There’s not a lot that beats spending a Saturday learning a new creative technique. Sometimes this can easily be done at home, other times I’ve booked myself onto a short course or workshop. Nearly every time my perception of what something will entail is not accurate! Here are five new creative techniques I’ve tried in the last few months:

Mosaic – I booked onto a one-day workshop at the Bristol Folk House (if you’ve never been they have a huge range of courses, various events and a lovely café). This was such a lovely experience, selecting beautiful tiles to break into smaller pieces and create a design. I could easily see myself doing this again!

Stained Glass – this was another one-day workshop at the Bristol Folk House. It’s quite a complicated process which many different stages involved, each requiring a different skill. It’s definitely given me a new appreciation for the effort that goes into creating stained glass windows – glass is not an easy medium to work with!

Screen printing – this had been on my list to try for a while but most kits you see seem to cost quite a lot. I was browsing the gift shop in the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) and came across a tiny kit for only £12! You also need a craft knife. The paint transferred onto the fabric much more smoothly than I expected, resulting in a really clean, sharp finish. Screen printing is typically used for fabric printing such as T-Shirts and Tote Bags. I think I’ll have to attempt a bigger design soon!

Gelli plate – another at-home technique, this is effectively a form of mono-printing. You apply paint to the plate and then create patterns or imagery however you wish (paintbrush, cardboard, leaves from the garden). Then you can transfer this onto paper.  There are endless possibilities, such as building up multiple layers using different colours of paint.

Pottery wheel – I was so glad I finally gave this ago after wanting to for years! I booked onto a morning workshop at StuPots Pottery and had a great time. I found that I had to ensure the wheel speed was quite fast to maintain an even design. Just as I felt I was starting to get to grips with the technique, the session was over! So this is something I’d love to try again, ideally in a more central Bristol location. I created several pots and selected two to be glazed for me (I chose the glaze colour) ready to collect at a later date.

Next up on my list to try is carpentry, I’d love to learn some basic woodwork skills and perhaps make a small piece of furniture. If anyone knows a good place for this in Bristol please let me know!

Alexa