-
The Glass Forth Bridge!
Well, that’s what it’s felt like I was doing!
This weekend, I am running one of my glass decorating workshops over at Burton-upon-Trent, so I have spent the last few days, collecting, scraping, washing and drying what seemed like a never ending supply of jam/coffee/sauce jars
There’s potentially a LOT of visitors to this event, and it’s a drop-in workshop so I have no idea how many people might want to have a go, so I have to be prepared in case everybody does! I am loathe to risk running out like I did one year within the first hour….
Next week, I will be doing it all over again with Sun-catchers, so between washing and drying glass jars galore, I have been bending wire hangers and cutting endless rectangles of glass for fusing in the kiln this week.
I do love offering these workshops though – it’s lovely to see the children who always enjoy having ago, some get so absorbed and are wonderfully creative in their designs. Best of all, it’s popular with all ages – a few weeks ago, I stood in at Haywood House, a respite care centre in Nottingham for their craft sessions, and almost everybody had a go, including the patients who don’t usually get involved. Then again, who can beat a bit of stickering and colouring in?
-
New Workshop Dates
I’ve just added some new dates to the workshops page, and I am trying something new – this year, you can book and pay for your fusing workshops directly through an organisation called Eventbrite – it’s ever so easy to use, you can book here:
Saturday, 28th September:
Sunday, 6th October:
-
A Finished Piece for Schools
As previously posted, I’ve been working with schools over the last few weeks, all primary, with a mix of age groups, to produce some ‘fossil walls’.
The children have made the work themselves, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Now in the final stages of finishing off the artworks where necessary, mounting, etc.
St Thomas is a Catholic school and they wanted to do words of faith, so we made a piece for their reception area, and a second, singular piece that they would like to present as a gift to another school that visited them shortly before I did my workshop
All the words we used, as well as the objects, were selected by the year sixes – here’s the finished pieces, ready for hanging.
-
Fossil Walls…
For the last six weeks, I’ve been working in various primary schools in the local area.
We’ve been making ‘fossil walls’ – a process that I happened upon almost accidentally that gave some rather surprising and lovely results – modern day (or any) objects, cast, and because of the sand used in the process, I thought they looked like fossils.
Each school chose their own designs and ideas. Some of the schools I went into chose to do individual blocks, where the children brought in items that were important or significant to them; others wanted to leave a ‘legacy’ for other children coming up through the years with their words of wisdom (quite interesting choices from 10 year olds!). We also have done some plaques on based on areas of the curriculum, as well as designs based on school logos and mottos.
In all schools, the children actually got very involved with the making – from deciding what went into each design, to piling sand into containers and finding objects to insert. There’s some of the more technical and Health and Safety stuff I’ve had to do myself of course, but I’ve tried to let the children participate as much as possible – this is their work. Oh, and in most schools, I’ve had some lovely able helpers at the end of each day to tidy up.
It’s been great fun, if hard work; the children have been a delight with their wit, intelligence, creative thinking, helpfulness and politeness.
Here’s a couple of examples below. I am looking forward to them all being dried out enough to seal and getting them installed to decorate all the school spaces (even if that’s more work for me!)
Curriculum and classroom names 
Einstein said… 
Inspired by the school logo 
What subject? 
Words of Wisdom from Year 6
