Once again, Plas Tan Y Bwlch was a wonderful experience, it was very difficult this year to pick a tutor, all three courses sounded tempting.
Lynda Monk, Wendy Dolan and Jenny Bullen

The weekend consisted of hard work, good food and wonderful company, and of course, not forgetting the legendary Bread and Butter pudding. 

Lynda Monks

Scrim, Screens and Scrappy Bits

www.purplemissus.com 

I chose to do Lynda's course, and I wasn't disappointed, Lynda is a fantastic tutor, she kept us busy from the minute we arrived in 'the mucky room' and amazed us with different techniques the whole weekend, her generosity with her knowledge and materials was incredible.

I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we all enjoyed our weekend with Lynda.

To see some of the wonderful work from the other courses check out Croesew Blog

Time Flies 3

Back again, like the buses don't see one for ages then 3 come along together :)  

After  enjoying myself  making, dyeing and painting for a couple of weeks, 

I went to Manchester to meet up with my husband on his last weekend, he was at 'work' during the day and I had a lovely time roaming around Manchester, I had forgotten how much I like this city, I enjoyed the Picnic in the park at Piccadilly Gardens with great music and food on offer, the Lowry exhibition at Salford Quays.

The Lowry Exhibition

and best of all the 62 Group @ 50 exhibition  I arrived early I had plenty of time to look around and talk to Jae Maries who was stewarding that day, fabulous work on show, if you missed it it will be at the K&S shows later in the year

62 group @50

Arriving home and getting back to normal I was back in the workroom ready to get some pieces finished, 

( okay if I am honest just starting ) for  Helfa Gelf  this is our group  Arial Arts.

I tried to start creating some fabric with the molding paste on Lutradur and couldn't get the tub open, I must have forgotten to rub the lid with Vaseline last time I used it, 

being impatient and wanting to start work while I was in the mood I looked around to see what I could use and my eye fell on the PVA tub that I use in a lot of things I do lately,  I use the builder grade which is quite thick,  I spread it over my mask and left it to dry, I used the heat gun to burn away the Lutradur and the glue bubbled and flaked leaving an interesting texture.

 

The next sample I decided to heat straight away while it was wet and it bubbled and popped but the Lutradur burnt away and the resulting piece was ready for painting within 10 minutes.

The image is not as clean as when I use the molding paste on the masks but I really like the  results like old paint flaking off walls and using different designs will possibly give a more worn and weathered look to the image.




I thought the surface needed a bit more texture so I added some Polyfilla powder to the PVA and after applying with the spatula tapped the surface to make it more textured, this was left to dry.

 
 
Once dry I burnt away the surface of the Lutradur, sample below.

This sample was made the same as the one above but I burnt away the Lutradur while still wet and it worked a treat, in fact I think it gives more definition to the design, and the great thing is you can start the painting on it straight away,

 


As the PVA had worked so well on Lutradur I thought I would try it on scrim, PVA on its own was left to dry, the glue was barely visible when it dried but the result after painting was a  delicate design showing up. I will take a few pictures once I have painted them some more.

 

The piece below was PVA mixed with the Polyfilla and applied through a stencil with a spatula and left to dry.

 

Once dry when you turn it over the design is raised through the scrim the same as when I do it with molding paste as seen in the bag belo,


 

because Polyfilla had been added to the PVA I was not sure if the glue would stay on the fabric once it had been handled so I scrunched it up into a ball and then painted it, there was no cracking or flaking


 

This is the bag that molding paste was put onto scrim the purple and green is the paste area and the gold is the surface showing through the scrim.

I needed to find out if the PVA could be heat gunned on the scrim while it was wet and it worked, I kept flipping it from back to front while I was drying it and it was ready for painting within ten minutes.

The down side of this is you have to be very careful when moving the scrim while wet as it can distort the design but if you are making fragments it won't matter, also if you use an ink or dye to colour the scrim the glue will go tacky while it is wet, it dries out okay though, acrylic paints dry brushed on the surface is fine.

This will be a good addition to my workshop as we can go ahead with the painting technique without waiting for the molding paste to dry or preparing samples ahead of time.

Time Flies 2

I was lucky enough to have the loan of this wonderful wrought iron, after taking lots of pictures of it I fancy making a few stencils based on the design.


 


 


 ooh look scrumptious.

  

 I used a long strip of fabric to cover the iron top and bottom, first I put Lutradur

 





 












next a layer of silk organza


 


 


Then a layer of polyester, I love how they came out, the silk organza shows very clearly in real life.





The piece below is on Lutradur, I rubbed the surface with a selection of 6 Tim Holtz distress inks then spritzed with water for the colours to blend, the are not showing up very well but have a lovely soft glow to the surface of the Lutradur


 


This sample below is a piece of nuno felt I made a while ago, I tried foiling the finished fabric and put it to one side, while the wire wool was out I added it to the pile to see what would happen to the foil, the merino wool was fine, the strip of mulberry silk down the centre turned greyish and the foil remained unscathed?



Not sure where I will go with these but looking forward to playing around.