Needle Felted Butterflies

Peacock - Aglais io

 

Over the last couple of weeks I've been working on my submission for the annual Arts and Crafts Society exhibition.

Every August they have an exhibition for members in the local festival hall with free entry for all to view.  I love how inclusive it is - of different art and craft types and abilities. 

This year I have needle felted three butterflies and framed them up.

Large Blue - Phengoirs arion

 

I have to admit that they were kits from The Makerss, but while they might supply the materials and some instructions it's still up to the maker to produce the final thing.  For instance you have to mix some of the colours yourself.

They are fun and relatively quick to make, but I am still learning how to add details and make things look natural.

Small Tortoriseshell - Aglais urticae

 

I'm also submitting some glass, but that's for another post. 

Sharing My Knowledge

 

I've always been happy to share my knowledge with others.

Last year I joined my local Arts & Craft Society and as I started to get to know people I realised that a lot of members have or want websites, but aren't sure how to make the most of them.

In my day job I work as a user experience researcher, talking to customers and watching as they use websites, so I've got a fair idea of what people are looking for when they visit a site. 

So when the first request came through for members to write content for the newsletter I wrote a piece about things to remember when adding content to your site.  Namely - tell a story so people can understand the artist behind the work and can see it's value.   (" but I can get it half that price on Temu!")

Then just before Christmas I got asked if I would come to one of their demonstration nights, and while the others who got asked were asked to give short demonstrations of how they create their art, I got asked to be there to answer peoples questions about their websites.

I said yes, which is how I was sitting in a community hall one evening this week hoping that someone would come and talk to me.  

 

I wasn't as busy as some of the other tables - how could I compete with lino printing, fusing glass or weaving, however I did have people come and talk to me, and I think we had some useful conversations.

Examples... One chap asked if he needed a website, but when we talked about what he needed it sounded like his LinkedIn profile would work fine, if he updated it.

 One ladies website had some amazing art on it, but none of the stories of her art were on the same page as the art.  I reminded her that you never know how someone got to the page so you can't assume they have read everything on your home page.

And one ladies showed me her site and after looking round we agreed that her navigation needed amending to help people find what they were looking for.

I loved these conversations and I hope it helps these artists to get their work out there and make the sales they need.  Got a question, feel free to ask, just don't ask me to build a site for you!

Reactive Glass Jewellery

 

Can you guess where I’ve been this week?

Yep, back to West Dean.  This week if was for Reactive Glass Jewellery.

 

It kicked off on Monday evening where the class met up for dinner, then into the classroom for our first session.

 

Claire our tutor is a very talented glass fusing artist and she was very friendly and  knowledgeable and was happy to answer all our questions as she overwhelmed us with information.

 

The course was all about fusing glass and the wonderful reactions you can create when mixing certain glasses and metals together.  In this case silver foil.  The idea being that you can then make these pieces of glass into pieces of jewellery.

 

On Monday evening I started by making a square tile with a piece of French vanilla glass, scraps of silver foil, and a pinch of glass powder with a piece of clear glass to cap it all off.  Everyone made their own versions then everything went into the kiln. Then we either went home or most of the rest of the class went to the bar!

 

The next day we started to learn more about the possible reactions and other techniques we could use.  We spent the morning working on more glass creations to fuse.  Then at lunch time we could finally open the massive kiln and see our work from yesterday.  I was very pleased with how mine came out – the vanilla had reacted to the silver creating a dark line round it and there were tendrils of brown showing where the fumes from the reaction had tired to escape.  (see the first image)

 

 Now we had a piece of glass we could practice our cold working techniques on, grinding and polishing and eventually putting it back in the kiln for a fire polish. 

 

On our last day we could create more things for the kiln if we wished, but I didn’t want to leave anything behind, so I just focused on my cold working.  This time using a tile saw to cut some of my tiles of glass up, then drilling a hole in one piece!

