K is for Knowing

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we are using a fortnightly (bi-weekly) A-Z challenge throughout the year to help us focus on our word and live it out.

Because of the way I have made my journal it's a case of going with the flow of what background the pages have when I turn to them.  I had already added the letters at the top left when I remembered I hadn't taken a photo of what it looked like when I turned to the page.

I had read Valerie's post Keys to Living Your Word of the Year where she talks about knowing you you are and that struck a chord.  Knowing who you are in Christ is a significant value at my church so I thought I would use that as my theme for K.

I printed out verses and moved them about on the page until I was happy.  It was going to be a tight squeeze to fit it all on.

I cut up the verses into strips and stuck them down.

I drew round your on the verses to make it clearer which line belonged to which section.

Here is the double spread.

If you're interested in learning more about your Identity in Christ, I have a creative Bible Study for you to look at: Identity.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group: Living Your Word of the Year

Join Mary Brack, Valerie Sjodin and I in our Facebook group where we are giving participants the opportunity to live out an A-Z of their own word throughout 2019.  Mary explains what we are doing in her blog post.  We don't like a lot of rules, so we will have suggestions and options to spark creativity, and to help in recording and exploring our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We will each blog about our experiences and our art.

 Living Your Word of the Year 2019

Hashtags on Instagram:  #livingyourword2019

Check out the other blogs:
Mary: www.foundonbrighton.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog

To ensure you get updates from Valerie, Mary & I why not subscribe to our blogs.

Seth Apter

I love going to workshops taught by Seth Apter.  This one was local at Amelia's Creative Crafts - only 25 minutes from home.

The first activity was done on a 6 inch square of Canson board.  The first layer was washi tape.

Then there was stamping and inking.

We used various of Seth's Baked Velvets Embossing Powders and the original Baked Texture Embossing Powders.

The second activity starting with collaging an A4 piece of paper.

And after various techniques we covered the piece with 3 layers of Baked Texture: Vintage Beeswax.

The third activity used two colours of acrylic paint on an A4  Canson board.

Then we got to use the new Embossing Powder - Baked Texture: Blizzard.  We sponged the Embossing Ink through stencils.

I liked the result of the second activity best.

The products can be used on fabric so at some point I will be experimenting with that.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Jean Draper

I recently spent 3 days at Bobby Britnell's studio on a workshop led by Jean Draper.

The course description:
The aim of this workshop will be to begin with the study of examples of small details from natural objects, leading to the development of different personal ideas for work in stitched textiles. Structured experimental drawing and design exercises, investigating the scope offered by changes of scale, tone, texture and colour, together with demonstrations, will encourage students to choose ways to develop their own ideas both 2 and 3 dimensionally. Throughout the course, emphasis will be placed on making notes and sampling in fabric and thread in order for more resolved work to continue later if wished.

I signed up for this because I really wanted to know how to get from design to stitch.  Even though it meant drawing!

We were asked to take a collection of some natural things and I took some shells.

I chose to draw this one.

I eventually drew something that looked freer but sadly didn't photograph it on its own.  It will appear on my display board later.

Jean asked us to cover a sheet of paper with willow charcoal and then draw using a putty rubber.

The next day we photocopied parts of our various drawings enlarging them as much as we could.  I liked this day.  Lots of paper folding and mark making.

I eventually realised that I didn't have to copy my drawings but could be inspired by them.  I cut shapes out of the photocopy and added black paper.

 I photocopied the piece above and cut away the white on the right and folded it.  I love the shadows.

 I cut into this photocopy and folded the cuts.   The orange paper behind really lights up the holes.

On our last day I did some fabric manipulation and stitching.

Here's the final display board at the end of 3 days.

I'm not sure yet how much these 3 days will influence my textile practice.  I need to process it for a while.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

London

We don't often go to London despite the fact that it's less than 2 hours away by train.  However, for our wedding anniversary trip we took the train to London and met up with our lovely friends, Keith & Valerie.

The four of us took the boat from Tower Pier to Greenwich.  Going by boat is one of the best ways to see London.  The weather was fantastic and the Tower of London looked majestic.

After a pub lunch, we climbed the hill up to the Royal Observatory.  It has a permanent exhibition that explains how longitude and latitude are organised and how Greenwich Meantime came into being .

The view over London is spectacular too.

In the courtyard of the Observatory is the Greenwich Meridian.  Here I'm standing where East meets West.  Left foot in the east - right foot in the west.  Plus Keith's foot!  No comment!

The other three went to look round the inside of the Cutty Sark whilst I stayed outside and took rather a lot of photos of the masts. You'll be relieved to know I'm only going to share one with you.

Then back on the boat to return to Tower Pier.   The buildings at the front are the Old Royal Naval College with the Queen's House in the middle - further back.

We passed by The Grapes (the narrow building with the garden terrace and wooden railings) where Roger had booked a table for dinner.  This pub features in Dickens' 'Our Mutual Friend'.

And back to dry land by the Tower of London.

This was the inner courtyard garden of the hotel we were staying at: The Royal Foundation of St. Katharine.

Our second day was bittersweet as we said goodbye to Keith & Valerie.   Roger & I walked past Limehouse Basin.

And past The Grapes.

We were heading for the Museum of London Docklands which is in an old sugar warehouse alongside West India Docks.  It is dwarfed by the modern buildings of Canary Wharf.

It packs in an enormous amount of history.  It was really interesting and FREE!

West India Docks

A map of the area.  I had suggested to Roger that we walk from Limehouse to King's Cross but fortunately he ignored me and we took the underground instead.

We visited the London Canal Museum which was small but full of information before we started our walk along the Regent's Canal.  The museum combined information about the canals with the history of ice and ice cream.  Quite a combination!

As we started our walk we saw this second hand book shop on a barge.

How about these little cuties?

We walked past Gasholder Park.

We walked along through Camden - with a quick detour into the market.

Here's a pirate castle!

And after the hustle and bustle of Camden the canal glides past the London Zoo and Regent's Park.

A floating Chinese restaurant.

Getting nearer to Little Venice.

Little Venice itself.  I had wanted to see this for such a long time and was somewhat disappointed.  I thought it would be more like Gas Street Basin in Birmingham.

We ended our canal walk at Paddington Basin.  There was still more walking to be done - from Paddington Basin to a Malaysian restaurant and then on to Marylebone Station for the journey home.  Plus the walk from Solihull Station to our house.

We certainly packed a lot into 2 days.  And the next day my sore feet, painful calves and hips, thought so too!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice