Wonderful Workshops...

or at least, I hope they are! This is the most recent list of my workshops, if anyone would like more details, please email me. Whilst I'm based in Norfolk, I'm happy to travel anywhere, in the UK and beyond, and have taught in French as well as English. In theory, I could do so in Russian too, if anyone's interested out there!

Marion Barnett : Workshops, 2010-11

Mixed Media

Collage Basics 1 day
Experiment with collage techniques using paper, cloth, paint and found objects to create an
exciting small piece of work. Suitable for anyone who enjoys working with colour and
texture; previous experience of either collage or painting not required.

Altered Books 1 day
Create a piece of original art from a child’s board book. This class takes you through all
the stages of preparing your book, creating backgrounds and then filling your book with
whatever you wish!

Artists Trading Cards ½ day
ATCs are small pieces of original art, which can be made from any medium, but which always
measure 2 ½” by 3 ½”. Have fun making a selection of these cards, using stamps, paints,
collage, anything you like!

Waxing Lyrical 1 day
Learn how to use wax as a resist, to create patterns on paper and fabric. Then use it as a
way of adding interest to your collage or mixed media work.

Mixed Media Play Day (1 day)
Come and experiment with a wide range of materials and media; no holds barred! I will
demonstrate the uses of the materials available, and then you can try them out.
NB this workshop can also be run on a half day basis, focussing on one particular medium.

Textile

Getting It Finished : Altered Quilts (1 day)
We all have quilts that we have started and abandoned when we can’t ‘get it right’, but
which we don’t throw away for any number of reasons. This workshop looks at how best to
work with those UFOs; how to diagnose the problems and fix them, turning a problem child
into a star! Each participant will bring a piece that they would like to finish, and
together, we will identify the issues and come up with a strategy to deal with them, as
well as looking at how we can avoid such issues in the future.

Lovely Lutradur : Adding Colour Play Day(1 day)
This workshop introduces working with lutradur, and will allow you to try working with all
four available weights of lutradur. We will experiment with transfer (disperse) dyes,
paints, inks and chalks, separately and in combination, and create a useful set of samples
contained within a hand sewn journal.

Lovely Lutradur : Working With Transparency
Lutradur’s special feature is transparency. In this workshop, you will learn how to use it
to best effect in combination with patterns and prints. Each participant will print a
textile base cloth, and then design and make a coloured lutradur piece to cover it, making
a unified image from the two layers, a quilt top ready for stitch. The two lutradur
workshops may be combined over one weekend.

Workshop: Working Intuitively (1 day)
This workshop lets you consider the process of making work. Often, we do the same thing,
over and over again. We start with an idea, make the cloth, or purchase it, assemble the
quilt top and then quilt it. This workshop encourages you to abandon that way of working,
to mix up the order in which you do things and to combine techniques at different stages in
the work.

Workshop: Learning To Dye (1 day)
This is an introduction to dyeing with Procion MX dyes. Participants will learn about the
dyes themselves, mix and apply them. We will also try out making some basic patterns,
using folded and tied resists. We will also try out overdyeing cloth that we don’t like.

Workshop: Learning to Dye Paint and Print (1 day)
This leads on from the Learning To Dye workshop. We will use thickened dyes to make dye
paintings, as well as making mono and block prints.
The dyeing workshops may be combined to make a two day workshop.

Textiles Play Day (1 day)
Come and experiment with a wide range of materials and media; no holds barred! I will
demonstrate the uses of the materials available, and then you can try them out.
NB this workshop can also be run on a half day basis, focussing on one particular medium.

Creativity
Inspiration Journal (1 day)
I’m often asked where I get my ideas from, or what I do when I’m stuck. This particular
workshop shares a number of techniques for generating ideas for work. Participants will
select a theme and create a folded book with lots of different ideas on that theme, making
it the starting point for new work, whether textile, mixed media or paper. This is a
particularly helpful workshop for anyone who wants to begin to work in series. On the
second day, each participant will develop one of the ideas into a cohesive piece of work.

Finding Your Creative Focus (1 day).
An opportunity to review your current practice with other artists and an experienced
facilitator/creativity coach, and consider how to move forward. This is particularly
useful for people who feel ‘blocked’ or ‘stuck’ in their artwork. Or it would be suitable
for people who want to return to making art after a break of some kind.

ps the image is an Artist's Trading Card; the background is made using shaving foam printing with Brusho, and the tree is stamped on using thickened Brusho.

Terrified By White Paper?

