EG Residential

Had a brilliant weekend at Bishop Burton  - three of us from Harrogate all chose the Linda Westerman tutored  '3D images.'  The requirements list was quite sparse and we all found ourselves wishing for (sometimes) obvious things we'd not brought. It did however encourage a culture of helping and sharing and improvising and Linda was more than generous with her stash.
I took some skeleton chinese lanterns that I picked from the garden last winter before they got too manky and decided I would work on them.

As you can see, the one I chose was very well preserved, even down to the shrivelled seed inside. I then sampled a selection of ways I thought might suit the construction. You will be surprised that I started by drawing the pod - somewhat simple not to say naive, but a drawing nevertheless ! I then sampled machine sewn grids on various papers,  free machined scrim etc as well as cake wire supported shapes on paper and dissolvable. Machine gridded tissue paper was the most delicate sample and though I was able to produce a piece that held its shape by painting it with watered down pva, I decided it would be too difficult to join unsupported pieces so made my sections by machining lightweight cake wire petals over the tissue grid. They were coloured with tea and rubbed to produce a lacy effect and then handsewn into shape - a small wooden bead made the 'seed'.

I was really pleased with the effect and the delicate piece that I ended up with.


I then made another pod by machining the cakewire petals onto dissolvable and free machining the grid. This produced a more robust pod with a lacier effect but which wasn't as delicate as either the paper one or the actual lantern.

I finished the project by making a wired book cover to contain a zigzag of my samples.

Everyone had a really worthwhile weekend and we were all of the opinion that we had chosen the 'best' course!