WARRNAMBOOL TAPESTRY WORKSHOP 2007

Last week was spent in the most pleasant of ways at a tapestry weaving workshop held by South West Institute of Tafe at Warrnambool and conducted by artist Gerda Van Hamond.












The theme for the workshop was ' Interpreting Your Work ' I chose to use a lino cut print that was produced from a pen drawing as I have never used of of my prints for a tapestry design before.
Gerda discussed different ways of using tracings of the artwork for the cartoon, ranging from the detailed to the very simple.

An area of the print was selected and traced to make the cartoon.
The tracing was enlarged and the weaving began.
I chose to add some colour to the original print to see what it would be like to weave a hand coloured lino cut.This is very much a sample and a play with
mark making in tapestry. Some lines were edged in soumac and then woven to give a sharp, crisp line. Different colour blending gives a much softer line and feel to the tapestry. In the green area one strand of green was added to the black and the plain black area looks hard and stark in comparison. Grey was added to the black in areas that were not strong black in the print but showed small specks of the paper through the ink. It is interesting to see the same image in different media. First a pen drawing, then a print and finally a tapestry. I would have liked to have kept weaving until I could put in the strong red's in the teapot but other tapestry weaving is more important at the moment and it gets a bit overwhelming when you have more than one loom with a half finished tapestry. So I have hitched off and now need to concentrate on trying to get the other two tapestries finished by the end of the school year.
It was good to go to class and work on tapestry from 9am to 4pm for 5 days, away from home and other distractions. It is a good momentum to keep up and my first day back home felt a bit odd as I felt like I should weave all day!!!



I would like to thank Gerda and the other students for a wonderful week. Gerda has a wealth of knowledge and experience and is such a giving teacher with a wonderful relaxed style.
But for now it is back to the real world of assignments and due dates and in my case at times overdue dates!!!