 

 

Once again we had to wait until lunch time before we could open the big kiln.  I was delighted with my work.  I'd had no real idea what might come out of it.  Just because I followed a 'recipe' doesn't mean it would come out the same.  It definitely made me want to do more.

 

Claire also had some silver findings for us to purchase to finish our pieces off.

 

This was such a great course and added so much to my glass knowledge.  I’ve now got to build up the courage to try and reset my kiln so I can try fusing at home.  I’ve got lots of broken bits of glass which could make good/interesting cabochons.

 

There are also a few pieces from the course that I'd like to do more cold work on and then fire polish to finish.  Glass continues to amaze and fascinate me.  

 

Making A Mosaic

 

I recently joined my local Arts and Crafts Socity.  

One of the benefits I'm really enjoing is their monthly demonstations.  Here a local artist spends a couple of hours demonstrating their craft, and some times we even get to join in.

Last month Tamsin Norris did a demonstration of how to create a mosaic.  I'd never really considered that they had anything to do with glass, until Tamsin showed us some of her work.

 

Once she'd shown us some examples and talked us through how it worked we were able to have a go.

We were each given a square tile, some PVA glue and a tub full of glass tile shards.  It was suggested we'd want to draw a heart but I ended up with a star.  We covered our shape in glue then found chunks of glass to fill the space.

While this was fun, what I enjoyed most was just being able to chat with other creative types.

 

At the end of the session we got to take our tiles home with instructions to let them dry for at least a week before grouting them.

Inspired by some of the other things Tamsin showed us, once home I also used some of my sea glass to make a heart on a stone found on the beach at Easter.  I wasn't sure if this would work, but it did and once grouted a little rub of bead wax made the sea glass shine.

I'm not sure I'll do any more mosaic, but it was brilliant to find another application for glass, and learn a new skill.

 

Paper Marbling - An Introduction

 This week I was once again back at West Dean.  As I've said to several people it really is quite addictive.  They have such a great range of courses, the tutors are all wonderful (so far) and the atmophere is great.

 

As someone who loves making books, I've always been fascinated by marbled papers and think they are really beautiful, but I've never had a go.  I don't even remember doing this at school.  I'd seen lots on Instagram too, so when I saw West Dean were running an introductory course I jumped at the change to try it.

 

Louise our tutor was lovely, and gave us lots of information about how to marble paper successfully.  It's not quite as simple as you might think.

 

In the morning we learnt all about how to make the different patterns using combs, sticks and washing up liquid, before spending the afternoon playing and finding our style.

 

It was very messy, but I loved how immediate it was.  You could see how the pattern turned out as soon as you lifted your paper from the tray, so it was easy to learn and try again if it wasn't quite right.

 

We stopped an hour before the end of the day to tidy everything up.  This also allowed our prints time to dry, although a couple of hair dryers might have been deployed to speed things up.  We then had a bit of time to look at each others work and reflect on what had worked or not for us.

 

I was very pleased to come home with 23 prints and plenty of knowledge about how to do it at home if I think the house could deal with the mess!  The real question is, can I bring myself to use any of them?

 

If you are interested I would totally recommend this course.  Now to go wash the paint splatters off my shoes.  (The photos really don't show the wonderful metalic paints I used at all!)

Gelli Plate Printing

 For Christmas I asked for and received a gelli printing plate.  I'd seen people playing with them on Instagram and wanted to have a go.

It is sooooo much fun, and really quick.  Pro: you can set up a print in minutes; Con: you only get one print each time.

So far I've just been playing to see what works.  Printing leaves had worked quite well, but works best when they are flat.  Printing textures is interesting - loving the bubble wrap print.

 

I've also tried printing with wax rubbings which worked quite nicely too.

I'm loving how you can layer things and mix colours etc.  So many possibilities.

I've also tried to take images from photos in magazines, but that didn't work for me.  Several reasons this could be, so I need to try that a bit more.

I think the thing I need to do before I try any more is to buy some new paint.  All the paint I have is from when I was at college, which is something like 20 years ago.  I'm surprised how well its done to be honest, but I guess paint without lumps in and that isn't seperating would probably work better.

