Saturday, April 10, 2010

Teaching - A Wonderful Way to Learn!

A couple of weekends ago, I had the great privilege of teaching a workshop to members of BAVA (Biloela Area Visual Artists). They explored making fabric paper and handmade beads.



Here's Gwen - I couldn't resist snapping a shot of her in that delicious light beside the window! She's busy making the coolest bead from nylon lace - wrapped a round a satay stick and zapped with the heat gun to melt and dissolve it into one organic, funky lump! Gwen was once a dental assistant for the dentist I used to see - it was so much nicer to be in her company as an artist!! No drills and suckers...only heat guns and satay sticks!



Meredith and Michelle were cooking up unique ideas for procuring a heat gun of their own! The unanimous decision was that every girl should have her very own heat gun - they are way too much fun to live without! I think there was one going on each of these girls Mother's day lists!



Glenda added the finishing touch of a light rub of gilding wax to her fabric paper...such a beautiful colour!

Come day's end, none of us wanted to go home - there's such a marvellous energy when a room full of people get together to explore, discover and create! And, as always, I found I learned so much from these great women - teaching is a most inspiring way to learn!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tracey, I enjoyed hearing about your class and seeing the pictures of the students at work. And, I like learning the 'underwords' for things! I have state-of-Texas words for things that you wouldn't understand, either, so, if we wanted, we could be mutually unintelligible speaking the same language.:-)

Tracey Hewitt said...

Lyn...that makes me laugh! We were fascinated when we visited the US last year at just how many words we each have that are quite unique to our own country or area! Talking to my husband about picking up a 'trolley' had us getting all kinds of odd looks in Walmart (yep, we couldn't go all that way and not check out the infamous Walmart!)...The eavesdroppers to our conversation would have been less bewildered if I had said 'cart'! We could keep one another busy learning new words for ages, I suspect!

Meg Mitchell said...

Hi Tracey,
I too love to hear about your classes and seeing the pictures of your students at work. What kind of projects were they working on and was it a one day course? A number of us might be interested in creating a class environment and would love to know how you went about setting your classes up.

Hannah said...

I too like hearing more about your classes on handmade beads. Would you consider a "how-to" blog post on paper bead making? Complete with pictures, It could be awesome.

Tracey Hewitt said...

Hi Hannah and Priscilla, thanks for your feedback...you've given me some really good ideas here! They are ideas I don't believe I would have had on my own! Thanks for taking the time to visit and contribute! I'll be working on these ideas over the next little while.

merci33 said...

I love this post too and, like Hannah, I think it's set up as a terrific base for an upcoming 'how to' page.

Hannah Phelps said...

The writing in your post has a nice energy and the photos are great accents to the writing. I don't know you that well, but you don't seem to be delusional to me (referring to your comment on the class blog)!

Unknown said...

I love the photos. It made me wish I was there.

Joyita Neerkaje said...

Love this Post with the description and pictures made it so interesting!
Tracy when I initially moved to US 5 years back it took me sometime to get used to the Lingo... I would always say Parcel my food instead of take out, Trolley instead of cart and used S instead of Z's when spelling words like organise.. and so on :) And I second Hannah's Idea about a 'How to' Post... it will be fun to read.

Anonymous said...

This sounded like so much fun. Wish I could have been there. Love the color of the fabric paper. I want to make some.

Dora Ficher said...

Tracy, I also second Hannah's Idea about a 'How to' Post. It sounds like so much fun! I wouldn't have wanted to go home either. Great post!

Tracey Hewitt said...

To my fellow triage patients...THANK YOU! Not just for taking the time to stop by and comment, but for you encouragement and appreciation. I am SO working on doing some mini blog classes. (Maybe after class is done and we've all finished our homework though!)

Kadira said...

Tracey , from a fellow triager if there is such a word - well there is now LOL - great to see someone else from OZ here! Thanks for your inspirational idea of rubbing gilding wax on paper - I shall try it out. Would like to know more about that !

Tracey Hewitt said...

Hi Kadira - my fellow aussie triager, good to have you stop by! Gilding wax is the coolest fun...especially good for picking up highlights on textured surfaces (like crumpled tissue bonded to felt). I get a little on the tip of my finger and go gently - wiping across the surface as if it were really hot to touch - you don't need much, but it's SO yummy! (And there's an idea for another 'how to' blog post! They're coming thick and fast!) I'm off to check your blog's progress now.

Unknown said...

What a great post! I agree, every girl should own a heat gun. Also a tractor, if you can manage. BTW, what do you use the plastic bags for?

Tracey Hewitt said...

Thanks Karen! I'm lucky enough to have a couple different size tractors at my disposal...and the manure covered men to operate them! What more could a girl want in life?(Except perhaps a laundry slave to deal with all that cow poo!)

The plastic bags melt magnificently (that heat gun set to work once more!) I squirrel away the coloured ones, cut them into strips, which I wrap and twist around a satay stick, then heat to melt into a yummy looking coloured clump. I plan to do a little mini blog workshop on them next month, just as long as I can figure out how to hold the camera, heat gun and satay stick in two hands! You can check out a photo of the finished product here