MORE ON LEXI'S DYE GARDEN

Lexi has been working on her dye garden...this is an important part of our project, in that it means that when we've all finished and the work is on the walls, there will still be things happening as a result of Green Room.  A great living  legacy in the making...


I have been gathering hawthorn blossom from the swathes of trees in blossom along the side of the canal, very exciting to start the process of gathering some dye colours !  Hopefully the blossom will give me a nice range of yellows...... 


I can leave the flowers to steep overnight if I want to have a stronger colour, so it will be nice to have a play around with different shades as I'm not quite sure the colours I want just yet..........

Adding different mordants (a mordant fixes the dye colour to the wool or fibre being dyed) will change the colour again, so I'm looking forward to having a play........."

COME AND MEET PETE

The first of our Meet The Artist sessions...

DAY FIVE AT THE CORO: CHURCH WALK, AND A FINISHED PIECE.

A push and a shove and the land is ours.

The chimneys, grave stones and the last of the trees--including a big apple tree--are in place. Sign posts have appeared, and  Deer and Foxes are roaming Ford Park.

Church Walk have finished their work, and what a great piece of work they have made...

We asked the boys and girls to tell us what the experience had been like for them...we were glad to hear that they had all enjoyed it and would like to do more projects like this. Some picked out their favourite moments, including team working, working in pairs, making buildings trees and places that were familiar to them.  Some were not so happy working in large groups at the start of the project, but enjoyed working in pairs or solo. One boy didn't like getting glue on his hands..one girl loved getting glue on her hands! Well be listening carefully to all these comments and more at the end of the project. It's all very useful information.

So, a big round of applause to Church Walk Year 4/5  and to Mrs Newby and her support staff from me and Alex.
Thank you for your skill, imagination and ideas, and for making it fun.

DAY FOUR AT THE CORO: SIR JOHN BARROW

There seemed to be children from every school in Ulverston at the Coro today. Most were there for a music concert but the Year One boys and girls from SJB were there to work  on their part of the Green Room project.

The boys and girls began by looking at our aerial photographs and carefully sorting out the bits of fabric and paper that they would need to describe their part of town. We asked them to look for colours and textures, and after first marking our the main roads and street they began to place them on the big white baseboard. 

The line that goes across the board is the railway.  I showed the boys and girls some pieces of old model railway track, and  although they are not properly stuck down yet they make it easier to tell the track from the roads.

Lightburn Park is looking good already, the patchwork of yards and houses in the top half of the piece are taking shape, and one of the boys spotted a missing road leading from under the railway bridge on Victoria Road , so he added it. Well spotted.

So, a great start, plenty to think about before next week and plenty of big and small details to be added. 

Here's the piece after the first day. Well done everyone and see you later.

LEXI'S DYE GARDEN

A message from Lexi about her Dye Garden..a fantastic way of using local resources for materials.

"Originally the dye garden was planned to be planted in the Autumn ready to begin harvesting next Summer but with this project happening it seemed perfect to incorporate locally grown plants for some of the wool dye so I've been digging a lot!  And as you can see there is still lots more digging to do, the allotment had been unused for a few years before I was allocated it last Autumn so the area for the dye plants was/is full of nettle and bramble etc.

Pictured are a few of the plants that I've gathered ready to put in over the next few weeks - chamomile, marigold, rhubarb, dhalias etc.  It will take a long time to build the garden up, and some of the plants won't be ready in time to harvest for this project so I am planning to put annual seeds down over large areas of the ground over the next few weeks and hopefully if the weather is kind there will be a lovely crop of flowers to harvest in a couple of months time for the dyes, and you will be able to see the garden grow and take shape.

I'll also be gathering from around the local area, bracken for example gives a lovely olive green dye, and nettles different shades of green as the summer progresses.

I'll be posting some pictures up of the plants when I gather them and some pictures of the dye sessions so you will be able to see some of the colours these plants produce as a dye."

COMMISSIONED ARTIST: FRAN RILEY

Hello to Fran Riley, our 3rd Commissioned Artist. You may have seen Fran's work at Ford Park around Christmas. Fran makes collages using her own photographs and layering techniques, which she then prints onto canvasses...she also makes artwork from old pieces of furniture, and interesting objects which she places in boxes.

 Fran has a first class Degree in art and psychology and a Masters Degree in art therapy. She has exhibited regularly in London and Cumbria and has run creative workshops for 33 years.

says Fran.." I  work with all sorts of things, including collage,mosaic and photography. You don't need fancy art equipment to make art .
You can use the camera on your I phone, bits of litter that you find and express your own unique imagination.
I'm  an avid keeper of journals and sketchbooks.

 These are used as a kind of laboratory or playground. Any ideas, drawings, scrawlings and found objects can be stored here.
The journals can then used as a reference for art work to be developed and exhibited."

Here below is a piece Fran made for us showing details from a walk she took around a particular part of town...can you work out which part it is?

DAY THREE AT THE CORO: CHURCH WALK

We made rapid progress today, with the map now almost completed. Some nice details emerged  today, including a few lamposts, a postbox and a bit of building work, complete with scaffolding at the end of Church Walk itself. We have added the church, and some great crescents with some brickwork walls, and suddenly there is a sense of the whole area around the school.  Here's the piece as it looks today, and some details.