Rural Arts Acrylic Workshop

I had a great day teaching at Rural Arts in Thirsk, a 10-4 day long workshop with a little lunch in between.  I started the day giving an overview of plastics and how they are used in jewellery.  We looked though a mix of examples and I gave information about Acrylic which is what we were working with.  Showing how to work with Acrylic was really important so we spent the morning cleaning up, sanding and polishing pieces ready to transform into jewellery. 

Sanding

  

I think the students were surprised how much prep goes into working with acrylics, but realised its worth the effort once the finished items were made.  We went to the cafe and were treated to lovely lunch at the Rural Arts cafe included with the class.

After Lunch it was time to think about decorating the acrylic, I showed various ways to mask the pieces to create patterns.  Then with all safety wear in place we mixed some dye ready to dye the Acrylic prepared pieces.

 

Care needs to be taken when using dyes.

Washing the pieces well

When the pieces were dyed we took off the masking to reveal what patterns were created.  I then showed the students how to put the necklaces together and fix on the catches.

The fiddly bit......putting your necklace together

This is the final stage think everybody did a fantastic job and created some lovely necklaces, with some great effects!

Some of the finished items by the Rural Arts students, some fantastic effects created!

If you are interested in the jewellery I make feel free to visit my Etsy Online shop.  If you are interested to take part in any future workshops please feel free to join my mailing list on the front page of my website www.jessicajewellerydesign.co.uk and scroll to the bottom.  Also take a look at the Rural Arts homepage. 

Feel free to add comments if there is anything you may be interested in learning how to do, or other ways to work with acrylic.

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