I had no idea the Isle of Wight was SO lovely. I've just got back from a few days over there with my family. We had pretty good weather, unlike today in Brighton - it is wet, misty and cold. I've put the heating on . . . We did the usual things like going to The Needles - Which my lovely sister persuaded me were best reached by the cable chairs - I haven't been so scared for a VERY long time. My Dad and I visited the Botanical Gardens at Ventnor and then went on to meet the rest of the family for a pub lunch on the sea front, When we arrived on the seafront we thought is was a bit busy - then we looked out to sea and realised why, it was the round the island yacht race. It was a remarkable sight - over a thousand yachts, the colours and simple shapes were quite beautiful. * It's back to work tomorrow - I will be teaching the joys of using painted Bondaweb with gilding flake and all sorts of sparkly things - it's going to b

  One of Heidi's overprints. The workshops are supposed to start at 10 am but every one was in and working before 9.30 am. The group were well into their printing blocks and were raring to go. Some of the group had taken extra materials home to make more printing blocks overnight. Mirror images of their original blocks was a popular choice. Shaun about to print onto one of her beautiful repeat prints with Emma in the background applying paint to her block. Liz, Jo, Tracey and Heidi all working hard - totally oblivious to my taking a photo. I love this block of Tracey's, the top print is on tissue paper, the bottom one is on tin foil.  The top print is the positive block, the bottom print shows the positive and negative blocks.   2 of Liz's prints, the top two are on newspaper (gorgeous) and the bottom one is on pages torn from a sketch book. Heidi was better pleased with her block when she cut it into two . . .

Sally's random print. We had the second weekend of Experimental Textiles at The Old Needle Works this weekend. We had a FABULOUS time and the group produced some beautiful work. The homework from the first week-end was to take one of their designs and interpret it in any material as long as it was black and white. Liz's homework - to develop one of their designs.   The design Liz worked from.   Emma's homework.  Part of Sally's home work.   Part of Shaun's home work.   Part of Tracey's homework. Part of Clare's homework   Heidie's homework.   Part of Jo's homework This week-end the students made printing blocks from their designs and experimented using them on different types of paper and fabric. Some of the group working hard. more of the group . . .  Clare applying paint to her block -  Clare printing onto paper with her block and using a 'dry