It must be jelly 'cos jam don't ...

So the other week I went to Hope and Elvis (run by the lovely Louise) on the Wellbeck Estate near Workshop.  Oh I love going to workshops at Hope and Elvis, they are havens of peace and tranquillity, full of lovely like minded fun, artistic and creative people. Louise and the artists who run workshops are so generous with providing materials for you to play with, its always fun rummaging through paper bits, fabric bits, lace bits, threads and buttons ....

 I'm renowned for getting my head down, completely in the zone, only surfacing for the delicious lunch created by Maggie. Intense days but so inspiring.

So the latest workshop was on mono printing with Gelli plates with the gorgeous Letitia known as Mrs Bertimus.  Now I've used Gelli plates before, but always taken the fabric or the paper to the plate.  This time we took the plate to the fabric or paper and used like a stamp. Letitia showed us how to add paint to the Gelli plate, how to square of the paint with a rag, add marks to the paint that would be transferred, using stuff to act as resist on the which ever surface you were using and much more.

So I worked on some fabric and a strip of lining paper that I'd glued various bits of paper ephemera on (still haven't quite worked out how I want to use this) .  I decided on a colour palette (greys, browns and white and a touch of olive green) ) and got stuck in creating a master board of colour in a 50's Festival of Britain style.

I didn't really do a lot of mark making preferring to use the small 5x3" Gelli plate as a print block (using a small roller to spread the paint on the block) and randomly placing and overlaying colour to create depth. I also used some stencils with the Gelli plate (stencil on plate and rolling paint over, removing stencil and printing) to get more layers.

Once I was happy with it (always a hard call, when do you stop?) I had to have a think what to do with it.  Very early on in the morning I'd drawn a flower shape on some paper as a potential stamp, so decided to use some kids craft foam to make a stamp.  Collaged some paper and fabric bits on the lower half stamped, my flower, waited for it to all dry and bit and then added some free motion embroidery to emphasise the flower and added the stalk.

By this time I was mentally knackered and as I had a 2 hour drive home , decided to call it a day.

The next day (I'd sensibly booked the day off)  I added some more hand stitching and buttons to complete the picture.

I really love this way of using the Gelli plate to create subtle layers of colour and I learnt how to do free motion embroidery, so it was a win win day all round!

So this picture is for sale in my Etsy shop (theshabbydandelion)  £45.00 plus pnp.

Hugs

Jo

An away day to recharge the batteries.

Its been a long time for me to have difficulty sleeping because you've got so many craft ideas racing round my brain (work issues do keep me awake, thank goodness for Iplayer, it took me 10 attempts to listen to Benedict Cumberpatch in Rumpole the other week) but last night loads of what ifs and oh would that work?

Why, well I had a fantastic day at Hope & Elvis near Worksop run by Louise on a Liz Cooksey workshop.  I spotted the workshop ages ago and Liz's use of metal and grid arrangements with mixed media elements really spoke to me.

After a horrendous journey up the M1 I made the 10.00am start - just!  Liz explained her methods and design principles and she made loads of metal elements for us to use if we didn't want to have ago ourselves. Although all materials were available Id taken a load of stuff as I'd decided I wanted to work with a neutral colour scheme.

First thing I did was nick some used teabags and dyed some cotton scraps I had and the A4 Kraft card, left them out in the courtyard to dry.

I then stated to have a play with the metal elements thinking about what I wanted to "do" Started doing some crochet with linen thread (bit of a faff, think I needed a bigger hook) and sticking. 

Once my A4 was dry I added some book pages and then layered the cotton and some silk strips on the swankiest sewing machine I ever seen, I felt like I was driving an Aston Martin, so many buttons and oh so quiet. I felt really naughty sewing on paper with such a majestic beast.

Metal and shaping and bashing, oh how I enjoyed that, all afternoon you could hear the rhythmic ringing of metal on metal out in the courtyard.

The flower on the left is one I made, I love how hitting the metal wire with a hammer of a metal block stretches the metal, flattens its and changes the colour The wire Liz supplied was malleable enough to twist and make shapes and the tendril on the flower on right was done this way.

The stems had more wire twisted round and hammered flat and were attached with some of the line thread. 

The day ended at 4.00pm and that was good because I was knackered, all that thinking and pondering had taken its toll!  I knew the piece wasn't quite finished for me as I wanted to add some pencil marks and little bit of highlight colour.  So once home got the water colour pencils out and added in the brown, purple and red. 




I did start making a more Liz inspired grid arrangement, but this one just sort of demanded to be worked on. Ive got some ideas for the grid that will form a companion to this.

It was a great day, working with all my favourite materials in a beautiful space created by Louise and talking to other like minded people creating and chatting, lovely, lovely, lovely.

Hugs
Jo
xx