See through sea scapes

My next workshop is not for a few weeks. It's called see through sea scapes and is for adults this time. I ask people to bring a couple of tins of soup which is always fun. Disappointingly we don't paint with the soup. The tins are to make our frames stand up. We paint with silk paint on sheer fabric, letting the water dribble down it causing trees to form as if my magic.

Next we collage together some unlikely looking background fabrics like the orange sky and dirty dishcloth sea you see here. Place a magic sheer on top of these, and voila, a stormy sea scape.

I haven't done this technique for many a long year and was having a practice the other day. In theory, any old stripes painted in any old random fashion will work as long as you don't combine too many colours. That's the joy of this workshop. We are always being bombarded with inspiration, told we must have a source, must have a design. This technique is about having the grace to accept happy accidents and the savvy to recognise one when it bites you in the leg.


I wasn't thrilled with the happy accident I was given while practicing but if you mask it off, it has possibilities.

The other part of this workshop is how to make fabric collage without having to paint anything. I collect cheap and cheerful nylon curtain and it layers up very nicely into little bondaweb sea scapes like the boat on the beach you see here.

This particular workshop is for the embroiderers' guild and the whole point is to give them something you can stitch into. I've added a couple of trees to give you can idea what a finished product might look like.



a stormy sea scape
recognising a happy accident when it happens


















a nylon curtain sea scape























and finally, some embroidery.