'im outdoors has said he'll take the old paint when I get round to replacing it, so at least it won't go to waste. 

Christmas Cards 2022

 

Happy Christmas everyone!

Here is this years printed card design.  I wanted to see how detailed I could make it using lino and I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

 

I found some pretty red card this year that looks pretty Christmasy, but I like the recycled brown card too.

 

And I've already got some ideas for next years design! 

Here's to the New Year and new adventures.

Halloween decorations

 

I'm not really a big fan of Halloween, however the village organised a Halloween walk.  Rather than knocking on doors doing trick or treat, children could go round the village with their parents and when they spotted some decorations their parents could give them some sweets.

I wanted to join in a little, so painted myself a pumpkin and some squashes to stick in our window.  Not as impressive as some of the displays, but with a low enviromental impact and still fun.

New Brewery Arts

"Bowls of Light" Anne-Lise Studer

If I won the lottery I would use the money to make an arts centre in my community.  Somewhere with room for exhibitions, studios for local artists and 'classrooms' for workshops and classes for people in the community.  And this is exactly what we found when we visited New Brewery Arts in Cirencester today.
We came to see "Eau - Fibre - Papier - Metamorphose - an international exhibition of fine art sculptural paper works".
Two rooms full of beautiful and thought provoking paper art, which made me wish I had more time to play with materials like this.  I'm off work next week so I am hoping to get some creative play in, but there is only so much you can do in a week.

"108 Peace Symbol" Anne Vilsboell

"Long Feuilles" Anne-Lise Studer

Improving my drawing skills

Just like with the creativity thing, it really annoys me when people tell me they can't draw.  Everyone can draw!  After all its just making marks on paper with a pencil or pen.  What they really mean is they can't draw very well, or that what they draw doesn't match the image in their head.

So I would agree that I do have a bit of an advantage in that I've been drawing for as long as I can remember.  I did go to art college and I have done life drawing classes.  All these things have helped me to become a better drawer, but most of the time the thing I draw still doesn't quite match whats in my head either!

Anyway drawing is something that you can do better with a bit of practice, so I've been doing a bit more to try and improve.  Reading Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton and team, I came across the following exercise.

You start off by drawing, from your imagination, a person.  My attempt is below.  I can do this, but find it quite hard if I don't have something/one specific in my head at the start.

Next I copied a drawing of a person from the book.  The idea is not to draw a person, but to copy a collection of lines which just happen to make a person.  I find this much easier.  Copying lines is easy.

Some people find this quite hard as they can still see the person in the picture, so the next exercise asks you to turn the image upside down and try again.  As its harder to see the person in the image you are more likely to just focus on the lines.
Personally I think the first attempt looks better, but then I've been trained to look at lines, which helps.  Its an interesting exercise and reminded me of some of the key things I learnt years ago.
Have a go and see what you come up with but remember to be nice to yourself.  This stuff takes practice.

The original image - Sean's Afternoon by Lindsay MacDonald.

Creativity

'im outdoors bought this wonderful little bench home last weekend.  Just something he knocked up out of some off cuts from a job.  Its perfect.  I've already had a little sit, but I'm really looking forward to using it in the summer.

So would you say that was creative?  I would.  But he disagrees.  And I've found this a lot with various people - if it isn't one of the classic 'arts' - you know painting or drawing etc, then you're not creative.  I despair!  What could be more creative than making a bench which looks so good and is comfy to sit on?  Or making a flight of steps in a garden that look good, and are easy to walk up?  

I truly believe that everyone is creative in someway - we just have to get away from what school teaches us and remember that creativity is a much bigger thing than just being able to draw.  Go on, go do something fun - I bet its creative too.

