Debbie Lyddon Textile ReTreat

I have just spent a very pleasurable four days on a course, Decorative Surfaces for 3D Textiles, with Debbie Lyddon over at Studio11. She is a textile artist based in Wells-next-the-sea in Norfolk and a member of The 62 Group. Her work is deeply rooted in the landscape which she has been coming back to for many many years; you can read more about it here. I first came across her via Christine and then was lucky enough to see some of her pieces when she exhibited at Festival of Quilts in 2014. I find them quite magical, the way she evokes the experience of landscape and the sense of "hidden and revealed layers" in her work. She was a delightful and generous teacher, sharing with us the techniques she uses and enabling each of us to create things that drew on our own inspirations using those techniques. 

There were seven of us on the course, three friends from Studio11 and three new folk. One of the delights in working alongside other people is seeing how they use what is learnt to express their own vision.

On our first day (and on subsequent days) we went down to the seaside in the morning, the Studio being a short walk from Eastbourne seafront. Debbie encouraged us to look and listen carefully to our surroundings. Then we made some very sketchy visual notes of things that drew us or excited us in the little sketchbooks we had made before leaving the Studio. I have done this before on an Alice Fox workshop and have found both times that this quiet, almost meditative looking and quick sketching is a marvelous way of awakening one to the surroundings without adding the angst of "am I drawing this properly?" which so often defeats me when I try to sketch outdoors.

I admit to "cheating" by taking a couple of photos on my phone as well. But, with sketchbook in hand, I was reminded of how easy it is to "just" take photos rather than really looking at what has drawn me to the thing I am snapping. When you sketch you are drawn in (if you'll pardon the pun) to the subject matter, you really see it.

I loved the lines of the wooden groynes, the punctuation marks of the rusting bolts, and the way the brilliant green seaweed showed the pull of the sea as it flowed across the wood

The pier with its wonderful crisscross girders, tensioning irons and rich rusty orange was very eye catching

and I have always enjoyed the layers and echoes on our beaches that come from the repeated shapes of the groynes and the contrasts of the colours in the shingle with the sea and sky.

Once we had gathered some ideas we went back to the Studio and spent the following days watching, learning and trialing as Debbie talked us through folding paper into simple (or complex) shapes, applying emulsion, wax, home made gesso and stitched/found textures to linen, canvas and muslin. We added colour to those pieces of cloth, using watercolour paint and her secret ingredient - boot polish! Once we understood how the techniques worked on the ground fabric Debbie asked us to think about how we could use these, and what we had learned from the paper folding exercises, to reflect on and evoke the objects and textures we had experienced as we walked on the seashore. We were tasked to create something that brought all these things together. Debbie commented that she always wants her students to be able to create a finished object to take home, rather than a muddle of samples that we might do something with "one day".

I had picked up some lovely sedimentary pebbles with layered lines on them, and some flint stones with interesting cool grey and black pits and marks. I used these and the colours on the seashore as a starting point and created a linked set of three "pots" with the emulsion and wax techniques. These can sit inside each other, or next to each other, depending on space available, and are another way of creating a piece which is formed of layers. You can see them in the foreground here, slipped inside each other with the stormy sky behind.

With the gesso technique we had stitched linen to fit round our formers, in my case a piece of plumber's pipe, before applying the gesso. Once this was dry we could then add texture. I had collected a couple of silvery blue mussel shell fragments, some fine shingle and a bit of sand. These were applied to the outside of the pot by using a "plaster" of gesso soaked muslin. Then I added colour with watercolour, a little bit of drawing ink and the merest whisper of dark oil pastel over some of the highest points of texture. 

These images were taken on the final day when we returned to the beach; linking the made objects to the source of our inspiration; allowing them to speak to each other.

Once back in the Studio all our works were arranged together on one of the benches so we could look and admire and be encouraged by what each of us had made.

You can see some more closeup inspiration from the course on Debbie's Instagram here.

What a marvelous way to spend four days doing delightful things with a generous teacher. My thanks to Debbie and, of course, to Christine who made sure we were Covid safe, and provided us with delicious lunches each day. It was an enormous pleasure to be back in her Studio sharing a love of learning and textiles with everyone else in the group.