Silver jewelry making workshop Day 2

Up bright and early Sun morning ready to drive over to blue-ginger gallery in Cradley for day two of my silver jewelry making workshop with the lovely and talented Hannah Willow.

We all met up and had a chat before settling down to a busy day.

Betty Bear came along to help me

Hannah showing us the finished silver items :)

Mine :) Need polishing to make them shiny :)

But first they needed cleaning up with a wire brush to get rid of all the scale from the kiln. Betty helped me. I have no nails left after doing this!

My bear :)

Playing around with ideas

At the end of the weekend this is what I made :)

I had a wonderful weekend and I am so surprised I could make such lovely things :) Hannah is an amazing tutor and very inspiring :)

Me, modelling my bear and earrings :)

Hannah Willow Silver Workshop Day 1

So on Saturday I set off through the rain to drive over to blue-ginger gallery in Cradley to attend the first of a two day silver jewelry making workshop with the lovely and talented Hannah Willow.

I spent Fri evening musing and sketching and thinking about what I wanted to make.

Then arrived at blue ginger on Sat morning to meet up with the rest of the group

After introductions and hot drinks, we settled down and got to work. First we made models of our designs from polymer clay, to serve as the pattern for a mould.

I wanted to make a bear necklace

Finished bear model :)

Making the moulds out of silicone

We then used silver clay, rolled thin and pressed into the mould, to make our designs for real. Very nerve wracking because the silver clay dries out really fast! Once it was dry and solid I then cleaned it up and added detail, holes etc.

By the end of day 1 I had made several pendants and earring "dangles", eaten some delicious food, had had a wonderful day and made new friends :) Hannah took away the things we had made, to fire in her kiln, ready for the second day of work.

Blue Ginger Gallery. An afternoon with The Sisterhood of Ruralists; and then an evening with Jackie Morris

I had a really lovely day out last week .

I had a meeting in the morning in the Frome valley near the Herefordshire/Worcestershire border, so after my meeting I went to Blue-Ginger Gallery in Cradley to meet up with Jackie Morris, Hannah Willow and Tamsin Abbott, who were all artists in residence for the afternoon creating postcard sized artwork in aid of The Big Draw.

This is the Dragon van of Jackie Morris in the car park  - Tell me a Dragon, in mobile form! I felt so excited when I saw it :)

Jackie, concentrating on painting a Hare

Jackie, Tamsin and Hannah all at work making beautiful things

Jackie working on the beautiful hare

Hannah cutting into some birthday cake :)

Some of Hannah's beautiful craft


All three of the artists were delightful to chat to, and I am amazed they were able to talk AND create wonderful art at the same time! I wish I could just create the art!

They are all lovely, lovely people and I felt very honoured that they were willing to chat to me and work. This was a drop in session so  I did not have to pay for the honour and, although I did buy some wonderful stuff, I did not have to and there was no fee involved :)

I SO love indy galleries and bookshops for putting on events like this :) Thank you to Jackie, Hannah and Tamsin and thank you to Sue for hosting the event.




Then later I went back for a magical evening (yes for this I paid for a ticket and was lucky to get one as they sold out really fast!) listening to Jackie telling tales from some of her latest books and talking about her craft and how she sets about writing. Magical, simply wonderful.

I also ate some lovely food and drank some nice wine provided by Sue Lim of Blue-Ginger Gallery, and had lovely conversations with other members in the audience.

It was a wonderful evening. If you ever have the chance to listen to Jackie speak and read from her books I urge you to go - she is a wonderful storyteller and is warm, witty and very engaging as a speaker. I had a magical evening listening to her read and talk and answer questions from the floor.

 Then I went home and when I got home despite being tired I started reading East of the Sun, West of the Moon; and I stayed up until 2 am so I could finish it in one sitting .I drank in the rhyme and the beauty and the words and feasted my eyes on the sumptuous illustrations which oh-so-perfectly enhanced the words.

I honestly could NOT put the book down until I had read to the end. And then I cried. THAT is how good a writer and illustrator Jackie is :)   

And then I went off to bed, to dream of bears and hares and cats.

Seriously, you need to go and listen to Jackie speak if you can -and you need to buy her books. All are so fabulous both as tales and as art.

I had SUCH a great evening. Thank you Jackie.


You can read more about Jackie's tour of the UK here