A riot of colour - very Bollywood - painted Bondaweb decorated with transfer foil, gilding flake and dot jewels. It's great to back at Foredown Tower, particularly when the weather is fine, if a bit windy . . . . the tower is high up on The Downs. We had the first day of a two day version of On the Surface - good fun was had by all. We have six students in the group and three are teachers on CPD (Continuous Professional Development). They were champing at the bit to get stuck in with all the glitter and sequins. All three teachers have big changes in their curriculum and they need some ideas for Art Textiles.  We started by painting Bondaweb and Tyvek and then had a play with Hot Spots and transfer foils while we waited for the Bondaweb and Tyvek to dry.      Painting Bondaweb. There was a great atmosphere today and a good deal of joking and general fun. I prefer to teach in this way - if students are relaxed they will retain more information. Here are tw

A stunning corsage - one of the best I have seen on a workshop.    I had a great day today teaching at Southwick Community Centre for the Sussex Quilters. The workshop was 'Tinkering with Tyvek'. As usual for my workshops this was a process based day. I think it is important to know what the the materials will do before you can decide to make anything. First thing, we spent an hour painting both sides of several sheets of A4  heavy Tyvek and fabric weight Tyvek. Dull but necessary, it is very important not to paint the Tyvek with thick paint. If you do, the paint will form a barrier and the Tyvek won't react to heat. We then had a play with ironing Tyvek shapes between baking parchment, learning the 'Kiss, Stroke and Caress' way of lightly heating the Tyvek till it shrinks and puckers. We then moved on to layering 4 sheets of A4 Tyvek with polyester organza and machine stitching them together ready for zapping back - a bit like cheeky reverse

Emmaline and Rose The Crafty Cafe is one of the businesses at The Old Needle Works in Redditch. It is a great place to meet friends and when I am teaching Experimental Textiles we always have our lunch in there. Joan and Sharon are very funny and fabulous hosts - they make wonderful cakes and sandwiches and you can choose your own tea pot and cup and saucer from a display on the dresser. It really is all very civilised. When I was there last weekend Michelle Edinburgh was running a sock monkey class in the cafe.  A happy group creating gorgeous monkeys. Michelle is an art therapist and uses the making of sock monkeys as part of the therapy - however the class in the cafe was purely for the joy of making monkeys. Any kind of sock can used. The decoration is always the fun part, deciding what kind of hair and eyes. Do you use buttons or beads? Decsions, Descions . . . . I love the spots and stripes that are being used. The creature on the left i

   Four of the 'Journeys' hanging longways. Apologies for the absence, life has been a little complicated of late . . .  Bank Holiday weekend saw me teaching the first session of Experimental Textiles 2 at The Old Needle Works in Redditch. We have five in the group after two had to withdraw for various reasons. Having such a small group means we can get more done - which is brilliant. The first session was very similar to what was in the previous post - creating original designs. Work done on this session will form the backbone of the first few months of the course.     We started with the 'Journey' exercise.  A section of the 'Journeys'.  We then went onto the 'Expanded' exercise. Looking at positive and negative space.        Then it was onto 'Flipping out' -   Then is was onto taking sections of all the exercises - thus creating original designs . . . . These sections were th

A flipped and mirrored design taken from 'The Journey'. I love teaching at Art Van Go, everyone is made so welcome and always so well l ooked after. Art Van G o offer a very comprehensive range of workshops throughout the year. Have a look see - www.artvango.co.uk/workshops/ Design, Inspiration and Interp reta tion is my rather formulaic way to help groups get jump stared when they need a bit help to get going with ideas. It can be difficult to pull designs ideas out of fresh air and even with bulging sketch books you somet imes need a refresher.  On this two day version we worked through two design exercises, took sections of the designs, flipped and mirr ored designs and then made printing blocks f rom on e of the designs.   The first design exercise was 'The Journey' If you have a c opy of Experimental Textiles or a re a regular reader of this blog you will be aware of this exercise. It is a great mark making exercise that ca