OPEN DOOR with Studio 3 - Moving Images

Session 11   

There was a concentrated effort today as everyone tried to complete their work.

John thought working with Philip and his drawings of different creatures was good.

Ian S got very absorbed in his painting of the background for the Grim Reaper and enjoyed himself again. He said he learnt more about acrylic painting, particularly that the colour would get lighter towards the horizon.

Ian G found it very absorbing too. He had worked very hard at home since the last session to get his film ready for viewing and did some more tweeking today – it looks fantastic! Ian even managed to teach Rozi something she didn’t know how to do by showing her the lipsync program ‘Crazy Talk’. Meanwhile, Ian’s trusty assistant, Elaine, extended her modelling skills to the Grim Reaper animation and worked on a series of Grim’s cloaks gradually changing colour from black to gold. She also did some more work on the Grim himself to make him look even more sinister. She said she enjoyed doing this and found it quite relaxing.

At first, Karen felt down–hearted about her work with the Goddess cards. When she first saw it today, she thought it wouldn’t work but appreciated the help and advice from Rozi and Jill. She then felt a lot better and realised it would work after all with one or two adjustments.

Paul said he enjoyed working with Rozi on his animation sequence and putting the music on to make it more complete.

Howard said, “It was good to see my rough mock–up and see what bits needed doing still – then it all suddenly came together!” He was quite surprised, after all the painstaking work he had put into the drawings and stop motion work, how quickly it all suddenly came together as an animation.    

OPEN DOOR - Textile Tales – Session 1

Today was the beginning of a 12 week project called Textile Tales, which is part of Open Door Project Year 2.  Artists Musarat Raza and myself, Bryony Pritchard, have been preparing many activities and looking forward to meeting the group, which is a combination of participants from two previous Artlink projects; Feel Good Factor in 2011 and Sikh Elders in 2012. 

Today the two groups will meet each other for the first time in the freshly refurbished Artlink basement. The kettle is boiling and the biscuits are ready.

The theme of the project is exploring stories, myths, legends and personal tales within our cultures and finding interesting ways of sharing and retelling these stories through a variety of textile techniques.

We welcomed 3 participants from Feel Good Factor and 6 from Sikh Elders. We began the session by introducing our names including any associated special meanings or stories. By using an OS map of Leeds we marked all the places we live across the city and we noticed similar areas where we live; Beeston, Harehills, Roundhay and Hyde Park.

With a box full to the brim of different objects, everybody is invited to rummage and find an item, which might trigger a memory or a story about themselves. This generated some wonderful discussions within pairs and small groups; yoyo competitions amongst their children, a smart grandfather riding on horseback through Jamaican forests wearing a chain watch, a romantic wedding anniversary ceramic box, knitting lessons from influential neighbours, tricky calculations in an engineering office, secret money for the milkman under a door matt, draped silk scarves and freshly cut flowers within the childhood home.

As the snowflakes began to fall outside, our tales are shared. It becomes apparent, there are many wonderful storytellers amongst us!

With paint, sequins and trim, we decorated our own special wooden box, which will be used in future storytelling activities in the project. One participant drew beautiful birds inspired by a bird watching book she had in her handbag, others created pretty patterns with their sequins.

It was great start to the project and we look forward to hearing more stories from the group next week as we focus on our family trees.

Bryony

OPEN DOOR with Studio 3 - Moving Images

Session 10

Ian S said he had really enjoyed the session today and had got a lot more done – he felt he had made a big improvement on his painting.

Karen felt she was making progress and could see her work beginning to come together. She felt pleased with the colours.

Paul said he had had enjoyed doing the drawings for his animation even though it was “a bit repetitious”. He produced a new set of drawings today that he thinks are better and that can be incorporated into his existing sequence.

Ian G and Elaine continued working together shooting Ian’s animation. Ian described it as “quite a mental work–out” – and physical, too, with all the getting up and down to move and operate the characters! Elaine, whose official role was camera operator, said it had been enjoyable: “I’ve enjoyed just seeing how it’s done”.

The funniest thing today was how well the ‘yellow food dye’ worked in Ian and Elaine’s animation!

