Workshop with Barbara Gray

Workshops seem to be getting like London buses for me - you wait ages for one to come along and then end up getting a few together. This was a workshop that I was really looking forward to attending as I had always liked the look of brayering but never tried it.

The workshop itself was great but the getting there and back was a nightmare and made me realise that it was not a place to try and get to by public transport. Without the help of Barbara, it would have been even more of a nightmare. I certainly appreciated her sending Dave to my rescue when I found that I would have to wait an hour and a half for a taxi to get me there. Even more so of Wanda arranging for my handbag to be sent to me after I stupidly left it behind! I'm not sure Barbara would want me at another of her workshops!! It just wasn't my day but at least I remembered to take home my goodies that I bought there.

There were four projects to be completed on the day and were split into 4 groups and each group did a different one of the project from the rest. It was nice this way as the group were then kept small with everyone getting enough attention. Before we started on the main projects, we warmed up with using Clarity corner stamps to make patterns on copy paper to get used to the stamps.

The first project and third projects that I completed were classed as the easy project and the first was Zentangle (which I always thought was doodling!) and the second was using gilding flakes and made into a post card using Clarity stamps to stamp out the back of the card. With the first project, I found that I did not like using Promarkers - especially on glossy card and was not that keen on Zentangle. I quite enjoyed the gilding flake and this was made using Clarity Adhesive sheets which was a quick way of gilding.

The second and fourth projects were using the brayering technique I enjoyed these two a lot more. I used brayering to create the water and sky for the Love card and to create more of a background scene for the woodland card. These two card were much more pleasing to my eye and both used techniques that I would use again.

I like that fact that these workshops were more orientated around the techniques rather than the finishing of cards although all of the projects were completed and were ready to be mounted and used. I would certainly not hesitate to go back on one of Barbara's workshop and learnt some new techniques.