We didn’t take a stand at this year’s Festival of Quilts so to avoid withdrawal symptoms I was delighted to accept a last minute invitation to demonstrate for our good friends at Art Van Go. If you’ve ever been to any of the shows, you’ll know that the Art Van Go stand is always a vibrant hub of art material excitement!

Of course the hardest part of demonstrating away from home is deciding what to take. Faced with an array of stuff I whittled it down to just a pencil case full of pens and pencils, a few brushes, five paints and some monoprinting equipment.

I was allocated a lovely space and took along a selection of digitally printed quilts to decorate the walls.

I started off with some monoprinting. Because I was travelling light I planned to use the same acrylics that I would paint with in the afternoon. The warmth and air conditioning in the halls put pay to my simple ideas and I admit I struggled with the first few! With the addition of some acrylic mediums the problem was soon solved and the prints came off the plate thick and fast.

The floor behind my work area was soon covered with an assortment of prints. None of these were intended to be a completed design. The aim was just to create some ‘ingredients’ that I could use later. This is a fun way to work – create lots of different prints to generate a stash of papers that are ideal for collaging and working into later.

If you try the same thing, don’t be precious about the prints. Be prepared to look for the best bits and cut them up. I picked out a monoprint face and cut that from its background. I painted a cage silhouette around it and then added some landscape inspired prints into the background.

Considering there was more talking than working going on, I was quite pleased with how this turned out and I think the idea might have some mileage for further exploration. If you give these methods a try I hope you have fun!

Bye for now,

Laura

x