Howard finished shooting his Woodcutter and did a recording of his voice–over – first take straight off with no editing needed! “It’s been far easier than I expected and its come on more quickly than I expected!”

It was agreed that there is a strong sense that everyone's work is coming together.  

A Thousand Paper Cranes

SESSION 4

We have to use the small dining room as there is a sink there that we need for tie dyeing. As luck would have it, this turns out to be the most popular activity, and more and more people are coming until there is hardly any room to move.

However everybody is eventually seated and full of enthusiasm.

There are socks and pieces of cotton expertly tied, bundled and painted with various dyes. Soon there are half a dozen hair dryers drying the cloth, we are all sweltering and

I am daydreaming that I am in a strange hairdressers!

Soon we are unravelling beautiful colour pieces. It is amazing how many colours you can get from only three! We are ironing on the floor as there is no room anywhere.

Afterwards we start on the canvas bags. They are more difficult to paint on as the weave is rougher and cotton thicker. We shall continue to stencil next time.

 

 

 

These are only a few examples of what was made in the session.

We look forward to stencilling next week and continuing to work with fabric dyes!



OPEN DOOR with Studio 3 - Moving Images

Session 9

John said the session went well today.

We tried some test recordings for the sounds and voice–overs. Paul used a made up ‘rain stick’ with a cardboard tube and peas to create a rain sound and then tried tapping on the table with his fingers. He thought the ‘rain stick’ worked better for his drawings.

Karrie did a trial run recording the story of the Grim Reaper. She read it through once and had a good rhythm and then picked out certain sentences that she needed to re–record. She said it went okay.

Ian G cut out the photo stills to re–arrange as a photo storyboard for his animation, now renamed ‘In the Grasp of Winter’.

 

Karen worked on a mock–up of her ‘Goddess of Time’ piece, then sponge painted the background colour on a large piece of card with a purple colour – the source of inner light she said. This is the first time Karen has ever painted and she found it really exciting – “I loved it!” “I thought everything had to be done very precisely and measured, but then I went wrong and realised that it produced a good effect.”

At the end, Karen exclaimed "I've really enjoyed it.  I'm really pleased that I have come and am doing something creative in my life!" 

A Thousand Paper Cranes

Lino Printing Part 3 - The Results

This is the last of the printing sessions and everybody is pleasantly surprised by the results of the third overprinting.

There are a couple of new people joining the group who have never done any linocuts, but after some initial dilemmas choosing the design they too are catching up fast and it is difficult to believe that this is their first print.

 

There is not much lino left after printing the final colour.

We took the short cut and cut the lino away with the scissors. Luckily we left the top edge intact, because it would have been difficult to register the colour.

Examples of three colour printing
 

Mixing of the lino cut with monotype print.

 

At the end of the session prints are spread out so everyone can see what has been achieved.

 

It is hard to clean up the beautiful colours from the inking slab. Next week we all decided to do some tie dyeing, so watch this space!

A Thousand Paper Cranes

Lino printing part 2..

The prints and lino plates that were started last week were laid out on the tables ready for the participants who came in and got straight down to work.

It was clear everyone had been looking forward to relaxing into the lino cutting process again.

We also had 3 new participants who got stuck in and very quickly were drawing designs, printing and cutting.

Those who had printed a base colour last week, cut away the areas of the design that they wanted to keep that base colour.

Then a second (often darker) colour was inked onto the plate, and the plate placed onto the base colour print with great care, so that the edges lined up.

Some participants chose to ink the plate with several colours in one stage, to great effect.

The cutting gave several of the designs a beautiful and clear definition, to what had been an abstract base colour print.

The range of papers used to print onto also gave some interesting contrasts and textures to the prints.

Once the second colour (or set of colours!) were printed, the plates were washed clean, and the process began again.

More of the lino was cut away, so that these areas will stay as they are… when a third inking is completed next week.

Its been one of the most productive session we’ve had. The enjoyment was infectious.

‘This was fantastic…. Really really good’

‘I really enjoyed it’.

‘It’s nice to get messy and have fun’

Commenting on the results..’not bad for someone without a creative bone in their body’.