I'm so excited :)

I teach lots of classes, and enjoy it tremendously, but it really is a great treat when I get to go on one for me.

I've been looking forward to this one at The Cubby Hole for ages.  I did 'O' and 'A' level art but in those days it was very much about drawing and painting.  I'm very envious of my own children being able to do mixed media, and now I get the chance to do it to!  I'm looking forward to working through an idea from sketches and photographs through to a final  piece.

Suzi B

Talking of workshops, I was only at The Cubby Hole on Saturday doing my embossed metal book workshop.  Of all the classes to have blokes on (three!), this had to be the one didn't it!  The one that involves using the humungous ball tool etc, honestly, the conversation around the table was not for the shy amongst us. I always have a fantastic time with the crewe from The Cubby Hole so I know there'll be more laughter tonight.

[note: apologies for lack of pics, nicked this one from Sue, hope she doesn't mind!!]

happy valentine's day!

I taught a metal embossing workshop at Paddy's yesterday (rpt next Tues still has a couple of spaces if anyone's interested) so I just had to continue my theme for my valentine!  I heated the copper in the flame from my gas cooker to get the coloured effect:

One of the things I love about teaching workshops is that people go away sometimes with a new confidence in themselves.  Two people on the workshop had metal tools at home that they'd just had no success with.  They both went home thrilled with their pieces, and keen to carry on at home.

We worked on copper sheet which allowed us to colour the metal in a number of ways.  We had such a laugh 'aging' our copper with sawdust, vinegar and salt n vinegar crisps.  Sawdust and vinegar worked the best, how cool does Kate's flower look?

We used rubber stamps for the images on our books

Lynn's work already looks fabulous, but think how amazing this is going to be when it's covering the book...all that yummy texture!

Sue, Cynthia and Kate all had different themes

Sue's had a dragon theme, like Kate's, but on the back she used the Tanda stamps roof tile image to represent scales!  Cynthia went for a heart theme.  The Elusive Images heart just looks amazing in copper, as do the keys and locks that Kate used.

Sue and Cynthia did work some more color into their books after I took these photos.  Sue was especially thrilled to be taking home a completed project!!

Kate took hers home to colour with promarkers so she could be more precise with applying colour to her piece.

 

This metal book definitely brought out the dragon lovers in our group!  Freema embossed a beautiful tree on the other side of her book...

[apols for photo quality]

Having noticed that Ten Seconds Studio had brought out a gears embossing plate at CHA 2010, I wondered how well Tim's gears would emboss.  I love how Sue used this idea to create 'leaves' on the tree her owl is sitting on.  I'd watch her blog for more pics of this yummy book, I suspect it wil have had more additions once it got home!