she also uses mirrors to check the progress of the design.

The wool is tied together into the colours she will use and kept handy to the work.  We saw this method of organising the yarns in several studios.

Some of the work in her shopfront had unusual glass frames on her tapestries.  She also had some texture in some of her work.

Getting the exhibition ready

Today we worked on putting The Last Word exhibition on the walls.  I forgot to take my camera!  So just a boring post without any pictures.
It was great to see Cresside working out the best way to display the works, how they went together, the best placement of the works, etc.  A good learning experience.
There were some beautiful works there, all so different from each other.  I had seen quite a few of them in the making but not completed, and not mounted.  There were also some I had not seen before, so it was a great day today.
Watch this space for some photos - we are having the opening tomorrow night.

Sort of finished my en plein air piece

As the header says, my en plein air piece is sort of finished.  I have hitched off and sewn down the ends.  But it is 1cm wider in the middle than the two ends, so I am going to have to think about how to make it more regular.  I had thought I might have been able to avoid the problem if I had used less wool on the single warp wraps but Cresside says I probably should just have done it more tightly.  There are a lot of colour changes in that part of the weaving also, which will have contributed to the bulge.

11cm x 12 (13) cm

Whatever the reason it happened, I now have to try to make it more rectangular.  I might try the steam blocking that we learnt earlier in the year or I might just try to wiggle it in when I put a backing on.  Not to worry, it is my first attempt and I learn from my mistakes - I hope.  I could always try mounting it behind a window mount and hide the edges.

En Plein Air tapestry weaving

As an enjoyable way to finish off our year of tapestry study, we have just spent a weekend at Mansfield, learning how to do en plein air tapestry weaving.  We had good intentions of working away all weekend but took a while to get going, due to being in holiday mode. We eventually got to work and warped up at the Crockett Cottage Studio.

Cresside Collette was leading our group and showed us how to warp up using a stretcher frame or something similar.  It had to be small enough to hold on our laps as we were going to be sitting outdoors.

I know we are all grateful for the rain but did it have to rain all afternoon?  We ended up going to the one of our classmate's house and using the spectacular views from her balcony and lounge to work.

In some ways this was great - we could be dry, have comfortable seats and be near the kettle. Thanks very much to Sally for this hospitality!

As you may have noticed, the King Parrots were not at all put off by the people around.  In fact, one of our group included them in her work.

It was strange to only use the bobbin for beating down and doing the weaving with short pieces of yarn and our fingers.

It did not rain Sunday afternoon but we returned to the same place to continue our weaving.  Of course, the light was different but we managed to make do.  Due to the recent rains, there were a lot of shades of green to work on.  Tonal value became more important than trying to accurately portray the exact shades - not that we had brought enough yarn to even attempt this.  One of the differences with en plein air work, you can't plan too much in advance and have to be flexible.

One of the hazards of en plein air work.

Due to our slow start on Saturday and the earlyish finish - due to the changing light, being indoors and sitting in this unaccustomed position - we did not finish our work.  We are hoping that we have taken good enough photos to complete the work in the next few weeks.

It was an interesting experience, trying to weave what you are looking at and having to cope with changing lighting, not being able to plan your colours in advance, having to adjust the image as you go and trying to balance it all on your lap. We had a very relaxing and enjoyable weekend.  Thanks to Cresside and Sally for their contributions.