This was a wonderful workshop attended by quilters who woud like to add text to their textile art. Coming from a position of having done virtually no lettering, and looking at letter proportions for one day only, I was delighted to see that the workshoppers produced work on a par with any other group of calligraphers.
This is because everyone who took part really looked hard at how David Jones produced his artworks, and they sought to emulate this. Each letter has been lovingly drawn, traced and then transferred to the gessoed paper uisng carbon paper so that it relates to the letter above or below and to its left.
Colour swatches were created to plan a colour range, and most people started with a word in the centre of the piece to preserve the thought process of relating it to surrounding letters.
Although everyone had a thumbnail of the overall plan, I think David Jones probably drew and painted the letters as he went, rather than planning them all first, the drawing them all, then doing the painting. If you plan it all in advance, it just becomes paint-by-numbers! This is far more exciting.
It was also important to constantly refer to the examples. All the examples were on A3 paper, but the actual work was closer to A1 in size.
The colours were subtle and lovely. Diana’s even matched her outfit. Bear in mind that the brief was to use two complementary colours and white.
Bec cycled the 7 miles home at 3.00pm having promised me that she would send me a photo of the finished piece. I left at 3.45 to drive back to Oxford and got home minutes before the scan of the completed piece arrived!
Please all think about how this sort of lettering can be used in fabric design / quilting / patchwork. And watch this space for ideas.
Such a successful outcome! You must be very pleased. As for using this technique: writing in fabric books, totes, cushion covers, quilts with a message eg ones for babies, children, themed quilts, banners….Thanks for sharing.