On Saturday I ran a very small beginners bird sculpture workshop at Itchen Valley Country Park in Eastleigh. Being a very compact group of three I was able to be more flexible about the shapes that we could make . One of the hardest things as a tutor is managing a students expectations. Working with natural material such as willow brings its owns trials and tribulations as you really have to spend time getting used to the material as it doesn’t always do what you want it to.
Green/freshly cut willow can be particularly tricky mainly because it is quite springy and often needs you to be quite physical with it almost pulling it into submission and it doesn’t always stay where you want it to.
I often find that students have spent time looking at the internet for designs that they would like to create and often have different expectations of what they will be able to achieve in such a short time. The other considerations relating to teaching is that we all work in different ways e.g some students jump in feet first ready to have a go, others are more contemplative wanting to understand the process and others just like to take part in the process and just like to see what happens.
I have to say that I am bit like the last one myself as I am not always bothered what the finished item looks like or even if I have completed the task for me the doing and learning the techniques is the important bit for me as I often need to time to digest what I have learned after the event.
My focus when teaching willow work is to get students to the stage where they have a solid frame and have learned how to weave and have enough information to complete the piece at home.
Here are the sculptures that were made with information so that the students could complete them at home.
This willow egret is now half way completed.
To complete the egret I advised that the body needed needed to be filled out more with more withies being woven in to provide the texture. We also talked about ways of adding in wings for example because the bird is a delicate shape adding lots if fine extended withies to build the wings would build on the effect, we also discussed how the piece could be displayed e.g suspending the body or making legs.
If the legs option was chosen metal or thick willow/ hazel rods would be the best option to keep the the illusion of the fragility of the bird whilst allowing strength to hold the weight of the body.
Willow chicken half way there
The complete the willow chicken I advised that the neck head area could be created in two ways 1.by building a head shape based in a ball and then joining onto the neck and weaving in 2.by bending the neck into shape and trimming the ends and winding more up and down the neck and building the head shape.
The student liked the idea of making a bushy tail so decided to add lots more tail feathers in keeping it loose.
Willow penguin nearly there
When the penguin was taken of the base we realized that the original bottom ring has moved further down the base, the student had originally said that she wanted to make feet at the front,but then thought that of she could combine it with the sphere she had made at the beginning to be a parent guarding its egg.
Willow penguin deciding what to do next
The second picture shows her bending the head/ neck of the penguin down to decide if she wanted to attach it to the stomach or keep it loose. The final task was to weave more withes into the sculpture to give it more texture and to fill the gaps .
