Making their mark....

 It's been a busy old month for me, full of courses I've either been teaching or attending. As much as I love it, I was starting to forget what day it was by the end of last week. I finished the last two sessions of my altered books course on Friday and have spent all weekend delivering a mark making workshop for the local Embroiderers Guild . It was a marvellous two days and although I know my body is telling me it is tired, I feel very energised by the whole event. The eleven ladies in the group tackled everything I suggested in order to experiment with tools and processes designed to enlarge their visual vocabulary of marks and work back into them.

We began by rusting paper and fabric and whilst the marks developed we explored different tools and mediums to get something spontaneous onto paper with inks. Everything was geared to preparing samples to turn into books. I taught three different formats and we discussed lots more. We photocopied some of their marks onto labels, re-coloured them or cut them up, placed them on top of the first layer of marks and built up ideas. We bleached and we polished and we scratched and we foiled onto lots of different types of paper, from the heavy to the translucent, and the overriding theme to the weekend was 'I wonder what happens if....'

We shared lots of ideas and all took away a great idea from someone else. I fell in love with marks made by a bottle brush and now I just have to find one. The whole event has made me want to take my samples and continue to work into them. As it is half term this week, I suddenly have a free timetable and intend to have a 'me time' week. I tend to throw the kitchen sink at things like this so it was a full on weekend with lots to show at the end of it. These are a fraction of images from those I took. I cannot show something by everyone but they give a flavour of the fabulous work they produced. It was a joy to be part of and I thank them all.