Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

Last week I was invited to teach a craft session at Forest Arts Centre for some local schools on the theme of 'Ubuntu'. If you don't know (I didn't), then Ubuntu essentially means 'I am because we are'; feel free to investigate more after you've read this if that has activated your curiosity zone. There were a small group of lucky students chosen from each of 4 local primary schools and along with dance and drama teachers in other areas of the building, I was to deliver 3 x 20 minute art sessions with the children rotating around each class every half hour. Essentially like the artistic version of speed dating! There aren't many arts and crafts that you can satisfactorily complete with minimal mess in 20 minutes (in my opinion) whilst keeping within the theme of Ubuntu, so I chose a simple collage class.  Many of the children knew what collage was, some being experts and some being complete beginners. I had collected a range of old books and magazines fo...

This week I was honoured to be invited along to Queen Elizabeth School with artist Sarah Redmond-Fareham to help work on a super exciting outreach project called Her:Story - a project about inspiring women throughout history (get the pun?!) Each artist was assigned a different female to study, and they all came armed with sketches and photographs ready to create a bust of their subject out of clay. Sarah setting up! [The secret is that the face is already in the clay, you just have to remove the parts that are not face]:) Most of the students had never worked with clay much before, but neither had I; Sarah is the expert and was a fantastic teacher as all the students ended up with great results. I was on hand for moral support, suggestions and cleaning up duties! At first, the students worked tentatively, but after the initial features were put into place, you could see the confidence grow and a lot of recognisable faces came out. Here are some of the works in progress (all work by stu...

Hi everyone! This week my Dad and I took an impromptu trip to the Burngate Purbeck Stone Centre for a 2 hour stone carving workshop. Before I arrived there, I had prepared a sketch for the class but didn't really know what to expect from the class itself, or how difficult it might be to carve stone into something aesthetically lovely. I had the best time! Here is my creation: This is an Art Nouveau inspired fish tile measuring about 5" x 5". Considering that I've never tried stone carving before, I am really pleased with my result! We had a great teacher [Jonathan Sells] and even though I was worried that 2 hours would not be long enough, I think going in prepared with my design helped a lot. Also, I am the type of person who given the chance, will just keep hacking away at something forever if I don't have a time limit; so it was a positive thing for me to see how much can be done in that time! We started off learning how to make a relief square, like this: I cou...

One of my favourite artists is LS Lowry and a few years ago I was given a wonderful gift of a cross-stitch kit featuring his 'Street Scene' [1935] painting. I've been working on it on and off in my limited leisure time since then and thought that I might start chronicling the progress via my blog in order to stay motivated and show off what I've done. The finished size is 32cm x 26cm, so avid cross-stitchers will understand what a big undertaking it it - but I'm determined to get it finished! Just to give you an idea of the time that goes into these types of projects here's a spot the difference for you:  Yes I did put it on the ground And after several hours of work here's my progress: As you can see - not a huge amount of change but it's somewhat fulfilling to take these progress pictures when you are working on a bigger piece. Maybe I'm a slow stitcher?! I think I might be, but that makes it even more rewarding in the end! I'll keep updating a...

I'm really excited to share my next children's workshop to be held at the New Forest Arts Centre in August - crafts inspired by the film Ron's Gone Wrong!   This is a whole day event where participants can make crafts with me and one other artists plus watch the film 'Ron's Gone Wrong' itself. It's going to be a whole lot of awesome fun! In my part of the day we'll be making our own mini robot pals, something like this guy: To find out more information and to book, use the following link:  https://www.forest-arts.co.uk/event/creative-camps-rons-gone-wrong Hope to see you there! Sarah :)

I'm really excited to share my next workshop to be held at the New Forest Arts Centre in August: Folk Embroidered Felt Brooches.   This should be a really fun and relaxed evening event and we will be making something a little like this: To find out more information and to book, use the following link:  https://www.forest-arts.co.uk/event/craft-class-wine-glass-folky-embroidered-felt-brooch Hope to see you there! Sarah :)