Friday 27 May 2011

Playing catch up again

I always look forward to seeing everyone's new blog posts, so I feel that I have been a bit lax recently. I think that five weeks is a bit of a no blogging record for me, but I promise that I am still here! Things at home are not really conducive to creating anything but mess, and the only painting that I have done is acres and acres of new plaster with a bucket of emulsion! I have been 'camping', creatively, in the dining room for the past five months, and I have to say, it is not really the best environment, wedged in between large pieces of furniture, my husband's two best bikes, my horse tack, and various other non-arty bits and pieces. But, the end is in sight. Today I went to buy the flooring for my new 'studio', which measures 2.6m x 5.2m. How lucky am I! However, in the absence of space to create at home, I have taken advantage of opportunities to learn some new skills elsewhere.

In my last blog post, I mentioned about my glass fusion course that I did with my friend Nicky. I can't explain the alchemist kind of thrill that you get from putting sharp edged pieces of glass with mysterious looking powders sprinkled on them, and then how amazing the creations look when they emerge, still warm from the kiln. We spent the first day learning how to cut glass and mastering differing techniques, and then we went away overnight to come up with our designs for our final piece.
Here is my final piece before the kiln:
And here it is after:

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I went on a bookbinding course at artison in Masham. Run by Victoria Lucas, who has created some beautiful collections of images in hand bound books, we learned how to make Japanese Stab bound boooks, a concertina book and then a traditional hardbound book. I can't tell you how exciting it was, not only making the books, but thinking of the possibilities for creating my own journals. Needless to say, I was online as soon as I got home, buying supplies to make more books! Here are the three books I made on the day:
As far as normal journaling goes, I have almost finished my May page for the calendar journal challenge, which is good, seeing as May is almost over... It's half term here now, so hopefully, in between the painting and sanding, I might get some journaling done!

4 comments:

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  2. Hopefully you're beginning to put your new studio together, and working in a cramped dining room with bikes and horse tack will become a distant memory! Love your adventure into glass! So brave of you . . . it's one medium that I've not a lot of confidence in!!! Hope you have a fab June! Hugs, Terri

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  3. Hi Sarah, thanks for your comment on my Tips for the DesignTeam-curious post. I hadn't thought of a tutorial on my blog 'look' - I worry that I've actually forgotten how I did some of it!

    If there was anything specific you wanted to know, just give me a shout and I'll definitely bear it in mind for a future tutorial.

    Thanks again,
    Julie :-)

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