An enjoyable and successful exhibition.

Alongside our exhibition, we ran workshops for all ages. I'm only including a very small percentage of what was available, mainly because I was involved in these, and able to take some photos. Live chicken, and owl drawing was also included, plus clay work. All proved to be very popular.

These photos show some of the work in progress for the felt book wrap workshops.

There were also some simple printing workshops, and the results were wonderful, I just love those owl prints.

Children were also involved, and I think that one little four year old decided that 'birds' were definitely not his thing, so he produced the joyful sunny day at seaside above.

Well, we were all delighted with the response we had had to our exhibition, so many lovely compliments, with the bonus of some healthy sales. It was very successful, albeit hard work, so I think we are looking forward to a well deserved Easter break.

Thanks for joining me once again. 

Latest Developments of an Original Idea.

This is something I've been working on during my Tuesday art class.

I've been developing an idea from a piece of artwork that I made some time ago, and if you regularly follow my blog, you may remember it as you scroll down.

These photos show areas I have isolated from the larger image at the top.

I can see shapes that remind me of beach huts and deck chairs! Maybe a bit of wishful thinking for summer to hurry up and arrive!

Below are photos of what I did to arrive at the images and ideas above, which were achieved by making a rubbing from part of the cutout areas below.

I traced off the lines and shapes from the original piece, (below), and then reflected them to make a repeat. This elongated everything, which I folded into a concertina book, after I had cut away some of the 'window' shapes.

I placed some hand painted papers behind the pierced areas, and the light from the window behind created some interesting shadows.

My version of Eastbourne Pier, using the original image underneath to form the pier supports.

Above, the image printed onto cotton fabric to cover a small book, and below the original image that I painted with acrylic paint. I wonder where else this simple image will take me?

I know this all sounds a bit upside down, but hopefully you get the idea! My next post will be a round up of how our Gokotta exhibition has gone. We take it down this week, so watch this space for updates!

Gokotta, the Exhibition.

Gokotta has now been up for a week, and so far we've had some very enthusiastic and positive comments from our visitors. Workshops are also running alongside the exhibition, and are proving popular.

Above and below, Lucy Dean's incredibly colourful and patterned  bird drawings.

Angela Curror takes the most wonderful photos, and has captured the robin below singing his little heart out!

Jackie Harford has some beautifully detailed ink drawings and lino prints of birds nests on display.

Jodi Jones creates fabulous collages with her own painted papers, capturing some of those gloriously subtle colours that nature does so well.

Karen Moser's little ceramic wrens are full of character, and her feathers and Angel wings show such brilliant detail.

Another one of Lucy's, a patterned crow this time.

The PV was well attended and we've had some very encouraging and enthusiastic interest in our work.

Gokotta, Swedish for 'getting up early to hear the birds singing', is on for another week and a bit. We take it down on the 22nd March, so still plenty of time to come along and see for yourself if you happen to be in the area of 67-69 Seaside Road, Eastbourne BN21 3PL. Open daily, Tuesday through to Sunday, 11am until 5pm.

Jackie's fun, bird boxes. A hopeful sign that Spring must surely be on it's way soon. 

Finishing off before a relaxing play around.

Finished at last! You may remember my processes from my weekly sketchbook class, but if  not you can refresh your memory here. Anyway, there's nothing like an exhibition to prepare for, to nudge one into getting stuff finally done! This is quite small, and if I feel inclined later in the year, I may decide to make an even larger piece, probably with a few adjustments. 

It's been a busy week getting everything organised for the Gokotta exhibition, but in a funny sort of way, the bitterly cold and snowy weather has been to my advantage. Too cold and slippery to venture out, I've had a good few days to get things ready.

Finally, time to relax a bit and have a play. For those of you who subscribe to the Kemshall's DMTV, you may have seen last weeks video, where Laura demonstrated the technique for the hand paintings. Well, I decided to continue with a bird theme and have a go. I like this technique, but need to experiment a bit more before I'm completely satisfied with my efforts. Nice idea for some postcards though.

Hopefully my next post will have some photos of our KAIROS Gokotta exhibition, and fingers crossed that the weather will continue to improve. Eastbourne seems to have got off very lightly compared to the rest of the country, so do come along if you're not too far away.