Basket of Dreams

Here in the North East we are somewhat deprived when it comes to craft shops and classes.. however we do have one very popular venue. Sue Tucker is the owner,creator and organizer extraordinaire of the Wynyard Workshops. You can see the FB community page HERE.  In the past there have been teachers such as Finnabair, Andy Skinner, France Papillon to name but a few. 

This past weekend, a new teacher came to town. The very gorgeous and giggly Tracy Easson came down all the way from Fife, and I was lucky to grab a place on this very popular workshop. 

Pop and see Tracy's blog HERE. 

This is the first time I had been to a workshop up here, and I wasn't sure what to expect. I had met  3 of the students before, so at least there were some familiar faces. For each workshop, there is a closed FB group, so that everyone can chat and get to know each other before the class. Sue is very organized and keeps everyone up to speed within the group, making sure everyone has a supplies list and knows where to go. 

So, on Saturday, bright and early I went off to Wynyard. 

This is the canvas that Tracy was teaching on the day. (this one is Tracy's own canvas)

There were lots of nervous people once Tracy started to explain that we would be drawing faces, but she was so calm and clear that soon everyone was measuring and drawing.. 

Here are my practice pieces. 

This took most of the morning, just before lunch we transferred our girlies onto a large canvas. 

Here are Karen and Gemma, who kept me entertained all day. 

We popped out to have some lunch and Julie and Andrea came too. 

Then back to class.. 

We began by painting the face and hair. 

Then onto the textured areas.  

Here I am busy working on my wings and waistcoat 

Once the waistcoat and wings were done, we filled in and shaded the dress and background. 

These are scrolls of book text and patterned paper, these are the dreams that go into the basket. 

This is how mine looked by the end of the day, and here I am with the lovely Tracy. It really was such a pleasure to meet her. 

Today I got around to unpacking my bags and adding some finishing touches to my canvas. During the day we had used metallic pan pastels, I am not keen that they need a fixative... in fact they mostly rubbed off on the inside of my bag on the way home.. So i wiped away the remaining pan pastel and replaced it with Treasure Gold in several colours. 

Next I outlined most pieces with a brown stabilo pencil and then added words from a poem in brown copic multiliner. I also added words in white posca pen. 

The background was a bit too yellow for me so I added some Fresco paint in Beach Hut, just smearing it on with a finger. I then added some dangly hearts again with the brown and white pens. 

I then popped my dream scrolls back into the basket. 

I usually add titles to journal pages and canvasses, and I felt this one needed a title too. This was printed onto printable canvas, cut out ...outlined with brown pen.. and glued on with matte gel. 

and here she is, all done. her name is Flora. 

Huge thanks to Tracy and Sue and everyone who attended on the day. We had such a good time, and everyone went home, having drawn a face... some for the first time. 

Darcy x