A Tale of Two Workshops

 Thursday and Friday were workshop days here.

On Thursday, Barry and I ran an aluminium plate etching workshop with two classes of high school students Farr Bay High in Bettyhill.

It was a great day and the students achieved a lot and made some amazing pieces. The plan is the works will be attached to a post that Barry has underway, and will then find a place as a piece of public art nearby telling the story of the fisherfolk.

I mostly worked outside in the poly tunnel doing the actual etching in a well-ventilated area, whilst Barry remained in the classroom doing all the drawing, transferring and cleaning.

As ever, the process intrigues with its weird chemical reactions and residues...

Here are some details of a couple of etched plates...

Then of Friday afternoon I once again had the great pleasure of attending natural wool-dyeing course with the wonderful folk from Gongcrafts.  The goal was to dye a rainbow and we did pretty well.

Working with the seed pods of the Broom bush, (yellow) real cochineal beetles which needed crushing (red) we dip-dyed two ends, and then overdyed with the third dip of indigo (blue) in the middle, to create the secondary colours orange, green and purple. Such fun and such varied and wonderful results.

A fun couple of days - creative in so many ways. There were differences between the two - the hard metal and the soft wool; but also similarities - dipping into a solution and alchemy and magic taking place.

So lovely to be actively engaged within the local community making and creating.