Workshops / Lectures
Thank you for your interest in my workshops. As much as I love teaching and traveling, I have pared down my teaching schedule for 2010 and 2011 and am currently not accepting any new teaching requests. But let's talk about 2012.
Workshops
Button-Bound Quilted Fabric Book
(1-3 days)
Learn collage, composition and design skills while working with photos and words printed onto fabric to create several beautiful quilted fabric pages. Your pages will be button-bound into an elegant book.
Fabric Altered Book – The Marriage of Paper & Fabric
(1 or 2 days)
Who can resist the visual and tactile appeal of fabric? Fabric is an integral part of our lives - why not make it an integral part of your art in an altered book? Covering your pages with fabric creates a background of rich texture and color for your art. Add a wash of paint or a collage of paper. Fragments of fabric develop layers of meaning and memory as you work to create an altered book that cries out to be touched, offering visual enchantment and a tactile delight.
Fragment Fabric Collage
(1 day)
A class for anyone who loves fabric, collage or color. Using a variety of fabrics (your own and the class stash), you will learn how to combine color and texture, motif and scale to create mood, memories and magic.
How to Grow Wings
(1 or 2 days)
Build a safe nest. Be patient. Take a Leap of Faith. These and other tidbits of wisdom become a part of the illustrated journal you will create in this inspirational and empowering class. I am sure you are familiar with illustrated journals, the ones with quotes and/or small images scattered throughout otherwise blank pages.
Image + Text = Textile
(2-5 days)
Images and photographs, text as design, as line, as poetry. They hook and reel us in, to art, to books, to life. This class is an exploration of image and text as it applies to surface design – primarily, but not limited to quilts and fabric collage. (All the techniques covered can be used on paper and canvas). You will have the opportunity to explore over 12 methods of direct application and transferring of both image and text to fabric. Techniques include: inkjet transfers, thermofax screening, resists, masking, scratching and bottle writing.
Lutradur Sampler
(3 or 6 hr class)
Be among the first to discover the many uses and techniques found in Lesley’s new book, Fabulous Fabric Art with Lutradur. Explore transfers, paints, heat distressing & cutting and more.
Navigation - Charting a Course to Your Soul
Life is a constant search for answers, for an understanding of life's secrets and wonders. Occasionally you can catch a fleeting glimpse of a universal truth, in an artfully crafted phrase, an image that draws you in or a work of art that touches your soul. What if you could plot a course that guided you to discover your own unique path to life's magic and wonder?
In this class, you will become the navigator and your captain will be Lesley, a certified creativity coach. Your guides will be image, music and the written world of quotes, prose and poetry; which you will use to chart a course to find and follow you inner soul, a course that will guide you in your life and add magic to your art. There will be fun solo and group assignments, color and word play and many surprises.
You will create your own celestial map, a unique-to-you, colorful, handmade, spiral bound book full of your art, discoveries and guideposts that you will be able to refer to again and again on your journey through life. The class lasts a day, but the magic lasts a lifetime. You've learned so many art techniques, now find out how to create the magic and follow your star.
Quilted Memories
(1 to 5 days)
Even if you've never made a quilt or held a needle in your hand, you can create a Quilted Memory. This class is a chance for experienced quilters and non-quilters alike to experiment with the art quilt form and create a small fabric record of a moment in time. Sewing is optional and can be done by hand. It's definitely not your grandmother's quilt!
Sew What ???
(1 day as a sampler, 3-5 for more in-depth experimentation)
Sewing is not just for fabric anymore. In her efforts to create truly mixed media art and blur the lines between quilts, books and assemblage, Lesley has been stitching anything the sewing machine needle will go through – mica, copper mesh, metal, paper, tyvek, transparencies, and anything else she comes up with between now and class time.
Stitched! – Exploring Lutradur in a Fabric Book or Art Quilt
(1-2 days)
Lesley’s new book, Fabulous Fabric Art with Lutradur, explores the many things you can do with Lutradur. Work with favorite fabrics and this new, fabric-like material that take the place of paper. This surface has the texture and appeal of fabric but is suitable for writing, drawing, painting and more.
True Source: Tapping into Your Inner Quilter
(3 - 5 days)
Books, articles, techniques, methods, materials, talk, tools, tips and teachers. You’ve heeded them all yet you still don’t know where to begin to find a style you can call you own. You might occasionally catch a fleeting glimpse of a universal truth in an artfully crafted phrase, an image or a quilt that draws you in or touches your soul. What if you could plot a course that guided you to discover your own unique path to self expression?
Window to the Soul
(1 day)
(As seen in the Premiere issue of Cloth Paper Scissors™)
Shakespeare
told us, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” If you could
miraculously look through the window to your soul, what would you see?
Spend a day discovering the beauty, magic and wonder that lies within.
Lectures
A History of Photos on Fabric
Blueprints, rubbery T-Shirt transfers, hazardous solvent transfers, bleeding and fading inkjet prints - Lesley Riley has been putting photos on fabric since the 70s and has tried them all.
A defining moment in her photo to fabric journey was when her fabric imagery guru and author of Imagery on Fabric (1991), Jean Ray Laury, showed up as a student in her class. This lecture will begin with an overview of the processes fiber artists have used in the past. Learn the details of current methods and state of the art technology and techniques for creating and incorporating photos on fabric in your work. You’ve got the picture, now get it on fabric.
Image Printing and Transfer: A Demo/Lecture
Learn how to successfully print or transfer your photos and artwork to fabric.
This demo-lecture will demystify the process. Lesley will demonstrate and discuss preparing photos for fabric printing and transfers as well as the pros and cons of various transfer methods, printers and inks. Lots of samples will be passed around.
Making Time for Making Quilts
Discover the 23 time (and attitude) management secrets that turned Lesley Riley, a working mother of 6 and lapsed quilter into an internationally known artist, author, workshop instructor, magazine editor and now entrepreneur.
Shake the Body - Stir the Soul
The most successful works of art are the ones that convey the soul of the maker. You know it when you see it, but how do you achieve it in your own work? This class will help you find and communicate what is in your soul. We will use music and movement, images and words, freedoms and barriers that will shake your body and stir your soul. You will create inspired artwork using TAP transfers, word play, new color combinations and spontaneous responses to your new awareness. Leave your ego at the door and come prepared to look at your artmaking experience in a new way.
The Fabric of My Life
Lesley Riley began quilting in 1971 but didn’t hit her stride until 2000. Find out what happened in-between, how she found her way and where she is headed now. An illustrated story.