#drawing

Art tuition

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I have always enjoyed art and craft work and I have worked with a wide age range for many years. I have always found the way they learn to be interesting and fascinating. I have worked with children in a school setting and also for leisure activities so I feel my involvement and experience is wide ranging. My work is not only limited to children I also have knowledge and skills to work with specialist groups such as adults with learning disabilities. This has made me aware that there are barriers to how people can learn and consequently I have learnt to adapt my lesson/activities to meet the needs of the individual.

My background is in art, I completed an art degree specialising in illustration at Derby University. This has given me knowledge and techniques/skills which I can facilitate to others. I take my continual professional development very seriously and I have therefore attended informal and formal training days and courses post qualification. These include courses in first aid, life drawing skills, tailoring, printmaking techniques and puppetry. This has encouraged me to develop a wide range of activities and lesson plans. I have and continue to attend several formal and informal training days as part of my CPD.

The following is a case study from a previous student who attended weekly one to one sessions. During 4 years we worked on different craft projects usually initiated by the student herself. I have worked around their limited fine motor skills and as their confidence has grown  hand muscles strengthened and with my encouragement is now able to pick up smaller objects such as beads because their dexterity has greatly improved. This is important to them socially and I developed a strong rapport with them, which has added an extra dimension to their everyday life. This experience has taught me to consider how everyone has different abilities and a well-planned lesson has to take account of individual capabilities. Pictured below are examples of projects developed over time many were given as gifts.

 

I believe in preparation and always like to have examples of my own work to inspire my students. As a dyslexic I believe it is important to engage learners through all the senses. My exemplars are a visual way to draw children into the activity to inspire them with ideas. I am passionate about creativity and I am always inventing new ideas for drawing games which serve as great icebreakers or warm up activities during lessons.

 

Art classes for children include topics on traditional art techniques, painting, colour mixing, drawing, sculpture and printmaking. I believe it is important to learn the foundations of art. Craft and freedom to be creative is also highly important so craft activities are often used.

I am excited to begin art classes in my studio in banks mill. After running regular art clubs in Birmingham and then again for two years when I moved to derby the 2 year break since having my baby has felt too long.

kidsartclass poster copy (1)

New Year

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I won the bronze award for my entry into eco creates exhibition Time and tide waits for no man with my entry ‘tide and tide waits for no one’, this kicked off a great start to what has already been a busy creative year for me.

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‘This is a metaphorical Illustrative textile piece. I chose to use a mix of embroidery, machine sewing and appliqué to ‘colour in’ with a small amount of fabric painting added for good measure. Pictured is a female dressed in her wellies, rain coat and mittens, she represents human kind, and struggles to hold onto a clock ‘umbrella’ with ocean waves crashing down upon the top. The umbrella is decorated to look like a clock which depicts time and that it is running out. A gold, slightly wonky, umbrella handle that she is clinging to signifies those of us who are trying to prevent the inevitable. Admittedly a future that won’t necessarily happen for hundreds of years yet. After all though shouldn’t we begin to realise that eventually mother nature (the tide) will do as she wishes. As the theme of the exhibition suggests ‘Time and tide’, really wont, wait for no man or indeed woman’.

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My aim for this year is to have a clear out of unsold art work I have stored for years now cluttering the corner of my studio. I can’t keep hoarding them any more so I am having a 60% reduction off the original price which will run until the end of February, I am hoping at least this way, my work can go to new home where they will be out on display and seen.

Follow this link https://en-gb.facebook.com/ElizabethBladesArtist/ to my facebook page to grab a bargain and own some hand printed art that is worth so much more than what you will be paying for it.

This January saw the start of my new venture, life drawing evening classes. The classes are in such a beautiful space, with chic and inspiring surroundings at the Smallprint Co http://www.smallprintcompany.co.uk/

I am keen to see if this will grow in terms of attendance numbers but for now at least I will wait and see what happens.

I found time over the festive period to work on my art nouveau collaboration project, here is a sneak peak at some of the drawings awaiting colour.

My ragdoll panel imagery is slow in progress but still coming along nicely. I will have to stop myself from posting too many of these so I don’t give the whole story away. It is still early days yet but I am rediscovering my love for just drawing in pencil, atmosphere and tone is so fun to create and perfect for setting the mood.

I have begun to experiment with a new medium for an exciting job opportunity I gained just before the end of last year. Mosaic will be a technique I am determined to master.

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I will be running a series of mosaic workshops in schools throughout the first few months of the year so I have created this exemplar because I teach better when I have visual aids. The mosaic’s the children will produce will be large mural size intended to adorn the school walls.