Bob Godfrey - animator

Last night we went to a talk at our local library about Bob Godfrey.  You might not recognize the name but if you are my age or older you will probably recognize his work.  Do you know Roobarb or Henry's cat?  Then you know Bob Godfrey.
James Walker gave the talk based on a collection in the UCA archive and although I might not have known many of the people he was talking about - mostly animators and actors etc form 1960's and 70's, it was really interesting.
I really love to hear about how other artists, from any medium, work, and how they got started etc.  It makes me feel more connected; maybe that's why I'm enjoying twitter so much - following all those arty people.  Doing creative things can be quite lonely so it is really nice to be able to see what others are doing - part of the joy of the monthly writers group maybe.  And maybe something you see or hear will spark some new thing for you, push you in a new direction, get you thinking.

Sketch books

When I was in the 6th Form doing A-Levels I spent most of my time with an A3 sketch book under one arm.  This was useful for deflecting lower school students when walking round to classes and for sitting on when the sun came out but the grass was still a bit wet.
Of course it was also useful for keeping arty stuff in too.
When I went to Art College I also had an A3 sketch book, this was full of drawing exercises and experiments.
As soon as I finished there the sketch books stopped and went into the loft, where I recently found them again.  So interesting to look through them.

Later I did some creative writing and on all three modules we were encouraged to keep a writing note pad, to jot down ideas and thoughts that might be useful later.  This is something that I've continued to do, although I've found that once an idea is written down I stop thinking about it and so never write the story.  Best to keep the really good ideas in my head for a bit.

Then last year I did a design module and we were encouraged to keep a sketch book again.  I had one but didn't really use it to its full potential.  It was a half hearted sketch book.

But now a year later I have bought myself a new sketch book, just a small A5 one, and some nice pens and I'm starting to jot down ideas and things that inspire me.  It is after all one thing to think about making paper and making books and creating 'art' and actually doing it. I hope that I can keep it up and find it useful.

Hobbycraft - a treasure trove?

Yesterday we went to Hobbycraft.  It was my first ever visit and I was blown away by it.

All my life I have spent collecting materials for making stuff; sometimes out of the bin – cereal boxes or paper that’s only been printed on one side; or from one of my dad’s sheds; or from wonderful tiny art shops where everything you could think of is crammed into this tiny space; or while I was at art college from the old department store across the road from the college who had a great haberdashery department; or even from somewhere like B&Q.

Every project has needed a plan just to get the materials, especially as the wonderful art shops are closing down and I’ve moved to a different location.  So to walk into one big store and find pretty much everything I’ve ever dreamed of and a bunch more is amazing and in away a little scary.

I love those little art shops, you know the one’s where you have to be careful when you turn round that you don’t wipe out a whole display, but they are definitely on the decline and with a store like Hobbycraft around I suddenly understand why. 

So I have mixed feelings about it.  Part of me is amazed at all the wonderful things on offer and I’d happily go back and spend another couple of hours looking round, while on the other hand I would rather spend my money in one of those little shops in the hope that they will continue to exist for a bit longer.  The problem is with the items that the little art shops just don’t have the room to stock.  Where else could I have got the length of balsa wood or the star cutting stamp that we picked up yesterday except maybe the internet?

I think I will have to add it to my list of possible suppliers but just make sure I start with the tiny independent shops first.

John Browning Kites

I have been a member of the National Trust for years, first with my Mum and now with 'im outdoors.  I'm always meaning to visit more properties than I actually do, but on Monday we manage to visit one - Mottisfont in Hampshire.  

It had been recommenced by a friend because of its lovely gardens and its small art gallery in the house and I thoroughly enjoyed the walk by the river and round the walled garden, even if we were a bit late for the roses.

But it was the art gallery that really got my interest.  They have a selection of Winnie-the-Pooh illustration on display at the moment which are great, and in the next room they have a selection of mechanical art from the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre which were really fun to watch but it was the kites in the stairwell that got all my attention.

Kites by John Browning, made from handmade paper and leaves in very none kite shapes but which apparently fly beautifully.  They were all works of art in themselves and I spent ages fascinated by the near translucent leaves.

My big question - How did he do it?!  My only thought - I want to do that!