West Virginia - Southern McGown Teacher Training. Day 1

 Jennifer and I booted down to Ripley in one day. We usually take 2 but she picked me up in Fort Erie at 9am and after one quick stop for lunch and gas we were checking in at 5pm. Up to the dining hall for dinner, back to the room to take in our luggage then back to the assembly hall for a meeting. I was assigned to provide inspirational quotes and had totally forgotten. Luckily I had emailed a copy to the organizers 3 years ago so was still able to read them out. Then Jennifer and I set up my classroom for the next day.

We always eat breakfast in our room, then over to the assembly hall and I read another of the quotes then headed into my classroom to await students.

I was teaching this little pictorial, Summer Bell Pull, and had been instructed to hook and teach about Cumulus Clouds.

7 students was a lovely size. I had some wool that they could buy, that I had bought from Ingrid. They could take pieces from my stash and from Brit's for free and I had also given each student a Walnut Dyed swatch.

On each students table there was a magazine with a pictorial marked. I asked them to consider them and comment on what was done well, what didn't work and to formulate a tip for hooking pictorials from those observations. It was a very interesting discussion with some of the students so "into it" that they critiqued more than one example.

This resulted in a list of tips to add to the handout I had prepared for them.

During the course of the day we talked about the use of textures, sari, pantyhose, velvet, denim and fleece. We talked about different cloud formulations and that observation was key. We talked about Black Walnut dying and this lead to a discussion of other natural dyes that people had tried.

A question about water and reflections resulted in me doing some quick sketches on the white board to illustrate the effect of different wave conditions on reflections and how to use directional hooking to depict them.

Along the way, as usual, I learned some stuff I didn't know.....ripping out hooking from behind, not from the front. Dulling a colour by tea dying it and

Who knew?

I think the class went well, everyone seemed happy and I had enjoyed it. Exhausted however with a full day on my feet and engaged.

The "Fairy Tale Rugs" are being shown here. This was a covid project in which various McGown teachers hooked rugs from the "Golden Age of Illustration" (1850 to 1925) that depicted fairy tales. Most of them are now complete and being shown all over the U.S. I did not take pictures of all of them but will post a few in each blog.

Jack Climbs the Beanstalk, 1911, Illustrator Jessie Wilcox Smith, hooked by friends of Norma Batastini.

Fairy Tale Cottage, 1912, Illustrator F.H Ernsrt Shneidler, hooked by Karen Healey.

The Princess and the Pea, 1906, Illustrator Edmund Duluc, hooked by Sue Minorini.

Alas Falada, that you should hang there, 1907, Illustrator Henry Justice Ford, hooked by Sibyl Osicka.

Cinderella and the birds, 1910, Illustrator Hermann Vogel, hooked by Linda Powell.

Meanwhile in Brussels......

Rick is

sending me

so many

beautiful pictures.

We have been asked not to send out any photos of the week until after it is over so I am creating a blog post each day but will not publish them until the week is over.