I have many more exciting projects planned over the coming months and I am looking forward to documenting it here in my blog.

Handmade December

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This is the first winter I have properly settled into a place I now call home and I am ready to celebrate the end of this year and took toward the next.

I have been busy making my own decorations. Bunting and garlands are quick and easy when skipping the sewing machine and reaching for the glue gun.

I am especially pleased with the garland crafted from last years Christmas cards. This did actually take ages to make though and I started it a few months back, left it, and kept doing little bits of it right up until this picture.

At least I have these to reuse every year though right!? This is what I keep telling myself, I must remember to wrap them around a spool once the festive period is out the way and not toss them into a bag to be stuffed into the attic.

My skills with paper mache decorations are never as good as what I think up in my mind. A little gingerbread house I did a few years ago is still standing strong though.

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The poor excuse of a twig tree needs lots of work, on reflection, wire should have been used from the start but time was limited and it appears to hold these tree ornaments okay. For now.

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A festive fabric printing workshop I ran last month resulted in the perfect reason to create my own Christmas day dinner table runner and place matt’s for exemplars.

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One of my favourite new Christmas ornament’s is this mini empowerment doll gifted to me by fellow artist Rita Kappia  https://twitter.com/ritathedolllady

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One of my last commissions of the year was to illustrate and design the Instruction kit for this doll.

It was such a fun doll to draw too!

Amongst all the excitement and relaxation this holiday will no doubtingly bring I will continue to draft imagery for my rag doll Fairytale. I will endeavour to make 2017 the year that this book comes to life.

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I am feeling proud that I have successfully kept a monthly blog over the course of 2016. It has helped me develop my writing skills and as a working artist in documenting my progress. I hope to continue this process throughout the on coming year.

I am pleased to announce lots of new projects are planned for 2017, so watch this space.

Merry Christmas!

Creative Spell

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I finally have a space in the studio at Blades McDowell HQ – The picture suggests messy chaos but there is underlying organisation, honest. Every folder is labelled, and separated into categories. Yes I had an exciting summer of tidying up! Planning for example has become so much easier and quicker.

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The mess is due to the creative spell I have been unleashing recently. I should say drawing spell, which would be more accurate, but I will talk more about that in a minute.

The past two blog posts have been predominantly text based so this month I have plenty of images to visually excite.

I have been put in charge of the marketing for the writers group. I am pretty chuffed with the logo I designed and it incorporates my current obsession with Art Deco design. https://www.facebook.com/RewriteBureau/

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Shorter days and colder weather aside I adore autumn and in particular Halloween! Past blog post readers may have noticed my love of Buffy the vampire slayer. So take a sprinkle of an hour or two, a dash of detailed stencil cutting concentration and a small handful of using the squeegee too pull black fabric paint onto a store brought tee and I have a new favourite slogan top!

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If vampire’s were actually real it is more likely that I would run screaming but perhaps an empowering slogan t-shirt will inject confidence for a can do attitude for actual slaying of demons if they did take to the streets this Halloween.

Onto the drawing spell I mentioned above, I have taken part in #inktober for the first time this October. Much like many other artists who join in, I have found it to be very inspiring. I am using the concept of producing a daily ink sketch to kick start my imagery for my rag doll Fairytale story.

I am generally loving it and if I am being honest have been cheating a little and drawing a few to be ahead of the game on days I should actually be doing admin.

There is only a few days left but you can follow my illustrations on Instagram; https://www.instagram.com/elizabethblades/

One of my most favourite designs is a definite contender for the front page of my story. It needs some extra things added but I think it is one of my best works I have done in a while.

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I have discovered, rather fascinatingly, that even though the #inktober concept was started by an artist named Jake Parker in the USA, Indonesia apparently run there own.

Rather brilliantly to help participants along with their drawings 31 prompts are listed to be used or ignored which ever is preferred.

I have found these very useful and have been using a combination of the Indonesian prompts and the one’s Jake Parker has suggested.

After all I am, sort of, linked to this area of Asia, due to my 11% south east and oceanic part. #clutchingatstraws

My partner and I are hoping to launch another new tutoring venture at the start of the new year. Life drawing has been one of my most unexpected and loved drawing techniques to teach during the past few years.

I have been wanting to set up a regular life drawing evening class in derby, UK, for a while now. It looks like the perfect location has been found and I hope to pull my slipper socks up and market this properly.

More details on this coming soon.

I will end this post with a Halloween inspired illustration and a hint towards a fashion project I will be taking part in soon.

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Happy Halloween!