Planet Ruby Starrs

Inspired by a drawing class on my course I've been experimenting drawing big, first in the class with charcoal and then at home with pastels.  I've got hundreds... and I've never used them, I've got quite a few unopened boxes and also a huge pencil case full that my son gave my last year so I have been having a little play. The drawing course was run by one of the fine art team and concentrated on bringing out shape and form rather then creating a accurate representation of the image we were drawing - We were asked to bring objects rather then photographs in to draw that was pertinent to our current project and I was a bit stuck as I was working of last years summer garden pictures so I took in a garden trowel and fork - not too bad a choice as it gave me quite a lot of shape and texture to work with. We only used graphite and charcoal and were encouraged to draw BIG - it was an enjoyable and strangely liberating experience.  I'd never used charcoal before a...

I'm busy drawing, stitching, weaving and printing material to inform my next and final brief for college.  This is the last module in my two Year journey to attain a foundation degree in textiles, this work will hopefully go in the final student show so it needs to be a bold statement of what I have learnt this last two years. I've been looking back at my collection of work so far, and my research of artists and ideas that have inspired me and its so eclectic it kind of gives me plenty of scope but also rather too many ideas.  It ranges from the delicate ideas using embroidery both machine and hand rendered that Cas Holmes and Anne Kelly produce - lovely natural colours with subtle highlights and trim to the bold robust multi coloured multi patterned work of some one like Kaffe Fasset whose colour combinations know no limits.  All this via more traditional artists like Marc Chagall - a long time favourite for once again his use of colour and his distinctive style and...