Don't travel light!!

Are we going to have fun , or what?

I have not posted anything for a while but I have NOT been idle! I have nothing pretty to show for myself but I DO have something to show you! Tomorrow, I start a three session class on Embellishing and Multi Media. I have taught it before and it is always fun . Thought I'd share the mess and some of the plans. I have been making samples to teach from and collecting my claptrap at the front door. It is a nasty sort of a day here today and promises similar tomorrow so I will try to pack the car at an advantageous time so I do not get TOO blown apart!

This is the start of the pile of stuff I plan to haul in to the shop tomorrow. I believe in "concrete materials", as I was so carefully taught in Teachers' College a hundred or so years ago. I am a good describer, but who'd describe when you could SHOW??? Besides, some people cannot imagine, even when something is carefully described. I do not have paints, brushes, my display board and nice little wooden stand DH made for me in the pile just yet. You get the idea though, I am sure!

In this little class, we will not be striving so much for a masterpiece at the end ( although I am sure some will be created) as for a LOT of experiences and experiments. I hope the participants will try everything and learn to adapt things that may not have turned out exactly as they had imagined them. This is as much a class in coping with serendipity as it is in learning new techniques.

We will look at all kinds of new manmade materials- polyesters, Tyvek, Evolon, Lutradur. We will play with Bubble Wrap, dryer sheets, cheesecloth. We will paint things, foil things, burn things. We will emboss, stamp, embroider, quilt, cut with soldering iron. We will play with Shiva Paintsticks, pencil crayons and Caran d'Aches wax pastels. We will do odd things with fusible fabrics. We will have FUNNN! I hope people will relax and go with the proverbial flow and just enjoy learning and teaching each other lots of new things.

Best of all, we will learn to look around us for interesting materials to use. The recycling man may suddenly find our blue boxes less full because we will be noticing that MANY fun things can be recycled into art. My pockets, purse, wallet etc are ALWAYS full of rusty washers, rusty bottle caps, bits of wire plastic treasures and I have BOXES full of them . At one stage, I had all of my drinking friends saving their bottle caps for me as no one at my house drinks alcohol . Eventually, I had to call them off as I now have a prodigious collection. Check out my doll making posts and you will see where some of that stuff ended up! A friend in England even sent me a dead wristwatch to dismantle to get springs and gears. I AM a crazy woman, but nice when you get to know me :-)

The piece of work that is displayed right now as the sample for this class is the Blue Moon Reflections.

Not finished but you get the idea. I seem not to have a finished photo.

Closeup of some of the hand embroidery over poly organza

Closeup of the "moon" with silk waste- including a beaded silkworm cocoon- with him still inside YIKES!

A couple of closeup looks at some of the samples and materials

The painty, coloury stuff- some of it!

I am planning to post this to needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com  I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else is doing, has done . Check it out and enjoy!