20th Century Artistic Influences on Textiles

Lis Mann gave us an interesting and thought-provoking talk about her textile work and the inspiration she has found in the work of a number of 20th century artists who used other media besides painting. William Morris and Grayson Perry are artists whose work is known for covering a range of media, including textiles, ceramics and other artefacts, but it may not be so well known that Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, Eduardo Paolozzi and Marc Chagall among many others also designed textiles.

Our Saturday workshop focused principally on Vincent Van Gogh, and Lis guided us in working our own interpretations of his paintings in fabric and stitch.

Lis Mann - textile panel

Before we got on to that, though, Lis gave us a short exercise in drawing and colouring [agh, drawing!], which helped to get us in the right frame of mind - thinking about colour contrasts, light and dark, pattern and plain, scale and especially simplifying the basic shapes.  

It was very useful to have done this exercise first, since interpreting a Van Gogh painting might seem straightforward - his bold brush strokes and swirling lines just call out to be stitched - but it does mean that you have to really look at the important shapes and colours in a composition.

Examples of Lis's work gave us an idea of the sort of thing we might aim for.

Lis Mann - textile panel

Lis Mann - textile panel

Lis was a supportive and encouraging tutor.  She was keen to stress the importance of layers in creating a textile piece: not rushing to get everything down in its own space, but creating the background first, then the middle ground and finally, the foreground and details which are not part of the main structural shapes.  It may mean that you cover up some areas as you move forwards, but it makes for a much more coherent composition

Our works in progress were mainly at the background stage, but an important one, as they form the foundation for our pieces ....