lots and lots of teaching, of varying different kinds!

Tuesday evening saw me teaching the staff from Moorlands Junior School.  We masked a variety of shapes on plates and mugs then added dots for pattern.  They were a great group of people, and a number of them commented that they didn't normally like craft but that they'd really enjoyed themselves.  I can't wait for their pieces to come out of the kiln as I know they'll be impressed with what they made!

Then yesterday saw me teaching a Year 5 class at Moorlands.  In the afternoon I had an hour long art lesson followed by a flute lesson.  The art I was teaching, but the flute one I got to be a pupil too!!  I can now play the notes B, A and G on the flute, how cool is that!

After reading 'Ish' by Peter Reynolds to the class I did some 'one liners' followed by some blind contour drawings aka Carla Sonheim :)  These nine and ten year olds were keener to have their drawings 'look' like the real thing but did give it a go.  Bob's one liners above were my favourite - he was the only one not tempted to trace back along the lines...and he really looked for his blind contour drawings of a dragonfly and a butterfly!

I did mine on text paper...

... and added coffee stain around the outside of the image.

I did a deal with the class, if they did one blind contour drawing, they could have a second piece of paper to do a drawing whilst looking!!

After getting my books marked at school I hotfooted it to the Bean and Brush to teach my Autumn Platter.  I love how different they all are!  How fab is that 'keep calm' one!  The lady brought  a print out of the words and crown which she turned into a stencil, then masked the words underneath (...and drink wine!)

They'll all be heading for the kiln tomorrow once the Moorlands' pieces are out :)

Now for a bit of a rest today, and some journalling as relaxation :)

"these beloved candles of the night.." - William Shakespeare

There's just something about the night sky...especially when you are out in the countryside and you can just lie back and gaze into the depths without the distraction of street lighting!  One of our favourite evenings when camping in the summer is spotting shooting stars.  

I'm not sure I'd really like to live in this little shed [Stampers Anonymous J4-1164 Moving Up] high up amongst the stars, it looks a little rickety to me, but I love the idea of it.

I splodged some 'Weathered Wood' distress reinker on my pages then added some more blues by putting the ink on some cellophane then spraying it with a silver spray before stamping this onto my page.  I stamped Jo Capper-Sandon's Text Stars [Stampotique] with distress ink directly onto the page then cut a mask and, using a stipple brush, added ink around the edge of each star.  I love how this highlights them! 

 I added more stars stamped in Wild Honey distress ink onto white paper and cut out.  The words are taken from Amy Wilson's Tall Word Collage [Stampotique] and again stamped in Wild Honey.  

I'm entering this journal page into the Stampotique Designers' Challenge, which  requires the use of 'masking' on your project :)