I made that!

I'm finally beginning to surface from under the mountain of papers and spreadsheets at work which characterise July. So, to celebrate, I made two (yep, count 'em, two) non work related arrangements for today *pauses for gasps of shock from the gallery*

This morning I popped up to Knaresborough to meet up with Karen for a spot of brunch. We had a great catch up over pancakes and fruit smoothies then had a bit if a tootle around the town. Karen introduced me to a couple of new shops, and her friend who owns a wool shop. She also owns
Beryl the Bike, which I understand has brought a good bit of publicity.

Karen left to take her little one swimming, and I got in the oven car and drove down to work (no, not for that!).

The Parkinson Building houses the Stanley and Audrey Burton gallery. I'm not an art fan, but on a Saturday afternoon they hold talks and workshops. They're more often than not free, and I've made paper jewellery and books before now.

Today's workshop was Ebru, which is a traditional Islamic and Turkish painting art also known as marbling. Our tutor, Bade, was Turkish and brought all of the equipment from Turkey, from the metal trays to the seaweed powder you mix with water to make a gelatinous liquid, to the ingredients to create the paints (including ox bile - yes really) and the brushes she made from twigs and horsehair bristles wrapped with twine.

So you load your brush lightly after stirring the paint (which makes it stink like rotten eggs - that'll be the bile then eh) and, holding it over the tray of seaweed water, tap it gently against your other hand to spatter paint on the water. You can then use various tools to make your patterns, then pop your paper on top of the water. Drawing it slowly out across the lip of the tray brings your design to glorious life. Everyone's efforts had beauty in them and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. The head of our staff centre was there and, as I left, was talking to Bade about running her 6 week course through work.

I for one will definitely be there!

x

ps this is mine, in case you hadn't guessed - pretty huh? I did another one too which made people think of Japanese tsunami art, but it wasn't dry by the time I left so it's ended up a bit crumpled. Hopefully a cool iron will sort that out!