Donals Boat, Carrigaholt, Clare. One of the photos I have selected for my exhibition in October. How are you all doing? On holiday somewhere warm? Still at work at this time of day? Wherever you are reading this in the world. Thinking about cooking lunch or dinner? Whatever you are doing - I hope all is well in your world. Here in Ireland you can feel the season is about to start to change. The nights are starting to get darker, earlier, and it is quite chilly in the evenings. As my Nana used to say "Winter draw(er)s on"!   A car load of colourful farm plastic       I am starting to think about the work I am going to make for my next local exhibition. It is going to be a combination of photographs, textile wall pieces and a few large-ish plastic vessels. The soft plastic I have been collecting from local farms has been piling up, it will be good to finally decide what I will be doing with it. 4ft vessels hopefully and a few bowls. I just need to work out how many layers I wil

Painted and textured Tyvek and painted Lutradur cut with a soldering iron. Workshop 6 - Zap, Pow, Slash & 3D. Well it's been a busy few weeks. We had another shoot for the new website. I think we have everything we need now. Today we were shooting with a drone for some landscape shots around the house. I think we can safely say Fizz and Pop are not fans of drones.  They HATED the noise and the hovering. So much for having shots of them from above gamboling happily in my field. Never mind - we tried. David has already taken all the photos of my photos, we had fun moving the furniture around to get the 'feel' for each image. It will be great to be able to sell my work online. Here are few images of David from  Lukewarm Volcano at work.   I am really looking forward to seeing these shots on the new website.  *** The Show and Tell for Raising the Surface went well. I am so glad I decided to do a show and tell 2 weeks after each workshop. It means I get to see what the grou

A beautiful torn paper sample. I am nearly at the end of my three week teaching tour of the West Country. I have a day off today to tootle around Honiton and then drive to Nailsworth near Stroud for my last 2 day workshop tomorrow and Wednesday. Then it is home. Last week I taught for three days at the Beads for Beauty studio in Babbacombe run by Sylvia McCann and her daughter Alison.   www.fabbeads.co.uk A two day version of 'A New Starting Point' and a one day workshop - 'Now You See It' which I will write up when I get back home. I love teaching at Sylvia's, it is a well equipped workroom and everyone is always so well looked after. A New Starting Point is my newspaper based workshop. Great fun!   Who would have thought you could have such fun with  old newspapers and books. A good roomy and well equipped workroom. Getting down to decorating the newspaper samples. I love teaching this workshop, you never quite know what is going to

  A detail of Susan's magnificent quilt depicting the classic image of the Irish workmen sitting along a beam on top of the Rockerfeller Center in New York. There was me, all excited about sh owing you my stu dents work at the NEC - and I forgot to show you mine!! Susan Chapman and I had a gallery space at the show entitled People and Places. S usan loves observing people and you will no doub t be aware that I love all kinds of N a t ure and Her textures . It is a good thing that Susan makes large quilts, bec ause surprise, surprise, I didn't get all the work I thought I would do, done.     The beginnings of the hanging . . Susan up a step ladder. It was great to get the chance to spend some time with Susan and enjoy her fabulous work. I love how well observed her figures are, deceptively simple, but showing the stance of a person with a glance - a great skill.   Everyone loved this quilt, nearly everyone recognised where the image was f rom.