Painting with Stitch: Contemporary Embroidery with Copperlight Studio

Location: Hand & Lock School for Embroidery & Creative Arts, 86 Margaret Street, Fitzrovia, London, W1W 8TE
Duration: 2 Day Workshop (10am - 4:30pm each day) 

During this two-day course you will work with guest tutor Isabel to create a piece of contemporary embroidery art. The focus of the class is on developing your own artistic direction so that your final piece is unique to you. Isabel will be on hand throughout with guidance and support, drawing on over ten years of experience embroidering for brands including Burberry and Netflix’s Bridgerton, as well as exhibiting and selling her own embroidery artworks internationally.

Over the two days you will be introduced to the process of taking an embroidery design from concept to completion. You will explore how to form an idea, sketch and plot a design, build a colour palette, and select fabrics, threads and beads that bring your work to life. Along the way you will learn a combination of hand embroidery and beadwork techniques that allow you to approach embroidery in the style of ‘painting with stitch’.

Isabel will bring examples of her finished art pieces to the studio for you to use as inspiration. She will guide you step by step through developing your own piece, offering insight into how embroidery is designed and created within the industry. By the end of the course you will not only complete a personal artwork but also gain a versatile set of skills that can be applied to future projects and creative explorations.

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The premise of this two-day course is to lean into your own creativity, using a mix of non-traditional embroidery and beading techniques to create a unique piece of artwork. Isabel draws on her background in embroidery for fashion and costume to develop artworks that merge ideas from both the art and fashion worlds, and she will guide you in exploring a similar approach.

This course is free flowing and experimental, encouraging you to see embroidery and beadwork as tools for creative expression rather than methods bound by rules. You will be invited to play with materials, develop your own style, and discover how embroidery can move beyond tradition to become a form of contemporary art.

Across your two days with Isabel you will learn: 

- Plotting a design using inspiration from fashion and art

- Developing a colour scheme

- Mark making on fabric with inks/paint

- Hand embroidery with straight stitch 'painting with stitch'

- Hand beading

- Finishing embroidery artwork

- Framing/mounting

You will be given a full course kit with everything you need to take part. All materials and tools are provided, so you only need to bring yourself.

If you would prefer, you are welcome to bring your own mug for refreshments and your own drawing materials. This is entirely optional and not required for the course.

Isabel Greenslade is a hand embroidery artist and couture embellisher, specialising in contemporary hand embroidery and beading. The art Isabel creates is inspired by the concept of 'painting with stitch' using hand embroidery and beadwork without a sety plan or direction for an abstract finish not typically associated with the craft of embroidery. Her work mixes different stitch types together with beading entirely by hand allowing each element to be considered and added to over time. Alongside creating embroidery art in her studio, Isabel works freelance as an embellisher for fashion, film and tv. She uses social media as a platform to promote and sell her work, and can be found under the name @copperlight_studio