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5 Day Workshops

WORKSHOP FULL Strip-Piecing and Restructuring - Part II - March 29 to April 2, 2010

This 5-day class introduces Design Exercises for creating "strip-pieced fabrics" that will be the basis of a large black and white composition; students will be challenged to work intuitively on this initial dynamic composition. Next, students will begin working in color using their large palettes of solid-colored fabrics, cutting out, designing, and sewing a wide variety of exciting strip-pieced fabrics based on "FABRIC DESCRIPTIONS." After finishing these fabrics, students will be given new Design Exercises that will generate more compositions. As they work on building these new compositions, students will also begin the process of thinking about how their strip-pieced fabrics can be cut-up and re-combined/restructured into new fabrics that might be used in any of their works-in-progress. more.
Supply List.
Instructor: Nancy Crow

Colour on the Couch - April 3 to April 7, 2010

Colour is a chameleon: like the lizard, it changes in the context of surrounding colours. In an intensive five-day exploration, Barbara Shelly will guide you through unique exercises designed to master the complex realm of colour.
Colour is composition. You will analyze the paintings of great masters to reveal their use of colour as structural foundation in composition. These studies in image-making are applicable to painters, designers, printmakers and textile artists alike. more
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Instructor: Barbara Shelly

Improvisations - Lets Experiment! - April 5 to April 9, 2010

A sewing machine and lots of fabric will be used in this fast-paced and intense workshop designed for students who no longer need "hand-holding" and who are desirous of being far more experimental using machine-piecing techniques. Students will be expected to work spontaneously and intuitively with nontraditional quilt making techniques as they explore design exercises that promote improvisational approaches to composition without benefit of 'pre-planning and 'intellectualizing'. more
Supply List
Intstructor: Nancy Crow

WORKSHOP FULL - Wait list still available Cloth, Figure Workshop - April 5 to April 9, 2010

This five day course, led by the world renowned art doll creator, Akira Blount, will be a comprehensive week of learning all aspects of making a doll. more. Supply List.
Instructor: Akira Blount

3 Day Workshops

Mark-Making - Touching the Surface - March 29 to March 31, 2010

In this three day workshop we will explore a number of surface design techniques for creating a multi-layered fabric. We will work with low immersion dye techniques on natural fabrics, and disperse dyes on polyester. From there we will explore discharge, over dyeing, and resists. We will paint and print as well as adding image transfer and puff pigments. A jam packed class with a sampling of many techniques, and the opportunity to produce yardage that will excite the imagination and allow the participant to go deep into the surface of the fabric, and make her own mark. more. Supply List.
Instructor: Ros Aylmer

2 Day Workshops

The Forest Floor (Painting with Thread) - March 29 to 30, 2010

With simple adjustments, your machine becomes a creative tool, and your woodland observations are open to new interpretation. Experiment with details that capture your imagination - a clump of moss is stitched into a maze of downy greens, a cluster of moldy root is layered into dense and blackened hues. The pure joy of combining coloured threads and transparencies almost eclipses your accomplishment - the fact that you have accessed a personal approach to image-making. Ultimately, each of your intimate studies will convene in a composition, uniquely filtered through your own experience. more
Instructor: Barbara Shelly

Trees and Tracery (Drawing with Thread) - March 31 to April 1, 2010

The Loon Lake workshop setting is a sylvan studio, poised in surroundings both lush and local. The forest is an inventory of line - branching and tracery, skeletal foliage, and snarls of fallen needles. The quality of machine-drawn line is distinctive and unchallenged as an interpretive tool. You can experiment with tentative, meandering detail or make marks of indelible power. Hatch, shade, shape and define your visual material. These unconventional methods of drawing act as a creative filter to your visual experience. Your collection of drawings, though experimental, will be visual witness to a surpassing depth of perception. more
Instructor: Barbara Shelly

Text and Textiles - April 1 to 2, 2010

Whether you work with fabric collage, quilts, or wearable art, words, letter forms, and text - readable or inscrutable-- can be a powerful addition to your compositions. In this class we will explore a variety of ways to transfer text to textiles, including stitch, markers, stamps, silkscreen, and inkjet prints. more
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Instructor: Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer

Hand Hooked Rugs: Up Close and Personal - April 6 to 7, 2010

Imagine the crackled surface of a faded autumn leaf or a rusty screw as the colours run from blue to orange. In this workshop instructor Michelle Sirois-Silver will teach the process for hooking highly textured rugs using simple line drawings inspired by images found in our environment. Participants will design and hook their own rugs using the traditional rug hooking technique and an approach that explores the contrasting and complementary relationships created when a range of fabrics and materials, colours and values are hooked side-by-side. more.
Supply List Instructor: Michelle Sirois-Silver

1 Day Workshops

Knitting as Art - April 4, 2010

Focus of the workshop will be to use various knitting techniques to create panels to be hung on walls or used as screens. more.

Supply List
Instructor: Julie Pongrac