preparation for a Wild Wednesday

I am preparing for a Wild Wednesday tomorrow in Museum Gardens, York.  


This is a free and fun event for all the family in the Museum Gardens, with lots of hands-on and exciting archaeology and science activities to take part in. Activities will include making jewellery, casting fossils, making mosaics, hunting mini-beasts, making a stone trough, panning for gold, Chinese writing, birdwatching, firing rockets and exploring Tudor cures and potions.

18 August, 11am - 3.30pm

Just hoping the weather stays fine!

down time

I haven't been posting much recently as I have been busy teaching mainly art clay certification courses and it doesn't seem quite right somehow to post pictures of the students' work for this.  Anyway, this weekend I have been away to my niece's wedding.  Just so you can see I am only one of a creative family here is a stand of cup cakes made by one of my sisters.  I have kept one of the pretty paper case surrounds but haven't quite decided how to use it yet...... stencil maybe?

Carnac

While in Brittany I had chance to visit a museum in Carnac and photographed this lovely piece of carving

of course, one of the reasons I love this is because it is another bird!

PMC Guild Francophone

I was really lucky to be able to attend a workshop with Hadar Jacobson in Brittany at the beginning of the month organised by the Guilde PMC Francophone.  What a lovely group of creative people! A huge thanks to all of them, they made me very welcome.  It was a fantastic weekend and I hope to meet up again. Here are some of the listening intently to Hadar's instructions.

A special thanks has to go to Veronique who must have done a huge amount of work catering -

she produced an amazing lunch for us all each day.  The venue was quite special too, a village hall (or the equivalent) with views out over the sparkling sea and next to a really pretty beach. I did get a chance to sit on the beach a couple of days later!

Hadar Jacobson and the Guild PMC Francopone

This weekend I am lucky to be attending a workshop run by Hadar Jacobson in Britany organised by the Guild PMC Francophone.  Today has been fantastic and quite apart from all the wonderful information so generously given by Hadar it has also been a friendly and very multicultural group.  My french is not very good and although I can understand quite a bit it is difficult to sort the words out quickly enough to reply properly but this hasn't really hindered communication, we have just all mixed up our languages and added a few hand shapes, waves and shrugs.  The venue is a spacious hall right alongside a spectacular rocky harbour and beach with a view over the sea.  Although this is probably about 10 degrees centigrade warmer than my usual studio it hasn't been a problem (yet) as Hadar's versions of copper and bronze are remarkably forgiving and don't dry out as quickly as my usual medium of art clay silver.  Hadar has demonstrated a vast number of different ways of using the various clays and we are now working on our own small sample pieces.  I will hopefully add some photos when I return home but am already thinking of things I would like to try and still have another day to go.

Colourful days

I have had a couple of amazing and colourful days this week.  On Tuesday I went over the Bradford to take part in a workshop about using traditional dyes at Cartwright Hall.  It was a workshop linked to the museum's Precious Cargo project and was great fun.  We learned quite a bit about using different plant based dyes to dye a variety of threads including wool, silk and linen.

These are not actually my samples but those of my neighbour, I somehow forgot to photograph my own so will have to take a picture and add it to the post later on.  My samples are now lying on the workbench in my studio drying out.  Our teacher was Debbie The Mulberry Dyer who was very enthusiastic and informative.

Today, Thursday, I have been down in Stoke on Trent with a small group from the Guild of Enamellers looking around the factory of W G Ball Limited.  It was fascinating to learn a little about the making of enamel and to see the two batches of enamel poured out of the crucible.  I have used enamel for years now without really knowing anything about how it is made so this was a fantastic opportunity to add a little more to my knowledge.  Apart from anything else I now know that Budgerigar green is still available.  I was given a small amount of this beautiful colour some years ago and have nearly used it up.  Now I can order myself some more!  Thanks to John Ball and his team for sharing such a fantastic amount of information and for continuing to help and inspire enamellers at all levels.

The final day of North Yorkshire Open Studios 2010

Tomorrow will be final day of the Open Studios event this year.  It has been lovely meeting new people and old friends and welcoming them to look around my studio, especially as being out in this fairly remote location I rarely get casual visitors.  Here are a couple of pictures of my studio as it looks at the moment.  Of course I have to move things around to make it safe for visitors to look without being able to do themselves harm on various bits of tools and equipment.  The picture below is a selection of small leaf pendants and earrings that I have been enamelling during quiet spells today, they are part of an order for a gallery and I will hopefully finish them in the next couple of days.