That's a wrap(t)!

I am home again from a full-on week of white on white and workshops at Wrapt in Rocky.

We packed a lot in and we got a lot done and we had a fun time and we are now officially tired!

There were twelve students in the class and they all worked extremely hard, tested themselves, played, experimented and created things of beauty.  We had such a nice time.

In phase 1 we spent quite a lot of time creating sample swatches - working on, above, through and within the surface of the paper, creating shadow, contrast and texture.

We then made a book, and learnt coptic binding; stitched the book, attached covers and attached our swatches.

The third phase involved participants choosing their favourite techniques or those they wanted to test, and creating a second book just for themselves.

Our final phase involved them making a simple slip case for their book, to protect it on its travels home.

I have only include one photo of each of the participants'' work - but they were all great in so many ways.

After learning coptic binding the way I do it, Jan came back the next day and was thrilled to still be able to do it (she hadn't forgotten overnight!) and her sewing was near perfect on this small book she made.

Suzanne used cut outs and machine stitching to create this window with these five cards held, yet twisting gently...

Carmel's delicate embossing using lino was stunning and some of my favourite imagery of the week.

Pam used some of the daily word cards in her cover - creating cut-outs to house them. The words she selected seem to reflect the week really well for me.

Stephanie showed just how beautifully simply white gel pens could work on white paper with these simple lace-like drawings.

Mary had fun with her scraps after making two other books - I loved the freedom here with the wild loose yet restrained machine stitching.

Bettina made this inspired cover for her book by folding small scraps of paper and attaching them like a spine. Simply stunning.

Aileen made many beautiful things, but I fell for this page of pierced tracing paper - I loved it a lot!

Sally was industrious and after making her sample book used her time to test out techniques and paper and book structures - here she embossed an apple then cut it down until just the core remained. It was really effective, and then she did it another way as well!

Julz did some beautiful stitching and embossing and her book cover was stunning paper weaving (but my photo is blurred so sad)!.

I loved the delicacy of Peta's stitching onto the surface of these wee tags.

Lynn's embossing with lino was lovely and this design was particularly pleasing I thought! I loved it the moment I saw it.

On Saturday morning we displayed a few of our sample books and others, before everybody got into planes, trains and cars and headed off to the real world again after a week of immersion in art and paper and books.

You can see the slip cases we made as well as Sally's second apple cut!

I landed home and went straight into Celebration of Books events, which was the most amazing finish to a great week - exhausting and exhilarating all in one.

Thank you Wrapt in Rocky for having me; and thank you to all twelve of the participants in my workshop - it was a delight to work with you all.