As we made our way to the hall on Tuesday we were all watching the weather hoping for a little bit of sun and no rain. We had been told sun printing would still work in cloud but much more slowly than in the sun.
Several of us wore our macks because it never rains when you have your mack!
The workshop was led by one of our members Sue Tyldesley who arrived with a basket full of greenery to use for the sun printing.
Sue showed us some samples in pretty colours with the unmisstakeable shapes of leaves, flowers and grasses.
Sue demonstated the technique by brushing water onto cotton fabric and then applying silk paints and letting the colours mingle. She then applied leaves and flowers etc to the surface pressing them down so they were flush with the surface. She then placed the board supporting the cotton fabric outside for the sun to do its work!
Then it was our turn and we were all raring to go and had fingers crossed the sun would come out.
Sue then said we could add sea salt to parts of the background to make a further pattern on the material.
There were lots of oohs! and aahs! as we removed the greenery to reveal the shapes. We then started to get adventurous and use all sorts of interesting objects and larger natural items.
Meanwhile the sun started to shine and the printing started to work much faster.
You can see a before and after picture below:
Our members enjoyed the day greatly and at the end we had a look at all we had done and Sue made suggestions as to what we might do with them.
All thanks to Sue for a very good day.
On a hot, sunny, Friday afternoon Sandra , Bev and Sue set off for Summer school which was to be at Waddow Hall, Clitheroe, Lancashire this year, because Alston Hall is no longer available. Bev and Sandra had never been to Waddow Hall before but Sue had visited with the Guides. As we arrived we a saw an attractive house set in beautiful grounds with the river Ribble running over a weir and a rock strewn river bed. [see pictures below]
It was an interesting house set in very pretty grounds and we were made to feel welcome.
Sandra and Sue were doing the "creative surfaces" course with Lynda Monk using a variety of non woven textiles and "paints" that could be modified and distressed with heat.
Lynda was very organised and after each break there would be a new pack of items on our chair to work with in the next session.
We covered using lutadur, tyvek, evolon, xpandaprint transfer dyes gilding and tissue.
We also leart how to use xpandaprint through a screen, make book covers, a note book and all sorts of fragments which you can see in the pictures below.
We covered a vast array of techniques with some things to finish at home. I am sure many of the things we learnt will be useful in our future work.
Bev had chosen "painting garden themes with stitch" led by Maggie Hickman Smith. Their group worked on using hand stitches to produce flowers in a garden.
Their work was very delicate using either 1/2 strands to produce very realistic flowers as you can see from the following pictures.
It was a very enjoyable Summer School and we all learnt a lot of new techniques, made new friends, caught up with old ones and enjoyed a new venue.
The new venue was in a very attractive setting with interesting bedrooms and good food.
If you have never been to Summer School you might like to consider it next year and you can see in the hand out below what will be on offer.
