We have all had our ups and downs this year ,  hopefully you have had more ups! Most of us are blessed with friends and family that can help. I hope at this festive season you can relax and be with people you love and who love you in return. I hope you have new and exciting things planned for 2017, though we all know that sometimes, it is all we can do to just to keep going . . .  One thing we all learn as we get older, don't put it off - do it now! Hang on in there.  Here's hoping we all have a brilliant Christmas and a healthy and happy  New Year . My love to all of you. Namaste X

  I just love the layers of colour you can get with disperse dyes/transfer paints. This will be my last proper post this year.  I am slowly getting my new house sorted on the w est c oast of County Clare , Ireland. It seems odd to write that sentence. 2 years ago I had only just started to think about the move - and now - here I am, gazing out to sea. It is so good when a plan comes together.    At the beginning of each session we look at what the group have done for homework. This is always great fun, haivng a catch up is very important.  I never cease to be amazed at the students creativity. Right, back to the teaching. . . I love transfer printing with disperse dyes. The dyes are made to colour synthetic fabric. In this session we used acetate satin, polyester satin and a suede like microfibre. I find it is a good idea to try a variety of fabrics including matt and and shiny. The dyes are painted onto copy/computer printer paper. Onc...

  A fabulous sample of newspaper faux chenille. It is already December - I apologise for the delay in writing this up. Moving house has taken more out of me than I thought.  I adore teaching at Art Van Go. The teaching area is great, the staff are wonderful, and it means I get to see Viv and Kevin. This was my last workshop for this year. A fabulous to end the year with lots of colour and texture. Working with old newspaper, books and maps has become a passion of mine - layering, colouring and generally playing to see what will happen next.     Painting the Bondaweb. On the first part of the workshop we painted up the Bondaweb and newspapers as these need to be dry before we use them.   Painted newspaper. The students ironed painted Bondaweb onto a painted newspaper background, just an A5 size nothing too big. You learn just as much from working on a small size then anything larger and you use up your material stash too soon. The news...