April 2021 – Our first ever Zoom workshop weekend with Eleanor White

Saturday: How we see, not what we see
Sunday:  Colour and imagination

In April  2021, twelve members of Edge textile artists Scotland took part in our first ever Zoom workshop. It was run by the talented artist and tutor Eleanor White of Bridge House Art in Ullapool.

We enjoyed an action-packed weekend starting on the Friday night with a chat and review of the still life that each of us had set up, and our first exercise. The Saturday started with an informative narrated slide show by Eleanor then onto a series of exercises working from our own still life. All our drawings were done in quick succession in black and white progressing on to collage work then a final piece. The day was wound up with a slide show of all our work with discussion and critique on each one.

Sunday, starting as before with the narrated slide show, then into a completely different day. We started with a series of quick exercises firstly responding to music then onto words from a poem. Each exercise let us explore different ways to express the words using drawing, painting and collage. Our last piece of work was a painting using one line from the poem that inspired us. We finished with a slide show of the final pieces, Eleanor’s critique and our chance to see everyone’s work and to comment.

The Zoom link was open throughout the weekend which gave us a feeling of all working together; it also made it easy for us to ask questions as we went along. Eleanor has worked very hard to ensure that the workshop is successful in the Zoom format and in some ways it is even better than an in-person course.

It was an exciting weekend with lots of very different work produced, enjoyed by all.

A huge thank you to Eleanor for her enthusiasm and inspiration, for working us hard, in a good way and for helping us to achieve some wonderful results. Also thank you to Christine who gave technical support throughout the weekend helping to keep us all connected.

Moira A Dickson