The weekend past was
The Art Market which took place in Holmfirth (if you're not familiar with the place, it's in Yorkshire and where Last of Summer Wine was set when it was on our tellies). I had a fantastic time, it was difficult to get up at 5.30am (nearly as bad as the 4.30am start when I did the
Selvedge Fair back in April) however the birds were singing and the day looked promising weather wise (this sadly was not the case by the end of the day). It was so much fun meeting new people, I didn't stop chatting all day. And there was even some familiar faces which is always nice. Here is me (above) serving a customer (who happens to be my cunningly disguised friend...the general public aren't too fond of being photographed when making a purchase which I can understand!)
I managed a fair amount of selling in between all the chatting too, it was great to have sooooo much space and be able to show off pictures of me in printing action and my portfolio on top of all the goodies for sale.
As promised a picture of the butterflies that adorned my stand, the theme for the entire event was gardens so I pulled out all the stops and had fake grass matting, plant pots with birdhouse plant markers and plenty of floating butterflies to make you feel outside when you were inside (well kinda...)
Here's what it looked like downstairs from above, I was busy all day so only managed a mad dash round the venue and all the lovely stalls right at the end of the day...pretty much as everyone was packing away...boo! But I suppose that shows how busy it was, I even only managed half my sandwich which just goes to show (& I really like my food). I did manage a quick swap at the end of the day with
Faye Power, for one of her birdy themed jugs...so beautiful (she got a birdcage tote bag in exchange).
And last but certainly not least, here is a picture of my lovingly hand drawn chalk board which I carted along with me. The picture was taken by
Mike Oakes, the professional photographer for the event. He saw it and thought it was great and happily emailed me the pic staight after the event. I spent so long decorating it that I can't bring myself to erase it, so I guess I'll probably end up buying another to decorate for next time.
I've been away all week teaching screen-printing to a wonderful group of fifth year students in Oban. The picture above is just to give you an idea of how beautiful and sedate the area is that I was lucky enough to find myself working in. (it has to be said that all things sedate pretty much ended there...but what great fun was to be had)!
The group of students I had produced some amazing work throughout the week, pictures of which you can see above and below. My first year of leading a course during the Creative Residency was last year, where I had a fantastic week and thought it couldn't be beaten. However when I was asked to run the course again this year, I couldn't have said YES fast enough and I had just as much fun, if not alittle more sprikled on top.
The first couple of days the weather was rather pitiful and meant we were cooped up inside trying our best not to spill dyes onto the beautiful clean floors or burst any screens by accidently standing on them. By the third day the sun came out...whoop...and we moved outside sharpish where we could make as much mess and chaos as we wanted. Check out the screen-printing taking place above. (and the t-shirt being worn by my assistant, designed by me for the event. If you have a look in the blog archives you can see the one I did for last year too).
Here is one of the students painting onto a screen to be printed later. If you check out the washing line picture above you can see some of the finished t-shirts and fabrics that the students printed. A selection of the work is presented at a wonderful exhibition which will be taking place in early 2012, which I'm really looking forward to seeing and also the opportunity to catch up with my wonderful group.
Here's a sketchbook being created, on day one/two we headed down to the harbour where the students had an opportunity to do some first hand drawing. It was important to get the students out of their comfort zone, they didn't have months to make finished pieces of work, they had days (which happens all the time in Industry and at University). The 'days' aspect was the first hurdle to get over, we started them off doing some pretty unusual ways of drawing making sure we collated as much interesting and unusual information as possible and hopefully instilling in them possibilities and ways of working for the future.
Here is a finished sketchbook page, it was great to watch the students 'get it' as the week went on and produce some superb work. I hope to lay my fingers on some images of the finished pieces of work and hopefully let you all have a look sometime soon. I'm now back home and have spent much of the weekend recovering from a full on week, I had such a wonderful time and look forward to maybe going back next year!
