Exercise 3: Developing Skills
Testing the boundaries of your practice and learning from failures should open up opportunities to identify new areas of your practice to develop. This exercise is an opportunity to review your work from this and the previous projects and tailor an independent exercise utilising the Skills Hub resources.
Developing Skills
I worked on canvas painting on a previous project but would like to work on textile/paintwork this time.
Utilizing my knitted piece and considering the Picasso monochrome study I did ancient Greek pottery drawing, I wanted to create a fusion of my research.

On my first step, I cut out the fabric I found interesting.

Then, I created a black bed of colour on a white canvas.

I placed the pieces in a sequence I thought would look engaging. After that, I used acrylic colour to highlight areas I found interesting to work on, like the eye or the lips.

I got super excited and enthusiastic working on my project as I was creating an original idea.


I was working in unchartered waters as I was doing a collage out of a textile fabric I had created and I brushed a canvas to place all my ideas on.

As I finished, I found out something was missing.
I will reconsider it and come back when I have a clear view.
Reflect and plan what you’d like to prioritise at this time and discuss this with your tutor. At this point in the unit, you should seek to build on the work you’ve made so far and begin to reinforce ideas, themes and skills coherently and constructively.
I thoroughly enjoyed the process that turned my work into the result of my study. Reflecting on the process, I realised there is a massive potential between my everyday knitwear practice and creating unique concepts to help me express myself.
I explored the idea of a textile piece knitted to my standards and then manipulated it like a piece of clay to reform on a canvas. That simple idea has opened new horizons for me and showed me new expression methods. I have acquired a new vision and a more substantial way of utilising my strengths and channelling to create emotions and feelings.
Once you have completed the Skills Hub learning, share your results in the Creative Arts Relations Forum
Watching Ian Mc Keever’s interview from the Skills Hub learning ‘PAINTING TOWARDS ABSTRACTION’, I can say I can’t agree more. His words had actually given a name to my feelings, and everything makes more sense now.
”paintings should not give you answers. They need to seduce you.”
Abstract painting is a spectacular field I want to explore even more as it makes sense.