Crafty As L

Last weekend I took myself off to Dorset for a weekend workshop with Katy Rundle to create a bumble bee painting with fabric and thread.   Katy creates amazing things with fabric and thread – check out her website here , where you can also book her workshops.   Whilst I have done a reasonable amount of free-motion embroidery now, I’ve never really done appliqué so this was a great opportunity to learn a new skill.   And who doesn’t love creating bees? Katy had drawn the bee on calico fabric to get us started so our first job was to apply fusible glue to the back of the decorative fabric pieces.   I’d normally use Bondaweb but I’d had trouble getting hold of any so I tried out a new brand called Quiltlines Superweb which did the same job. Then it was just a case of cutting out shapes from the fabrics and positioning them on the drawing.   I was trying to do what I’d do in my drawings to try to get the tonal values right, even though I wasn’t using conve...

A few years ago, I did a willow weaving day with my friend, supposedly making a chicken.   Mine took on a life of its own and turned into rather a large rooster, that you can see here .   For my birthday, my sister bought me a voucher for a local willow weaving session run by Jacquie of  www.willowandcrafts.co.uk where we would be making a penguin. After a quick introduction to the materials and some penguin photos for inspiration, we began by making our penguin’s feet.   They turned out roughly the same shape and size and looked vaguely like a pair - so far so good! The next job was to make the body base.   After making a couple of teardrop shapes, these were joined together with a ring, the size of which would dictate the size of the penguin’s belly.   I was aiming for a short, squat guy rather than a tall Emperor penguin. More rings were made in different sizes to complete the base frame.   After weaving a few bits onto the body frame, it...

During lockdown I took up watercolour painting after watching and being inspired by several of Paul Clark’s YouTube videos .   Once lockdown was over, I stopped painting until earlier this year when my Dad and I went to a beginner’s class locally.   I remembered that I really enjoyed it and started doing some extra painting in between the classes.   My friend fancied trying watercolour and mentioned about Paul doing workshops .   He’s just under a couple of hours’ drive away and there was a workshop we could both attend so we packed our gear and headed off. During the first part of the workshop, Paul explained the advantages and disadvantages of the various papers, paints and brushes that you can get and then demonstrated how to paint rocks.   We also used a plastic card to scrape away at the paint and then added some reflected shadows in the sand.   We then practiced our dry brush technique, which we would use for the sea in our finished painting. ...

This week, Mr L and I tried out a glass fusion taster workshop with local artist, Sue Watson at  Wat’s On Glass . I spotted the workshop advert on a post in a local Facebook group and we were on a day off, so I booked it. Neither of us had done anything glassy before so we complete novices and had no idea what to expect.  To begin, Sue explained about the tools and demonstrated how to cut some greenhouse glass. This is cheap (a lot of it donated from local allotments) and just for practice. We started by learning how to do straight cuts and then moved on to wavy cuts.  After this, we stopped for a cuppa, a slice of cake and a moment to decide what we wanted to make. The advert was to make a sun catcher or similar. Mr L and I each opted for a decorative panel that would stand in a wooden plinth. Mr L chose to make a circular design featuring beach huts and an aeroplane. I was inspired by one of Sue’s works of art on display that featured a wave.   We started by...

Together with my friend and my sister, I recently attended a workshop run by Driftwood & Daisies to learn how to create a beautiful floral topiary tree arrangement. The session began with a demonstration from Jo and a cuppa before we were let loose to create. To begin, the ball of oasis was positioned on top of the pole and marked lightly into quarters vertically and then in half horizontally.  These lines were the starting point to begin inserting small sprigs of foliage and lavender. Once all the lines were complete, the next stage was to begin to fill the areas between the lines with more foliage and to start adding some flowers. This process was repeated, adding more flowers to fill gaps, interspersed with standing back to assess the shape and check for bald spots! Eventually, you have to stick a fork in it and call it done!  Knowing when to stop with these kind of things is always a challenge. The final task was to decorate the t...

  Last Sunday, I attended a taster workshop to learn about dip pen and brush pen styles of modern calligraphy.  The course was hosted by the The Modern Calligraphy Co. and is one of Kirsten Burke’s range of classes.  I chose it after being inspired by Kirsten’s YouTube videos and trying out one of her books.   The workshop itself is set in an idyllic location in the West Sussex countryside and, despite looking a little austere from the outside (it’s a converted Victorian sub-station), the interior is stunning; bright and airy and adorned with inspirational artwork. The welcome was warm and friendly and was accompanied with mugs of tea, coffee and biscuits. Each of the wannabe calligraphers had a work area complete with hand lettered name tag, tools and worksheets.  I was on a table with two lovely ladies, Hilary and Barbara, and we managed to do a lot of nattering in addition to our calligraphy! Our fab instructor was Maisie and she had a...