Textiles and surface pattern: drawing and design

What is the course about?

You will explore drawing for textiles and surface pattern and the journey between drawing and design work. If you are nervous about drawing, welcome to an exciting course where playful experiments can enrich your design work.

If you have experience with drawing, you can delve even deeper into this inexhaustible resource by picking up some new skills and diverse ways of thinking.

What will we cover?

You will develop a body of experimental drawings (applicable to textiles and surface pattern design) exploring texture, line, mark-making, scale, layering, surface and mixed media. These drawings will be inspired by a collection of your personal objects. You will begin working in black in white and progress to using colour.

We will discuss the importance of sketchbooks and investigate how to collect lively and imaginative research. For beginners you can start a sketchbook and get advice on what to put in it and how to keep it going as part of a regular practice. If you keep sketchbooks already, this is an opportunity to share your approach with others and reflect on what methods are useful for your personal development of ideas.

Lastly you will start developing your drawings and sketchbook work into design ideas. Using the photocopier you can explore placement, repeat, layout, scale and one-off motifs. You will use collage techniques and drawing to develop design ideas. You will be encouraged to pursue a personal direction, but the design process itself may help to lead you to surprising and exciting results.

What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...

As a beginner:
- Explore a range of drawing techniques and media
- Start a sketchbook with drawings and inspiration references
- Experiment with mark making, scale, collage and layering
- Develop initial design ideas

As an advanced student:
- Build on existing drawing skills, developing imaginative responses to your starting inspiration
- Develop new ideas on how to keep and use sketchbooks
- Push use of mark-making, scale and layering in a personal direction
- Develop a range of design ideas building on existing areas of interest and ideas.

What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?

For all levels, from beginners to those who wish to extend their skills.

You should be able to follow simple written and verbal instructions, demonstrations, hand-outs and health and safety information, and will be invited to take part in group discussion. You should be able to make basic measurements and calculations.

How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?

The course will be hands on, with a bit of theory thrown in to facilitate the understanding of why we do things in certain ways. There will be recommendations for books and information on contemporary artists and designers.

The course is supported by Google classroom as an e-learning virtual environment where handouts, and useful information will be stored. Details on how you can access the portal will be provided before the course starts.
You will need to login into our classroom before our sessions starts where all course materials will be
stored.

Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?

Access to basic materials and resources are available as part of the course.
You will need to bring a sketchbook, and a collection of personal objects as inspiration to work from. It is good idea if these objects have an element of texture or interesting surfaces.

When I've finished, what course can I do next?

City Lit offers a wide range of courses in Contemporary and Digital Textiles and Crafts where it is possible to explore the work developed on this course further.

Please browse the website for all other upcoming courses.
General information and advice on courses at City Lit is available from the Student Centre and Library on Monday to Friday from 12:00 – 14:00 the 16:00 – 18:00.