Composition- Big, Bold & Brave with Ruth Issett

Composition- Big, Bold & Brave with Ruth Issett

Summer School 2022

Starting from simple black and white cut paper compositions, students worked through many possibilities. They then selected two contrasting paper colours and developed their ideas further, exploring a number of different challenges. They were asked to work quickly and to enlarge their ideas so that their work climbed the wall or covered their workspace. By sharing and being open minded students quickly produced a wide variety of possibilities that could then be adapted to simple bold textile pieces.

Using large pieces of pre coloured fabric supplied by the tutor, everyone developed their paper ideas further using layers of fabric, applique, cutting and manipulations as well as additional stitch. Despite the extreme heat the group worked happily together sharing and encouraging each other to develop new ways of working and becoming braver and bolder and sometimes bigger!

Ruth Issett

The residential Summer Schools are tutored by different Textile Study Group members each year, and are open to everyone. This year the Textile Study Group Summer School was led by Ruth IssettJan Miller and Mary Sleigh. The tutors worked with design, composition and ideas as fundamental parts of their courses, encouraging and supporting the students during their inspirational courses. Below are examples of students work.

Composition: big | bold | brave, with Bobby Britnell

Composition: big | bold | brave, with Bobby Britnell

We are delighted to share that three space have become available to join in with Bobby Britnell’s Summer School 2022, Composition: big, bold, brave.

Composition is one of the key elements in art and design, whether you are creating a drawing, painting or involved with any visual art form. It provides the viewer with the tools needed for making sense of finished works.

We will begin by looking at how a composition can be changed by the simple placing of a horizontal line, the size of motifs in relation to the picture plane, and the positioning of these motifs. We will investigate some of these ideas through a number of creative exercises onto paper and from these create some large bold monochromatic drawings.

Learning from master artists is paramount in understanding these concepts, so artist research will be fundamental in cementing personal ideas. Be prepared for some dramatic effects and large scale works on fabric which explore these concepts in challenging ways.

Bobby runs and teaches courses from her studio in South Shropshire and attracts students from all over the world. She also brings in the best UK tutors. She exhibits and teaches all over the country and abroad and was a tutor on the BA (Hons) programme for the Julia Caprara School of Stitched Textiles. She published her first book in 2013, which has been reprinted in 2021.

The summer school begins at 2.00pm on Monday 18 July, and ends after afternoon tea on Thursday 21 July 2022.