James Sharp Art Journalling Weekend

I just got home from a great weekend with my great crafting pals, Emma, Sam, Lin S, Lin R and Chris from the Peak District, where we attended a James Sharp art journalling weekend (check his website here for details of what he offers..)  If you've got a car with good suspension and don't mind narrow winding roads (or live in the States where he spends a lot of time too) I highly recommend attending. The workshops here in the UK are held in the middle of nowhere (well just outside Buxton)  in Combs, in  the Peak District.

So Lin S and I took the train up to Stockport where we were staying in a hotel with Sam and Emma and they drove us to James's.

first things first, tea/coffee coffee... the workshops are held outside in the garden under gazebos, on Saturday we didn't need the sides down as it was reasonably sunny all day, and warmer than the forecast said...
Emma, Lin and Sam..

We were each given a paper journal to work in.

time to get started... the morning was spent stamping lots and lots of images on a variety of surfaces, we were told to choose one face stamp from a selection and during the day to stamp at least 50 of it, for what we would be told later.. some of us (Lin R) were less successful at this than others...

Sam and Chris standing to stamp, James on tea and coffee duty again behind Chris, and Lin R is sitting.
As we stamped on our various surfaces (different types of paper, prepared backgrounds with paints and sprays and all sorts,  and fabrics - we had been very keen to work on textiles) we were told to cut one image out of each surface and stick it to the first page of our journals.

the green gazebo doesn't do much for the colour contrasts, and I can't work out how to adjust it..

just look at the view of James' garden behind us!  (all round us, actually)

more stamping... James was quite amazed how many of us stamped standing up at the table... and no, I didn't work on the floor, it was dampish concrete slabs...

some of my fabric printing.

time for lunch, Emma catching the rays (sorry about the face full Emma...)


After lunch, time to cut out all those stamped images...

so, all those 50 images... we'd been told to cut them out and apply them, Andy Warhol style, to one of our double pages.  this is Sam's, looking fabulous.

this is mine.

and Chris's

another of my double spreads.  this one, we had to do with an irregular border with some of our images

everyone hard at work

and this one, a regular border all round  and some more of the images, collaged together, and some journalling (more to follow, pages aren't finished yet!)

another one of my pages, with some spraying through found objects for stencils (this diamond pattern was gorgeous) - we used metallic sprays, and then punched some of our patterned pieces and fixed them to the page, with added fibres.  This is a style Lynne Perrella uses, and then makes prints from.

another double page spread, starting with old football or cricket team photos and then adding extra images to blend into the teams.. I haven't got one of the finished effect yet.

Lin deep in thought..

James demonstrating the next page - on to Teesha Moore style now, with collages magazine images and journalling
Although I'd seen some of her work before, it was new to me, so took me a while to get into the swing of this part, but I shall be doing more now I know what I'm meant to be doing...

Lin R and Chris hard at work... we won't mention the secret supplies of her own that Chris brought to incorporate, will we, Chris??

Sam, writing in her journal

once the journals were in a semblance of finished, James bound them all for us, Chris is just applying some pressure with a brayer to help the glue stick fast.

time for another wander around the garden...

and a team photo...
it was a fabulous weekend, thanks to Chris and Lin R who sorted it out and to the usual gang for your excellent company.

I've borrowed this one that James took, from his blog



I will share the journal fully when it's all finished, hopefully later this week!

Now, hop over to photosbyh for the scenic shots I know you want... Lin R and Chris knew I'd want to see some of the surrounding countryside, and they were right!!