Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

I haven't posted on here in quite some time due to sheer complete and utter busy-bee-ness; there are a few very good reasons for this, which I will now explain! Gathering The first and probably most significant is that I've been working on a huge Textile commission with artist Lisa Earley  about the Bankes Family of Dorset in conjunction with  Walford Mill Crafts  and the Dorset History Centre . So most of my spare time has been spent researching in the archives, handling documents from as early as the 1200s, interpreting these documents into craft pieces and all the various admin that goes along with such a project. We've also been working with our local communities; making work with local school and college students as well as independent craft groups to involve the public and raise awareness of the archive. The results of this commission will be in an exhibition called 'Threads of Narrative', opening in March 2018. In the meantime you can follow our progre...

Yesterday I took part in a lino cutting taster class at  Walford Mill  with resident printmaker  Robin Mackenzie . Robin specialises in illustration and printmaking of the wood engraving and linocut variety and is just an all-round tip top bloke and jolly good egg. We started off the class by flipping through some print books for ideas of texture and mark making. Robin welcomes complete newbies to his classes (which is just as well as we nearly all were!); I've done a little bit of  lino printing  before but nothing to get excited about. Everyone brought a photo or sketch to work from but we were provided with all the other essential equipment we needed: I had an original sketch to work from: I wanted to do something fun and in my own unique illustrative style; although I knew that all this detail might be pushing it for a 2 hour class I was up for a little challenge! Once we'd all sketched out our compositions and were happy with the design, we proceede...

Today I did a few small errands such as buying stationery, making tea for visitors and folding / packing shirts: But mainly I continued with my creative beadwork samples. Here are some photos of what I've done so far: As I said yesterday, I chose materials that I liked the colours and shapes of and began with this sample: As I'd been asked to find inventive new ways of using existing stock I used the oversized sequins upside down, which sort of reminded me of satellite dishes so as I went on sampling, I made myself a mental mood board of sci-fi b-movies and tried to make new shapes and patterns that were reminiscent of UFOs or strange plants that could be growing on other planets. Here are some images that might help explain what I mean: Barbarella War Of The Worlds illustration by Edward Gorey Plan 9 From Outer Space AT-ST I still have some more work to do on these samples but I'm enjoying the opportunity to be creative and have had some very ...