New this term at  Heart Space Studios is a course of 9 sessions – working with mixed media. Debby Bird and I  are working together – we both started with Paper for the first session – later in the term we will add Leather and Suede, or felted  materials for the vegans amongst us. Working over a prolonged time (18 weeks) means that we need to develop some overall colour scheme and theme.

So we started with a show and tell of our own mixed media work and I showed the group a series of colour stories or mood boards used in textile design companies to show the atmosphere and colour gamut of a collection. I use the same system for showing publishers to show how my books will look.

I brought in  a pile of art postcards and other images for everyone to choose 1 or 2 or even 5 – from this they each had to develop their own story board, isolating colours, textures from their cards. At home they can inject their own imagery and  details.

the  selections were very different from one another….

we also offered a whole table full or wallpaper samples, Japanese papers, maps, books, tissue papers, paper-lace doilies, Chinese New Year Money – anything and everything to give inspiration

soon everyone was  at the table – it was a veritable feeding frenzy

then the room went quiet as everyone tried to make some sense out of what they had chosen and the editing began…the first step of design.

slowly the selection became richer and more subtle.

lots of variations follow…subtle and softly coloured,

and even more variations….

some people just believe that more is more – as do I!

then when everyone was settling down Debby showed them  how to dye papers using simple wax resists……

subtle and refined papers were prepared when attention was given to the original post card images.

now these could be added to the mix. and attention given to the type of cutting or ripping and alignment of the papers to reflect the atmosphere and colour of the original selected postcards – learn to trust you initial instincts when starting a new design

eventually everyone managed to resolve their ideas into a piece of collaged work to take home and add some  more personal embellishments.

Story Boards are a visual statement of intent – so we will be drawing everyone’s attention back to their finished board each time we sample a new technique over the coming weeks ….watch this space