You know, when you want to create, but the white paper is scary, and you sit there and think, and somehow nothing gets done? I have the solution! Work small, and work with pre prepared card! I've just added these to my Etsy shop; hand painted card that is in Inchie or ATC format (ie 1" square or 2.5" by 3.5"). You can use them however you wish... just as they are, on cards or collage, or use them as a starting point for your own creativity. Look at each one with a fresh eye, work out what theme it suggests to you, and start to collage or paint. Above all, have fun! You can find the inchies here, and the ATC/ACEOs here

It really doesn't matter if you start from a blank sheet of paper, or from a pre prepared background; the work you make will be uniquely yours, I promise! And however you make your art, make sure you have lots of fun, too!

Looking Forwards, Looking Back.

Happy New Year! I hope everyone will have a joyful and successful New Year, whatever that means to you...

For me, New Year is a time for looking back, and looking forward. I want to get better at what I do, and to do that, I don't just need to plan for new things (and believe me, I have plans!!), but to reflect on what I've done in the past year. And for that, I'd like to enlist your help. I'd like every person who reads this, to give me a piece of feedback, about this blog, my other blogs, my Etsy shop, anything at all. In return, I'd like to give you an original ACEO, a small piece of my own work, like the ones I'm showing at the top of this post. PLEASE make sure that I can contact you; my email address is in my profile, but not everyone can be contacted in this way. And if you would like a piece of feedback from me, let me know, and I'll go and look at whatever it is you want feedback on!

To make things simple, my links are embedded here; the artmixteremporium blog, you are already reading, obviously! But there's my main blog and my etsy shops, artmixter and purelypainting I would love to hear what you think, so that I can improve what I do. Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for the feedback! I'll be in touch to get your contact details, so please do remember to supply a contact email address.

If You Have Had Your Eye...

on something in my Etsy shops, then now might be the right time to buy. I'm taking part in the VAST (Visual Arts Etsy) Holiday Sale, and twenty per cent will be taken off the price of anything you choose in either artmixter at etsy or artmixter's purelypainting at etsy. However, that does exclude Lovely Lutradur CDs, which you can find for sale here.

As you might know, my Artmixter shop on Etsy has all sorts of artworks in it, mainly textiles, mixed media and some hand bound small journals. Purely Painting, though, is just what it says... it has paintings of all descriptions. So, as I say, now would be the time to buy... why not go for a wee browse... you know you want to! If you do decide to buy something, contact me first, and I'll adjust the price for you.

The images show a piece from both shops, each one of my personal favourites. The painting is 'Matryoshka', and is oil on canvas. The textile is Curvilinear, a very recent lutradur piece. I hope you enjoy looking at them.

Small Pieces...

occasionally resonate hugely. For me, Evening Star is one such piece. It is an ACEO, so measures only 2.5" by 3.5". But it represents all kinds of things... It makes me think of standing stones in my native Scotland, of the colours in the hills and moorlands there. Of the mysteries attached to the standing stones, their incredible power, whether individuals or groups. Sometimes I miss Scotland, but I can at least make art about it... find it here

Connections...

is a new piece just listed in the shop It is a lutradur piece, which I stitched into and then added fibres using the embellisher machine, which felts fabrics into each other, as well as creating needlefelt using wool and other fibres. And then it lay about in my studio for ages, as it wasn't quite finished. Recently, however, I've discovered a latent passion for fuschia; I've always loved the plants, but not been so fond of the colour. However, I discovered it mixes wonderful strong orange colours when I bought a tube of acrylic paint that was on sale (I'm forever buying cheap paint...), and fished the solitary reel of fuschia thread out of my thread storage box. And it added the final connections the piece needed. Voila!

Borderline

I've been making a lot of small work, recently, and though I would list a larger painting, for a change. Borderline is an original abstract oil painting, measuring 23.5" square. In some ways, it could be called an inner landscape. It was inspired by a Joni Mitchell song of the same name; 'Out on some border line, Some mark of in between, I lay down frozen in time, And woke up vanishing'. It is a beautiful song; I'm a real Joni Mitchell fan! I rarely make work inspired by music, but I love this particular song, and hope that the piece reflects it in some way. This painting is bright, strong, and features impasto, or textured painting...to see what I mean, check out the closeups here


Borderline, along with other oil paintings, can be found in my purelypainting etsy shop

Here Be Dragons!

Well, okay, one dragon, but he's a biggie! Dragons are legendary for having treasure hoards, and this blue dragon is eyeing up a beautiful piece of glass made by my friend and fellow Etsy artist Chauncey; I talked about her on the other blog here. She makes wonderful glass jewellery, and very kindly sent me a couple of extra pieces with the larger one I talked about on the other blog. One of them just seemed to be perfect for this particular piece, and it finishes it off wonderfully, I think.

I'm entranced by glass, and have always wanted to work with it in my work. And now it's happening... isn't that wonderful! I'll be using other pieces in future works. Right now, though, like a dragon, I'm guarding my hoard against invaders...except for this piece, of course, it's in the artmixter shop right here (it's worth checking it out just for the closeups of the dragon and the glass!)