Poetry of Decay Workshop

Last week, I had the opportunity to do the mixed media ‘Poetry of Decay’ workshop with Christine Chester. It was five days of using different medias and techniques to build up marks and layers that reflected a sense of rusting, deterioration and decay. I’ve been fascinated with the subject of decay for a number of years and have created a couple of pieces of work responding to it (which you can find more about here and here), but I looked forward to learning new techniques to carry on the theme and expand my art practice.

Over the course of the five days, we created a whole series of works on card and fabric, almost all of which I am really happy with. It was a very intensive few days, in which we covered a lot of stuff, but I definitely now have several pieces of completed work that I am very proud of and many more ideas of ways to further my decay project.

We were asked to bring along a few pictures to act as references. These are the eight I took a long. In hindsight I wish I’d taken different ones that were more close-up shots of decay/rust.

We started on the first day by “preparing the ground”, which involved using primer and laminating (using matte medium to stick different papers and materials to create different surfaces) on card and then later onto fabric. We also manipulated the card in various ways, such as rubbing wax onto it, piercing holes into the card and folding it.

The next day we started adding layers of ink and dye: Indian ink, quink, white drawing ink, walnut ink, black, brown, rust and petrol dye. We kept adding layers and mark making to respond to the photos we brought with us. We also did some bleaching on cards which had gotten too dark, to help lift the colour back again to add more layers.

The next step was adding ‘highlights’, which we did in a variety of ways, such as using oil pastels, xpandaprint, embossing powder and rusting powder and others to add a final layer to finish off the pictures.

Alongside this work on card, we also did a few dying techniques on fabric. I’d never done any dyeing before, so this was all new territory and out of my comfort zone, but they were very easy and straightforward techniques, so it didn’t matter that I was a total beginner.

The two techniques we were shown were space dying and flour paste.

We also did monoprinting, colouring bondaweb, gel transfer and made and used our own thermascreens, which I used on fabric with more dye.

The last couple of days were spent assembling what we’d done on paper and fabric into a run of images to form a concertina book. I managed to make up two whilst on the course and organized two more runs into an order, which I still need to put together.

As I said above, it was a very intensive course, but that was just because we covered so much over the five days and created so much work. Although not everything I did was necessarily successful, a lot of it was and everything was definitely worth trying again at home. I learnt so many things that I want to try and incorporate and adapt into my work.