One week until the Festival of Crafts at Farnham Maltings! Come and see me and try the heat press transfer technique onto a sample of neoprene.
Last week I led a printed tote bag workshop at the Watts Gallery in Guildford with a creative group of 13-17 year olds. We looked for pattern in ‘Facing Fame’, the exhibition featuring John Frederick Lewis , marvelling at the detail of his Orientalist paintings which feature bazaars and fabrics from Cairo and Constantinople. We then painted paper to layer with the press onto the bags with rich coloured heat transfer inks, such as chestnut, cobalt and mandarin…
Amongst the patterns were some camels and several letters from the artist. It was lovely to see that these provided inspiration, and we started off with small pieces of neoprene which will be similar to the ones you can make at the Festival of Crafts.
We combined the painted papers (which as you can see come out reversed) with sublimation paper, which is a flat colour. Above the bag you can see the little neoprene sample which could be made into a wallet.
Finally, we screen printed foil adhesive to add a final bit of metallic detail using bronze foil which was applied with the heat press.
I will be in the Undercroft area of the Festival of Crafts with my heat press, and a selection of prints and aprons from the Ochre Print Studio Residency. This includes some lino images over which I used Letterpress, to detail favourite tools that are used in the Ochre Studio. Fork still makes me laugh!
The Undercroft is just outside the Great Hall, where you can see and buy more cutting edge craft – mosaics by Denise Jacques (Stand number 1) and silver jewellery by my good friend and fellow Crafts Study Centre staff, Rosie Wesley (Stand number 22 also in the Great Hall).
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