Workshop 5: Fiber Selfie

Disclaimer: I had a horrible migraine for most of this Thursday afternoon and evening! After the workshop I went home and lay in a dark room for several hours until I could face sound and light again. But *during* the workshop I ignored the pounding, heavy, clenching behind my right eye and powered through.

The community time was relaxed and went by quickly as usual. The students were “marbling” paper with Prang pastel shavings in water, a really cool little project that I enjoy a lot. When the students in our group asked what we were doing for our group lesson that day and I told them, “Fiber Selfie,” they replied, “Yesss! I’ve been waiting for that one since the beginning!” So I knew they were excited for the lesson, which was great.

I did feel a bit discombobulated, however, as the workshop started. I had written a bullet point list for the order of activities and discussion: First, talk about gel transfer. Next demo gel transfer. Next, they do it. Moving on, show artists examples and demonstrate some embroidery stitches and needle felting. Tell them they need to create a sketch and then work time. (Pass out “Attitude Scale” survey at the end.)

I mostly followed it. A good way into work time one student decided she was done after doing one or two things to her portrait. In my attempts to inspire her to keep working, I suddenly remembered my artists’ examples would be quite inspiring. D’oh. (They weren’t to her, though.)

(Above images--Left: Nick Cave. Right:

Maurizio Anzeri)

Going back to the work time, the students seemed interested in the gel transfer process and did a decent job with their transfers. I explained that if we had had time, they could have transferred their portraits to the canvas in the same way, but that in the interest of time, I had just collaged them. I also had tried printing their portraits on vellum for collaging, however, my printer is not the right kind and the ink smeared on the bottom of their portraits. I still liked the effect of the image on vellum though, so I brought these portraits for the girls to keep and use at home in whatever projects they like. 

I showed the students the sketch I had quickly drawn for my own fiber selfie. Half of them made a preparatory sketch like I asked. Half didn’t. Two of the students who did generate a sketch used their vellum portraits and sketched directly on that, which was clever enough that I announced everyone should consider doing that.

I was a little disappointed that only two students of seven actually tried some embroidery techniques. The contrast and texture of the thread had been my favorite effect/part of this project. However all students, except one were interested in using needle felting and used it in their portrait with some fun results.

Studio time went really fast and everyone seemed engrossed in their work. Most students finished their portrait by the end. I noticed one student incorporating a technique in her work that I had taught in the over-painting lesson (blending markers for space colors) and I was pleased to see two girls, one who wasn’t even in my workshop, staying behind to play with the felt and create things that weren’t related to my lesson at all.

When there were about fifteen minutes left, I told the students to keep working but that I was going to pass out a little survey to help them think about their learning and help me figure out how to improve the lesson. Everyone filled it out and handed it back in. The results were good (lesson was mostly exciting, good, pleasant, enjoyable, valuable), so I’m not sure exactly what to change. I did notice that nearly all the girls marked neutral between challenging and easy, which makes me think that the lesson needs to be slightly more challenging. In a more structured environment (like an art classroom in school) I would have required that they include embroidery in their project for full points, and probably more than one sketch as well. In the future, I could add the gel transfer step for getting the portrait onto canvas.

Despite the headache, I enjoyed teaching this lesson and I had some verbal and written positive feedback indicating that the students enjoyed this lesson, as well. And I’m pretty happy with how their altered self-portraits turned out!