Drawing with a sewing machine.

First session of  'Drawing with a sewing machine' last Friday and I couldn't have asked for a better day. As the course involves drawing and most people are scared of this especially in front of other people, I had been wracking my brain for the right approach. I wanted them to, 1, get rid of their fears, 2, loosen up their drawing style and enjoy the results and 3, understand the concept of a continuous line drawing. This is what I decided to do, firstly get rid of the visual fears of 'oo' that is no good, it doesn't look right'. I had asked them to bring along a scarf and I had bought some items from home, without seeing the items, they first donned their blindfolds ie scarves (apprehension was palpable). I then placed the items in front of them and asked them to draw what they could feel with their hands and not what they knew. Results, wow!

Next they began drawing things that they were really familiar with, now drawing with their eyes closed. After that and gaining in confidence I asked them to draw as if they were drawing with wire, resolving the issue of getting from A to B in a continuous line. Finally I asked them to draw with the opposite hand that they used for writing. These are a few of the results, wonderful, wonderful drawings. None of them had had any drawing experience and all of them were pleased and amazed with the results, here are a few of the images.

I hope that you agree, lively expressive drawings and there are many, many more like this, to many to post I'm afraid.

After lunch and a little chat about the why's and wherefore's of sewing machine drawing, and feeling confident about the drawing side of things, they launched into their first stitched images, and here they are.

Great fun aren't they?

I will be posting more results in a few weeks time. Some interesting things came up in the feedback session at the end, I asked them if they would have still come if they had known in advance that they would be asked to draw, answer NO, did they know that they could draw like this and produce these results, answer NO, had they grown in confidence about their drawing abilities and was they exercise useful, answer YES. Finally, would you have stitched these type of images if you had started sewing without doing these drawing exercises, NO definitely not. Have a go yourself if you feel intimidated by drawing you never know until you try!

Lastly a big thank you to, Lucinda, Margaret, Janice, Val and Jane for allowing me to use their images. Have fun.