Last week (although it seems a million miles away now I'm on holiday) I did a mini workshop led by Claire Hignett. It was a back to basics lesson in drawing, but in particular, learning how to switch off your mind and draw what you see. For me, the warm up exercises were the most telling. We were asked to sign our name and then produce a mirror image. Easy! I'm a chemist, I spent a great deal of time studying the shape of chemicals and working out lines of symmetry. The trouble is that when you are so familiar with a shape, like your signature, you fail to see what is really there and see what you know is there. I fell into the trap and produced a copy rather than the required mirror image. Lesson learned.
At the end of the 2 hour session I had begun to re-evaluate my drawing skills. It taught me not to worry to much about what I thought it should look like, but make good use of what I had achieved. The outcome was a simple stitched motif that would happily embellish some piece of fabric.
To learn more about Claire's workshops, see her website www.clairehignett.co.uk.
