Fibrearts Australia 2014 - A workshop of two halves

Layered newspaper decorated with painted Bondaweb and then printed onto.

I can finally let you all know that I will be teaching for Fibrearts Australia at Ballarat again next year. I had to wait until it was announced this week.
The website is now live and enrolments have started - so for those of you who are interested - fibrearts.jigsy.com/fibre-arts-at-ballarat-2014


This five day workshop will combine all that I love - basic design, creating your own printing blocks and making gorgeous newspaper surfaces to print and stitch onto.
It will be the last time I teach at Ballarat for a while as I will running the Vilene Workshop at Excel in London as part of Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch at that time of year in future.



A journey of inspiration with Kim Thittichai

A workshop of two halves – Suitable for any level of experience.

The first half will involve creating your own inspirational journey. Painting an imaginary journey with various width paintbrushes, this will NOT be a competition to see who is the best painter as it is a gentle form of mark making. From this we will trace off sections and make simple printing blocks from your own original designs. As we work through the week we will be discussing the elements of what we consider is a good design. It is different for all of us, no-one is right – and no-one is wrong, it is a matter of opinion.

 
Taking a section from your journey.

The second half of the week is playtime. We will be creating fabulous surfaces with paper to print and stitch onto. Using painted Bondaweb, gilding flake and all things sparkly we will layer up with dyed and painted old newspapers, books or magazines.
By tearing and layering repeatedly we will develop some gorgeous textures to print onto then stitch by hand or machine. By ironing the finished samples onto iron-on interfacings to stabilise them, a greater range of possibilities will be open to us.
A finished item would be possible or you can decide to develop a range of samples.
Possible finished items could be a box, a bag, a belt, several brooches . . .
Let’s experiment and see what happens!

A combination of layered newspaper and newspaper faux chenille printed onto and then stitched. Part of my West Pier collection.

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One of the many highlights of this week will mean I get to spend time with friends I have made at Ballarat in previous years, Mary Hettmansperger, Kerr Grabowski, Marlene Kranz and Jen Crossley - boy are we going to have a party!

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