New Workshops at Workaid

I am starting to book dates for the new workshops for 2017 and 2018. There will be a whole new Art Journalling Club which will build into a comprehensive mixed media course. 

I will also be teaching Art Journalling for adults, for families and in schools.

On January 27th I will also be holding a workshop on Whimsical Illustration.

We will be making hand drawn illustrations and manipulating them to make exciting multi page art.

Also coming this academic year:

Lots more mixed media, hand stitch, book making, handmade felt and folk art and embroidery on vintage textiles.

Keep watching because I'd love you to join us.

Folk Art Sailor Pincushions

July's workshop is coming up very soon and I thought you might like to see what we will be making.

This is an antique Sailor's sweetheart pincushion from the V&A museum collection.

Sailors made them on the long journeys at sea for their sweethearts back home. Often they were made with beautiful embroidery, motifs which reminded them of the subjects closest to their hearts, patriotic or religious themes.

They featured pins which were pushed into the cushions in decorative patterns. They are heirlooms and social history and things of wonderous beauty!

We will be using these as our inspiration to make an heirloom of our own. We will use embroidery, needle felting, beading and found objects to make an exquisite picture. 

If you fancy joining us for the day on the 8th July 2017, in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, there are a couple of spaces still available. The cost is £65 and includes all materials. Leave a comment and contact me through my website: www.paulawatkins.co.uk

Workshops with photos!

February 11^th: Mixed Media Fabric Art books. £65

Using hand painted Calico and mixed media we will make a handmade fabric book cover and learn how to fill it with textile pages and some beautiful decorations and embellishments.

You will have the choice of making a simple concertina book or a bigger, more involved version with the opportunity to continue learning additional techniques throughout the year to add to your skills and the beauty of your book.

I forgot to take photos at this workshop because we were all so busy we forgot the time but Tina has just sent me the photos of her cover, front and inside. It is complete and just waiting for fabric pages. Have a look at the details on these covers.

The photo above is the front cover. I love that she chose a metal drawer handle as her closure for the book. There is so much detail to discover such as the hand drawn embellishment, stencilled and stitched areas and the hand made metallic butterflies.

Above is the inside of the book cover.She has divided and painted the squares and decorated them with lace, drawing and embroidery.
These are her signature colours and she has used them so well.

March 11^th: Scrap Stitching £65

We will use hand embroidery with treasured scraps of textiles, silk and vintage embellishments to make a little picture with exquisite details. 

This will be a lovely chilled out day with slow stitching, lovely materials and learning new ways to create surfaces and decorate fabric. Good for the soul!

Later in the year, in June, there will be a another chance to learn these and a different set of techniques with rust dyed fabrics.

The photos above are just a couple of my little samples for inspiring my Scrap Stitchers. It must have worked!

The photos below are some of their finished pieces and their works in progress.

These are mostly beginners! I'm blown away by what they've done. 

I will add more photos soon, but for now Look! Aren't they FAB!

 

Ilana's: Texture, colour and a riot of beautiful details to keep us all looking.

Jackie's: A wonderful mixture of texture and colour made with snippets of precious scraps and lovely decorative stitches.

Jill's: A beautiful little landscape work in progress with details of silk fibre and delicate stitching with hand dyed threads.

Kim's: A stunning textured heart. Work in progress. Beautiful layering that shimmers with lovely depth of colour.

Prue's: A billowy sky and landscape work in progress. Soft and dreamy layering of hand dyed silks and cottons. With fabulous tiny stitching and layering.

Tina's: A highly textured work in progress with cut organza flowers and scraps of fragile hand dyed silks on a hand dyed background.

And more stitching on this one.

Below is Alli's finished piece. Lots of wonderful stitching and details to find.

Alli's work in progress: Lovely textures again with very experimental stitches and yarns and couched found objects.

Tracey's: An exquisite shimmering dragonfly and pond stitchery.

The delicate dragonfly detail on a hand dyed background with scraps of silk fibre, dyed scrim and hand dyed threads.

Oh my goodness! You have all made me so happy. I am in love!

April 8^th: Blanket Books £65

We will use beautiful vintage wool blankets, wool fibre and hand embroidery to make Folk Art inspired treasure books. An heirloom to inspire all who see and touch this very special textile book.

May 13^th: Vintage Inspired Mini Quilts £65

We will use some fantastic vintage resources like antique lace, pearl and linen buttons, precious found objects and vintage photos to learn how to make tiny  hand embroidered fabric 'Quilts'. You will be able to take these home finished, to be framed or use them in a future textile project. You could also use them as pages in your Fabric Books if you are working on one of these with me.

June 10^th: Scrap Stitch 2. £65

We will use precious scraps of vintage fabrics, lace, rust and metal with hand embroidery to make an exquisite textile panel.

July 8^th: Folk Art Needle felted and hand embroidered picture. £65

We will needle felt and embroider a Folk Art inspired picture onto vintage wool blanket using merino wool fibre and hand dyed, silk and wool threads.

October 13^th and 14^th: 2 Day workshop. Altered Books. £150

This is a 2 day workshop which will introduce the subject of Altered Books from scratch and advance into adding doors with real hinges, niches and decorative 3D elements and mixed media techniques. You will leave with lots of ideas to continue your adventures with Altered Books.

More Rust! Textures!

Doesn't rust look lovely on textured fabric. These are on damaged vintage Broderie Anglais and a variety of other gorgeous embroidered fabrics and although it seems so sad, in  some ways, to distress them, they have been rescued from a charity shop and will become glorious again in a new artwork. 

I am so thrilled at the variegated greys in the dyeing, and hardly any orangey rust colours. I think the tannin in the tea was responsible for this happening because I dyed them with just tea and no vinegar at all. I love too that the circles from the washers have printed so well. 

Alice Fox Summer School part 2

I'm having such a lovely time at Alice's workshops. She has introduced us to the most wonderful techniques for Eco printing and mark making with natural materials. 

Alice makes the most beautiful little concertina books and bound books with delicate marks which Mother Nature supplies and Alice coaxes onto their pages. She has shown us how to make these little books. These are some of Alice's books.

We have used rust and plant materials to colour fabric and paper. We made little parcels of paper and fabric and wrapped them around metal and leaves and onion skins.
We then submerged them for a couple of days in one of Alice's cocktails to let the rust bring out the colours and marks. She kept us so busy doing other things but we really just couldn't wait to see how they were going to turn out!

It rained hard for two whole days! We happily stayed indoors and played with new techniques with plants and rust.
We printed with leaves onto fabric and paper. We did weaving and stitching with grass and lavender, we stitched around found objects. 

On this sample, the seed heads and feather were 'stitched' into the scrim using the object to make the stitch. I added a just few real stitches to hold them there. I have made a sketchbook to store all my samples. I love the shadows that are made on the paper.

This is a close up of the feather and the wood curl.

The seed heads were woven through the scrim and then over woven with stitch. Look at the shadows!

This is one of the leaf prints on silk organza. I decided to layer it onto rusted fabric and then stitched around the leaves with some seed stitches.

This is another leaf print with lavender. I have started stitching it to some rusted fabric and have collaged it with some other fabrics and some of my found objects.

These are some more of my objects that have been partly hidden beneath net and sheer fabrics and enhanced with stitch. The limpet shell has been stitched on and the threads have been needle woven.

Day 3! We finally opened the book parcels today! It was so lovely to sit in the sunshine after days of rain and open our little surprise parcels.
Look at how time has transformed them!

Tomorrow is the last day. I will show you the little books finished, waxed and stitched and some of the other pages in my sketch book in the next blog post. Bye for now! x