One of the great paintings generated over the weekend. If any of you have tried your hand at life or still life drawing and are not natural artists you will know the fear of trying. Particularly in a group. There is always someone better you, not that it is a competition, but we naturally feel undermined when someone is better than us - as a general rule.      My Experimental Textiles course  experimentaltextiles.com was written to teach the skills required to help students with their confidence and to start to develop their own style. The exercises and course work that the group work through over the nine weekends will encourage this. Having the end of year show at Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch at the NEC at the end of March gives them a bit of impetus to produce some excellent work if it is needed.  I was very pleased with efforts of the group this weekend, they are now starting to make friends with each other and support each other. I set up the main still li

A rather lovely book cover decoration. Newspaper layered with painted Bondaweb decorated with glitter and die cut newspaper shapes bonded onto a book cover. Have just had a FAB three days teaching at Foredown Tower and Yes! it was using newspaper AGAIN!!! Are you fed up with it yet? I hope not, I am teaching a similar course at Art Van Go next week. This course was 'A new starting point'. Foredown Tower is a great place to teach - it is an old water tower that now houses one of the very few camera obscura left in the country. The camera is on the top floor of the building. The views all around the building are stunning. The teaching room is on the middle floor. Both these floors are accessed by an external metal staircase, very wide and very strong but not good for disabled access. It can be a bit annoying in wet weather but it kind of adds to the charm of the place.   The girls hard at it. I like teaching there so much I have booked the tower for s

As we were using newspaper we also created faux chenille. The course title was Print, Paint, Stitch and Play! It is a new course and the group at Bobby's were wonderful guinea pigs!  I drove up to Shropshire on Monday and on the way stopped off in Ledbury to see Angie Hughes for lunch in her new flat. Angie is a great mate of mine but because we live so far apart we only really see other at shows. It was great to have the chance of a couple of hours together - we had a lovely lunch and had good old catch up. We are hoping to have a 'play' weekend in Brighton in the not too distant future. Angie's website is angiehughes.com Then it was on to Bettws-y-Crwyn and Bobby's studio at Moor Hall - it gets very twisty and turny and then the roads narrow - ooohhh!!!! Don't like it! But it is worth it when you arrive - it is SO beautiful. The views are remarkable and the farmhouse is old and surrounded by a lovely cottage garden. The studio is light and bright