Colour and Graphics in Textiles

By Judith G - long-time guild member

I love colour combined with bold and interesting graphics in textiles!

When I was in the elementary grades, in the early 1950s in Vancouver, I had the opportunity to attend the Vancouver School of Art - now the Emily Carr University of Art and Design - every Saturday morning from 9am to 12 noon for three years.

It was an amazing post-war opportunity for a few lucky Vancouver kids and it was free (lucky me). Our teachers exposed us to colour, shapes, design and composition at the ages of 10, 11 and 12 and I’m pretty sure we all grew to love it. They encouraged us, even at that young age, to be bold and experiment with colour and design. I’ve been grateful for their encouragement and instruction to this day.

Over the years, I have continued to sketch and dabble in watercolours,

but I found when I started working with textiles, over 40 years ago, both bold colour and graphic design poured into my work without much effort at all. I discovered it was a lot of fun to throw a riot of colour into all things, even the lowly tea towel using the ubiquitous 8/2 cotton.

I'm a firm believer there’s 'Beauty in Utility' and what better place for beauty than the tea towel.

Scarves, wearables and other household linens all provide me with a lovely background for colour and design using wool, silk, bamboo, linen and cotton. I love combining the different fibres together in unusual ways.