I am so pleased that there is a local craft shop opened near to me now that does workshops and certainly intend to make the most of them. It is great just to drive down the road rather than half way around the country. Last Saturday there was a workshop at That's Crafty with Helen Chilton and this time it was using brushos. I had never used them before and did not really know what they were but was informed that they were great to make backgrounds with.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained so booked in and attended the workshop. I was quite surprised at the use that I would be able to make of these. The first thing we learnt was not to open the pots but to just put a small hole in the top and shake the powder out - a little went a long way and also to write the colours on the top of the pots so you would know straight away what colour you were using.
We spent the first part of the morning just making samples using both matt and glossy card and also using cling film, straws, water, stencils and Perfect Pearls mist and finding out what the colours looked like when using different techniques and what the finished effects were. The colours looked very different to when they were first put on the paper and were very vibrant with water.
One of the techniques that I really liked was putting the powder on dry and then stamping on it with versamark. It was surprising how much detail showed up. I can see me making use of this technique quite a lot.
After making our samples, we then had a choice of making a piece of work with either flowers in reds or buildings in blue using Carabelle Studo Stamps. I choose to go with a blue background but red flowers to stand out more. I mainly used the spray technique but then over stamped in black on the background using a Kaisercraft stamp.
The real piece of work was much more vibrant than the photo shows and I would not necessarily make this piece again but the workshop was definitely worthwhile to get an introduction to brushos.
