READY...

One week today is the preview evening for my Cheltenham Open Studio exhibition!

My home, studio and garden will be open to the public for 9 days. It is a really positive experience and I get lovely visitors. This will be my 5th Open studio event and I started this blog with the 2009 exhibition at Hampen. So much of my artistic life has been documented during the last 9 years here.

But I am not looking back, I have 7 days to get things ship shape. So this is all about how I prepare for Cheltenham Open Studios.

The lovely Mr Brown and I started with the garden over a month ago, unlike dusting the house or painting a wall, gardens take a little more time to recover from tweeking.

Unlike the Chelsea flower show I seem to have no control over when things flower, so you will have missed my peonies, oriental poppy and may get a last glimpse of the bearded iris. I watch helplessly as prize blooms flower a week too early or get munched by snails.

With the garden tidied and bedding filling in gaps my tidy mode turns to the shed...

You don't want to see it too tidy, you want to believe that I am inspired by my surroundings and can find what I need at any moment, on the whole I am and I do. Now the shed is ready for you to find a print or enamel bargain. I am ready for technical discussions and point you to the right yard:ARTspace workshop to get your creative juices flowing.

So two down, only the lounge to go.

The lounge is more of a responsibility as I have invited two other artists to join me, Sharon McSwiney is back and Caroline McCatty exhibited with us both at Hampen 9 years ago. Talk about coming full circle!

I have cleared my eclectic collection to all corners of the house, filled and painted a wall and cleaned, yes you heard me, cleaned!!

Just trying a few things out before properly hanging work this weekend. In fact I will be collecting framing today.

Then there is the signage, pricing and labeling.

Caroline will help me put the show together on Sunday and

Sharon will race up from Cornwall and place her gorgeous work on Wednesday. 

Then the fun will begin.

This year I have made a couple of prints especially for Open Studios. Both etchings as part of my print a month...I know there are 2.

So that is me putting together the Cheltenham Open Studio event, I am sure you will believe me when I say I may not have mentioned everything, the sourcing artists for the yard event happened last year, meetings and marketing talks and of course the drip feeding of information to social media for weeks. And I am not alone, Cheltenham will be awash with artists opening their homes and studios from 10-18 June, we have so much talent here and it comes out ever two years to delight you. There is a parallel exhibition at the yard:ARTspace with Claire Baker, Carole Bury and Susan Wilkinson showing their work and giving people a chance to look around the yard.

I will keep you up dated with the Open Studio progress if you can't get to sunny Cheltenham but hopefully...

look forward to seeing you next week, I will be calmer by then!?

IT'S MATERIAL

Last weekend saw me rolling out my signature technique, gum arabic transfer with a textile twist at the yard:ARTspace.

Since the successful workshop at Hope & Elvis  earlier in the year, I have been experimenting with more gum arabic transfer prints onto fabric...I am becoming obsessed!

This photo shows the start and finish of the transfer process, spreading gum arabic on to a photocopy on the left and printing the inked copy onto a substrate on the right.

Inbetween those two stages is the inking and the

spraying off with water.

I was thrilled with the work everyone

produced on paper in the morning.

But the day was all about the fabric really. Here I encouraged everyone to put together a fabric collage. I could not believe that I supplied needle and thread to tack the pieces together 

There was lots of decision making and

beautiful results appeared.

The planning really paid off

and the work room was filled with prints, copies and fabric snippets.

And here are some of the results...

All gum arabic transferred images onto collaged, pre-embroidered fabric or just using textile as a replacement for paper.

Lots of experimentation took place, this is transfers on cynotype pieces.

Finished projects, resources for future projects and experiments emerged, I am really hoping that I will be sent some images of progressed work. Thank you everyone for your creative energy, it was an exciting day. 

This is proving to be a popular workshop so I have planned an extra day this year, which is booking up quickly. Check www.theyardartspace.com for the October 6 gum arabic transfer on fabric workshop.

A REALLY GOOD READ??

Last weekend the yard:ARTspace lured the marvelous Sarah Morpeth from her Cumbrian home to the warm climes of Cheltenham.

The yard was filled with her magical creations, intricate paper cut artists books,

telling touching stories and raising paper cut to a completely new level.

Books and pictures of all sizes were on display to inspire the class participants.

And how they were inspired...

Day one everyone produced these

exquisite beak books and

not a cut finger insight.

Sarah was tremendously supportive leading

to happy satisfied results.

Day two led to colour and these beautiful

backed books.

All very individual from cool and classic to

vivid.

Everyone had a story to tell.

Sarah was generous and inspirational, at the end of this weekend there was a happy set of book makers. Thank you everyone for your creative energy and thank you Sarah for an excellent weekend...can you come back next year??