How to Be Creative in Textile Art - Tapa dura

It's a question asked by many budding textile artists: how can I be more creative? You've got a few ideas and know some techniques, but you're not sure how to get started or make your work hang together. This book shows you how. It explains the creative process from the very beginning: where to find inspiration and how to harness those ideas; how to gather source material; how to pull together what you have. The authors then take you on a journey to develop a design. Learn how to put elements together to make a cohesive whole and develop a theme, learning established design rules along the way. Part Three, Moving into Stitch, gives you a range of techniques and easy experiments with which to turn your design into stitched-textile work. From choosing what fabrics to use, to layering, creating texture and adding embellishment, it covers the key techniques to try. This is a terrific book for those starting out in textiles who really do want to be as creative as they can possibly be.

Julia Triston is a designer-maker and educator in stitched textiles and contemporary art and design techniques. She is the co-founder and co-director of STITCHBUSINESS, an award-winning international stitch school. Julia has over 25 years' experience teaching in the creative industries, lectures at degree level, and delivers seminars and training courses in universities, colleges and schools. She runs her own programme of workshops and talks, and also tutors courses for respected art and textile businesses nationwide. Julia's work has been filmed by both the BBC and independent television companies, as well as being extensively documented in written media. Julia has an MA with distinction in Contemporary Applied Arts, is an active member of the prestigious Prism Textile Group and is Chair of Fusion. She has exhibited her quirky and distinctive artwork internationally. Rachel Lombard is an award-winning textile artist and designer. Living in County Durham, Rachel runs her own business creating functional, tactile and decorative artworks. She also runs a programme of talks and workshops. Rachel is the internal verifier for StitchBusiness City and Guilds courses and has written for Stitch, Classic Stitches and Flair magazines. She exhibits her work and is an active member of Fusion and InterfaceArts.