A 'squidgey' print taken from the left over paint from painting the colour wheel. I have just about finished clearing up from filming the 3rd and 4th weekends of Experimental Textiles Online. The 3rd weekend looks at colour and the 4th weekend is the still life. Students will be encouraged to build their own still life - or they can paint and draw from images of mine. I find a large scale still life is less frightening than the usual bowl of fruit. The idea is to look at shapes, lines and positive and negative space. It is not a competition to see who is the best artist. Few of us can paint and draw really well, but we can try, and the more you practice, the better you get.  Jayne has a new clapper board to help her with editing the videos.  We filmed the colour wheel on Saturday and the still life on Sunday.    I use paper plates as palettes.  When I was teaching Experimental Textiles at various colleges I always used a few of the sam...

A detail of one of Fiona's fab prints. The first Look.Draw.Stitch weekend was a great success.  I had met Fiona, Ann and Sidella last August when I was working on the Vlieseline stand at Festival of Quilts, NEC, Birmingham. They stopped to say hello and ask how I was getting on in my new home, here in Ireland. All three ladies are from Dublin and are deeply involved in the Irish Guild of Embroiderers. We had a good chat. They asked if I was doing any teaching in Ireland and I said I was thinking of running weekend workshops from home. We discussed it further and I asked if they thought if anyone would visit the back of beyond where I live in January? And they said Yes!! They would . . . and they did.   Fiona and Ann looking out. Fiona drew some of the landscape lines and Ann drew some of the stone shapes in the dry stone wall. Sidella chose to draw Brachychiton or Bottle tree seeds that I have in a basket in my sitting room. From a simple drawing you ca...

  One of the wooden printing blocks we will use for  the metallic printing workshop. This time next year I will be at Heathrow airport ready to fly to Jaipur.  Whhooo hoo!! it is VERY exciting! I am going back to Jaipur, India, to be inspired by the remarkable textures, patterns and colours.  While I was wandering around this amazing city in on the Colouricious Textile Holidays in September 2016 and again in January 2017, I kept thinking to myself this would be the most incredible place to teach my journey design exercise. Everywhere you go there is something beautiful, interesting or just plain incredible. The palaces, the gardens even the roadside has inspiration at every turn. So - I approached Jamie Malden, owner of Colouricious Textile Holidays with my idea and she Yes! - immediately. Just like that. Isn't a good feeling when people have faith in you? I am leading The Jaipur Journey textile holiday January 8th - 18th 2019  Fancy comi...