Four of the 'Journeys' hanging longways. Apologies for the absence, life has been a little complicated of late . . .  Bank Holiday weekend saw me teaching the first session of Experimental Textiles 2 at The Old Needle Works in Redditch. We have five in the group after two had to withdraw for various reasons. Having such a small group means we can get more done - which is brilliant. The first session was very similar to what was in the previous post - creating original designs. Work done on this session will form the backbone of the first few months of the course.     We started with the 'Journey' exercise.  A section of the 'Journeys'.  We then went onto the 'Expanded' exercise. Looking at positive and negative space.        Then it was onto 'Flipping out' -   Then is was onto taking sections of all the exercises - thus creating original designs . . . . These sections were th

A flipped and mirrored design taken from 'The Journey'. I love teaching at Art Van Go, everyone is made so welcome and always so well l ooked after. Art Van G o offer a very comprehensive range of workshops throughout the year. Have a look see - www.artvango.co.uk/workshops/ Design, Inspiration and Interp reta tion is my rather formulaic way to help groups get jump stared when they need a bit help to get going with ideas. It can be difficult to pull designs ideas out of fresh air and even with bulging sketch books you somet imes need a refresher.  On this two day version we worked through two design exercises, took sections of the designs, flipped and mirr ored designs and then made printing blocks f rom on e of the designs.   The first design exercise was 'The Journey' If you have a c opy of Experimental Textiles or a re a regular reader of this blog you will be aware of this exercise. It is a great mark making exercise that ca

I had to keep these for my self . . . ! The Brighton Artists Open House s as part of Brighton Festival are now in full swing. We are halfw ay through the secon d we ekend with two more to go. www.aoh.org.uk I believe Br ight on was the first to start the Open H ouses - we have been doing them for thirty one years and every year the number of houses grows. It is big business down here on the coast . I have work in the Pink Bird House no 26 on the Independent Trail www.aoh.org.uk/may-2013-trail-list and I will be there next weekend if you want to come and say Hel lo! This weekend I am at Foredown Tower (number 1 on the Independent trail) with more of my jew ellery. Today is gorgeous - the sun is shi ning so we should be even busier than yesterday.The views from the Tower across the downs and down to the sea a re stunning.   S ome of my new stock ready for the studs and the wi res.    . . . and more . . ! It is great to have found something that I so enjoy making

Busy girls on the workshop. Sorry this is a bit late in co ming - it's been a bit of a busy week. The sec o nd w o rkshop I taught was Hot New S urfaces. It was a four hour ex p erimental workshop playing with the all the weights and colours of Vilene S punbond. The group were very keen and got stuck in straight away. We worked with layers first. A pplying painted B ondaweb onto Spunbond and then decor ating it and then zapping it. They loved the gilding flake - I don't think many of the group had seen it before.   Spunbond decorated with p ainted Bondaweb and then zapped. They were happy to play and not make anything finished. It was great fun teaching this group, they were so keen and had not had a chance to play with these products before. We were using fro m the heaviest to the lightest - CS800, CS700 and CS500. The CS500 comes in seven colours as well as white. You can see the full range here -   https://www.nid-noi.com/product/LU.php  T he gro