April Workshops at Hannahs at Seale-Hayne in South Devon

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Papier-mâché with printmaking - two crafts for the price of one in April, May and June 2014.

I am embarking on a series of workshops at Hannah's at Seale-Hayne The first ones will be in collaboration with a fellow artist - Sara Gilbert

Sara is a print maker and painter who works in a variety of mediums. So Sara will be explaining and demonstrating lino cutting, showing how to make images that can stand alone or be coloured in a variety of ways. I will be demonstrating mold making using Plaster of Paris and a product known as Silligum that can be used to make repeatable air dried clay reliefs that can be added to the papier-mâché platters or bowls. 

We will be dividing the day into three sessions and be working alternately with half a group each and having the third session as the time to assemble and finish. I'll be showing how to make papier-mâché platters and show 'some I made earlier'. I'll be using pre-made hanging basket liners as we'll never have the papier-mâché pieces ready to actually work on on the day because of drying times, if we had to make them all. The relief work can be dried in 20 seconds in a microwave so we'll have one of these to hand. They can then be glued onto the work.

Sara will be showing how to make various types of prints on Japanese rice and other papers and you will be able to make cards from your lino cuts as well.
I will also demonstrate some gilding and finishing techniques. We can take between 10 and 12 people in the Art Room. The cost will be £60 including materials, tea, coffee, biscuits etc. Really excellent food and barista coffee can be bought from the Bistro or you can bring your own lunch. There is also a very good Takeaway too. The workshops will initially run on the second Saturday in April, May and June. The series of photos here show how a platter can be developed. This is just one way - there are far too many to show!

We have lots of ideas for future ones too. Sara also runs independent printmaking workshops from her studio. I am planning some similar daytime sessions with just a couple of people at a time from my studio in The North Wing at Seale-Hayne. We are both planning evening classes as well. Below is a very simple bowl made with papier-mache

to which has been added a lino cut of a periwinkle printed on Japanese rice paper. The blues/turquoises have been painted with acrylic inks on the base and the deckle edges gilded with silver leaf.

I'm also developing more in depth workshops in 2015 that will be held in various locations in the town and the country and I'll be calling them Town and Country Workshops - naturally! They will be held in peoples homes - homes that will be able to host them will have either a large kitchen or workshop/studio with heating in the form of an Aga, Rayburn or similar for drying the work where necessary. They will also be held in Village Halls and small Hotels. They will be running as half day, one day and two day workshops. I shall be inviting other artist/crafts people to teach as well so that there will be a wide range of skills to choose from. The idea is to have a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting time and to meet like minded people in a homely environment. I used to run such workshops in the 1990's from my cottage in Herefordshire that I was renovating, as you may be able to imagine from the short film that the BBC commissioned of my work.

February 2014 - rain, rain and more rain.

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It is hard to hear about so many people being forced out of their homes by flooding this winter and it seems very strange to know that Devon and Cornwall are virtually cut off from the rest of the country, at least by train. And still it keeps on raining but every now and then there are rainbows and hope returns. I have been tucked away in my studio making jewellery and bowls.

I love the brilliant blue inside this crab shell that I found on a beach in Cornwall last summer. I did not even enhance it in photoshop, it is simply an aide-mémoire but it has led me to make a series of papier-mâché bowls. I am building up the layers of paint on this one with acrylic inks, although tending to turquoise here rather than colbalt blue.

The platter below is gilded with silver leaf.

The papier-mâché bowl below is built up with just a few layers of paper on the inside to which I have put papier-mâché  pulp on the outside. I made deep incisions in the pulp, then painted inside and outside with acrylic gesso, then with sign writers gold size as this acts as the perfect base for Roberson Metallic Powders. 

These are the metallic powders, made by Roberson, that I have been using, building up designs with various beautiful shades of bronze, gold and copper that start to suggest the pattern of the incisions on the outside of the bowl. They have a wonderful lustre.

A necklace made up with a beautiful, large fragment of mother of pearl that I found on the Thames foreshore and some fragments of clay pipe stems, interspersed with keishi pearls, small peacock pearls and iridescent glass pearls, the last two have been recycled from older necklaces that I found in an antique shop. I am making a collection called Treasures from The River Thames as this is exactly what they are!

I like to make variations on the theme of flowers in papier-mâché. These are made with fine white papier-mâché paste that I harden with epoxy resin, making it almost as hard as porcelain. The centres are gilded with gold leaf. I have added irregular shaped pale bronze fresh water and white keishi pearls.
There are many old oyster shells on the foreshore of the Thames, though this one is from a Cornish beach as I wanted a smooth white oyster shell to add to the carefully selected fragments of chalky white clay pipe stems and white irregular shaped fresh water pearls.

Fine white papier-mâché paste used to make impressions from an Edwardian serving spoon - fragments of images of fruit and flowers. With heat bonded baroque papier-mâché beads and white keishi pearls.

A new batch of scorched papier-mâché  brooches and lapel pins in the making.