A Graphicus Workshop

Well today was the very best fun! I had signed up to take part in a workshop at Graphicus in Barnard Castle, Co. Durham. The theme was Ten Second Studio which is metal art, something I have never tried before. Our teacher for the day was the very talented Lynne Robinson-Hunter, you can see samples of her work by visiting the Graphicus website and checking out the Meet the Team link. Graphicus have some amazingly talented people working there and their Gallery is a place I often visit when my own inspiration is failing. Lynne is a lovely lady, a good teacher who is very patient and obviously delights in sharing her skill and knowledge with beginners like myself.

We started by just having a little play with some of the basic tools we would be using - ball tools to emboss the metal with, defining tools to define what we had embossed and paper stumps to smooth and perfect the finish. I think I was far too excited and trying too hard, as a result my initial test pieces were not particularly impressive. We then moved on to creating some small metal items that could be used to embellish a project, the 2 flowers you see in the first photo. By now I think I was starting to settle in and relax and things were coming a bit easier. I am really pleased at how these 2 flowers turned out, I especially like the flower on the right which was very easy to do using a huge ball tool and a tiny wheel tool. Next was the larger "Dream" peice and by now I was captivated - finding the defining and smoothing process very relaxing, I really enjoyed making this piece. These items took care of our morning session and we stopped for lunch.

In the afternoon we made the bookcover you can see in the second photo and Lynne helped us bind it into a book with the Bind It All - what a fabulous little toy that is! The cover was made using the embossing plates that are a part of the Ten Second Studio range - fun to use, but some patterns and textures definately seem easier to work with than others. I am really pleased with what I made, as while they are far from perfect, I could see my level of proficiency increasing the more we did.