One of Gina's beautiful pieces that ended up as a book cover. Only having four students on the course was a great treat for me - I'm not sure how the students felt, as many of you will know, I'm not very good at leaving my students alone to work in peace . . . I don't quite know why there were only four bookings, I have taught in December or January with ten every year so it is a mystery. I know some students worry about the possibility of snow, and it has snowed hard once or twice at this time. Anyway, we had a great time and it was a first for me so that was good. The students worked hard and fast so I had to introduce more than I was expecting to. It's good for me to be 'kept on my toes'. I can get a bit blase if things are too easy. 'Jewelled Surfaces' involved layering newspaper, painted Bondaweb and all kinds of glittery things and then reinforcing them with different iron-on interfacings. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it

  Vicki's gorgeous sample. Torn layers of newspaper layered with painted Bondaweb and sparkly bits and then printed onto. After a fabulous weekend at Foredown Tower selling my jewellery it was a quick turn around to unload the car and re load ready to teach at West Dean College. This week it is Jewelled Surfaces for Decorative Textiles. This is a newspaper based course along with my favourites, gilding flake and printing. The idea is to create sumptuous surfaces with newspaper and then iron the papers onto iron-on interfacing to give support to make vessels, jewelry, boxes . . . We will see what is achieved by Thursday lunchtime. I love teaching at West Dean,  www.westdean.org.uk the grounds are stunning, everyone is very friendly and of course the food is fantastic.  The girls busily painting Bondaweb.    Colour washed newspaper.     Decorating the torn and layered newspaper samples.   A colourful torn and decorated area that has been printe

   Playing with colour. I have three courses coming up in December and they all have spaces, so if you fancy two or three days away to recharge your batteries, then you might like to consider coming out to play!   Water colour paper colour washed then torn, then colour washed on the torn edge - simply beautiful.   On December 4 th - 6 th I will be delivering a 3 day workshop - Colour Works! at Art Van Go.  This is a new course especially written for Art Van Go and will involve paint ing you own colour wheel and a tints, tones and shades chart. After this we wi ll be colour washi ng all w eights and types of papers to manip ulate and play with shapes and overlaying c olours. Whether you wi sh to work in two or three di mensions this will be three days of colour, pl ay and stitch. There should be time to create a considered stitched sample or 3d piece .  Working with colour is something we all need to do regularly to help us bu i ld our confiden ce when choos