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More prettys at Bobby Brittnell's Studio part 2

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As we were using newspaper we also created faux chenille. The course title was Print, Paint, Stitch and Play! It is a new course and the group at Bobby's were wonderful guinea pigs!  I drove up to Shropshire on Monday and on the way stopped off in Ledbury to see Angie Hughes for lunch in her new flat. Angie is a great mate of mine but because we live so far apart we only really see other at shows. It was great to have the chance of a couple of hours together - we had a lovely lunch and had good old catch up. We are hoping to have a 'play' weekend in Brighton in the not too distant future. Angie's website is angiehughes.com Then it was on to Bettws-y-Crwyn and Bobby's studio at Moor Hall - it gets very twisty and turny and then the roads narrow - ooohhh!!!! Don't like it! But it is worth it when you arrive - it is SO beautiful. The views are remarkable and the farmhouse is old and surrounded by a lovely cottage garden. The studio is light and bright

More prettys at Bobby Brittnell's Studio part 1

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One of the smaller prettys using black colourwashed newspaper. This makes a great contrast for all the colours. This will be a two part post as this group produced some fabulous work right from the start. We ended up with seven students in the group which was great for me. Smaller groups means I can concentrate on each student - poor things!!! You will be getting used to seeing a lot of newspaper based work on this blog - and I'm afraid this will continue for a while as I have two more newspaper workshops coming up, one at Foredown Tower in Brighton which still has 2 places and the following week at Art Van Go which is full. If two of you wanted to join us on Monday at Foredown Tower - you can turn up on Monday and pay then - £120 for 3 days. Just email me so I know who is coming.     Three of the first samples before they were stitched.  Starting to print a larger sample be being stitched.         Starting to stitch  . . .   Out of seven student

More prettys at Bobbys

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We have had the first day of my new course Print, Paint, Stitch and Play! and things seem to have gone well so far. I love teaching in Bobby's studio, it is purpose built with plenty of space, power and water. We had a fab day painting Bondaweb and colourwashing newspaper. The group then worked through my tearing and layering process and this is what they have produced so far. They have already started stitching into the papers and tomorrow we will be printing onto them. We had a discussion tonight about how to spell Prettys or Pretties. Apparently the latter is correct but I like the former so that is the word I am going to use - I have no doubt a certain gentleman in the Portsmouth area will now be sitting with his head in his hands and shaking his head saying No! NO! As part of this process you need to be able to describe a piece you have layered up with gilding flake, sequins, glitter and all the other gorgeous sparkly bits we are using. So I have started c

'Prettys' and playtime at Denman

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The fountain in the grounds with evening sunlight on the water. Denman College has very beautiful grounds. This is going to be a lengthy post, I don't have time to write two and split the images. You may remember my recent post about my lovely group at West Dean and my saying it is not often you get a group that gels so well and that you have a lot of fun with. Well I taught another such group this week. They were great fun and very naughty!!! There is something about the groups I teach at Denman College www.denman.org.uk   They all seem to get on with each other quickly. That means they relax more and then feel comfortable being naughty! We did have a lot of fun. The course was a three day 'New Layered Textiles' workshop and basically takes the students through the processes in my book Layered Textiles. The first thing we did was paint up all the products so we would be ready to get down to work with all the products ready to play with. As usual we started