I realise that something I’ve always done is have 3 or 4 projects running at the same time. This means that I never get bored and depending what sort of mood I’m in, one of them will probably appeal to me at any one time.
Usually there is one big project that is quite physical like say a wall mural. One that is intricate and needs a bit of preparation such as a portrait in oil, another that I can put down or pick up easily like a sketch or design of a piece of furniture, and perhaps one that is quite meditative such as a clay sculpture.
This week I’m painting cut flowers in acrylic in preparation for some workshops I’m running. I’m redesigning a sofa with pool noodles and making new covers. Sculpting earrings & funny figures in clay and learning how to use a digital SLR camera properly to make some cool prints.
I don’t have any deadlines for these projects which is great but if you watch this space you should see them evolve successfully or not! 🥹
Acrylic paint project
Starting with the cut flowers project. I’m putting together a course of 5 classes online & in my studio which will include a sketchbook of 20 pages which we’ll work through together perfecting your style of painting in acrylic so that you have a full book of beautiful paintings some of which you might want to frame for yourself or others they’ll be so good!
Acrylic paint on paper, in antique frame
This one took me under ten mins. It’s a good discipline to give myself a set amount of minutes to get an image onto paper. It stops me from overthinking and being precious about the result. It also gets me into a good work mode.
If you’d like to come to our studio to learn to paint pics like this in acrylic please email: rebeccabethbarton@gmail.com
Sofa upgrade
Pinning calico to the form for hand sewing then machining
The sofa I’m adapting is for our snug. At the moment we’re watching films on a projector sitting on pushed~together chairs which I love the look of but are not very comfy.
I bought a 2 seater plus 2 foot stools and a sofa bed on eBay. They are a discontinued IKEA model called Vallentuna which is modular, so adaptable, have storage, so handy and are well put together. If I bought a new sofa I would not have been able to match the chair fabric which is a burnt orange velvet. I found a really similar washable velvet from one of my fabric accounts ; J Brown where I get a trade discount. Bear in mind that I can discount designer fabrics for you for any of your projects, I also do online interior design & colour consultations but no longer have the time for visits.
All the sofa modules cost me £140 which was cheap because the seller should have split them to sell them. Not many people want so many units and nor did I but I stripped the covers and sold them and the sofa bed for £160 so the sofa and matching pouffes cost me nothing, in fact I made £20, yay 😃!
I ripped off the calico and ran up some fresh undercovers on the sewing machine. These allowed me to practice for the velvet covers which I’ll start soon 🥳
Clay sculpture
A little clay figure ready for firing
She’ll have glittery boobs but will look very prim and snooty too when finished.
Some earrings I’m making from air dry clay.
Clay lends itself to so many uses, there’s so much you can make from it. I’m making protypes in air dry clay then when I get what I want I remake in clay for firing.
Photography print project
Here are some pics I’ve taken mostly with my phone. I’m focusing on quite graphic looking pics atm and want to learn more about how a digital SLR can help me capture and enhance them.
As an aside we watched “Lee” last night about photographer Lee Miller. I posted that we’d visited her Sussex home recently and this really helped me to appreciate her life story and the film. She was an incredibly brave and talented soul and I’d recommend the film as a start to learning more about her vital work documenting WW2. Kate Winslet puts in a credible performance too.
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