Meet Julie Arkell

Well........ where do I begin!!!!! What a wonderful weekend Workshop I have just attended ~ organised by http://www.stroudinternationaltextiles.org.uk/ with the wonderful Julie Arkell.

There are quite a few photos here, as I wanted to share with you the complete creative process Julie took us on. I was a little shy to take a picture of her as soon as she started to talk, so this one is from a little later in the day ....... I just wanted to introduce her. She is dressed exquisitely, quirky and feminine. She dresses how I would love to dress but have'nt the nerve and I am also too fat....I would look a real fright but Julie, her style looks just right. She is a reflection of her beautiful art, all merging into a sweet, happy, patient, intelligent, romantic, quirky and interesting form.

So here we go ~ first for a human type creature, a ball for the head made from of scrunched newspaper, then another large ball for the body, held together with masking tape. Arms and limbs, lengths of scrunched paper held onto body with masking tape.

Coffee break.... some of Julie's beautiful work.

Brooches for sale £45 each.

The darlings....

Postcards for sale 50p each.

Back to creature ~ very crude shape.

Oh this is another I made, a bunny creature....

Oh yes and another...... a little disturbing maybe, with the arms and legs of foreign dolls.

More of Julie's precious work.....

I took this sneaky pic of her Jacket and scarf, the details of embroidery and little added handmade accessories are so lovely. I just wanted to stare!

Pile of newspapers and making tape.

Demonstration of how to layer the coat of newpaper strips and wall paper paste.

And here we go....

All of my pieces covered in one layer of strips of newspaper and paste (crumpy hands). There was 25 of us! Julie must have been exhausted.

That was basically it for the first day. Four creatures made and covered. I took some paste with me to the Hotel room and spent an hour or so, giving them a second layer but this time we were to use very old pages taken from paper backs, preferrably pre 1950's, which have that lovely foxing and

brown edges. I managed to do this and they dried over night on the radiator.
Sue...sitting next to me, went down the path of dolls heads on bird shapes!

Sunday was all about finishing off the second layer and thinking about how to decorate. When the pieces have dried (after the second layer) they are remarkably robust.

Julie takes a piece of paper and embroideres the eyes and mouth etc. and then applies this with paste. Tricky, very tricky!

Of course, you can't make clothes and decorate the pieces whilst they are wet, so alot of knitting went on and oooohhs and aaaaghs were to be heard, as ladies pulled out lovely vintage fabrics, wools, buttons etc. to dress their work.

Anyway the day came to an end and we had a 'show and tell'. Julie graciously picked every single piece up and made some lovely comment about it's creative path and how wonderful each and every one had turned out.

These pieces were made by Emily who is 16 years old.


A few other pieces, some nearly completed, some not.

I added this because the lady who made these left her knitting with her display, which was very apt.

Here is Julie commenting on each creature.

Here are three that I made, took the photo this evening, so please excuse picture quality. I used embroidery transfer as a layer on all three of these. I crocheted the ear hat and the other hat is a Innocent Smoothie Hat, just a perfect fit. The bunny has a very old doll's underskirt, stained and vintagy looking, so that matched perfectly too.

I will post more photos as I complete and rework these babies.

So happy with the weekend (as you can probably tell)!!!! It has given me lots of ideas of how I could incorporate this kind of medium into my own work. Julie's teaching methods are very genteel and encouraging and really you can't ask for more than that. Well I hope I have'nt gone on too much....thanks for stopping by.x

ps I made a mess of the link to the Light House Festive Flair Designer/Maker Fair on 6th December next, where one will have a stand! Here is the link (thanks Monda)x

http://www.light-house.co.uk/