Workshops! Learning and making new things.

My loot from the Show in Arnhem of last march My loot from the Show in Arnhem of last march

 Hello My friends. First a welcome to Isabel Ruiz Alonso for becoming the newest follower of my blog.

It has been very quiet in here these last few months. Not for lack of interest but because of the lack of time. A lot has happened these last 4 months. Some of these things were very good others were sad. Each of these things needed time and attention. And as all of you may know, that puts ones hobby on hold.

But luckily I have yet again time to devote to miniatures and I wanted to let you know that now that spring is in full bloom, so too Swinnendael is coming back on track.  :-)

Not that I have done nothing. I have bought some wonderful miniatures. All of great makers. I will show some of them in the coming weeks. But for me this hobby is also important in the sense that I want to máke things.

It is only miniatures yet. Rooms have to wait until after we moved to another house next month. That's right, We are selling our house and moving to a neighbouring town. Unfortunately moving the furniture is not as easy as moving the miniatures. :-)

But I did follow two workshops! The first was a workshop for miniature marbling. The workshop was given by Simone van Kasbergen prior to the Anhem Dollhouse Show last march. First she taught me the technique for making Carrara Bianca, white marble with grey veins. The white basecoat the different colours of grey we mixed with white and a tiny amounts of black. And then the difficult part of layering the stains and veins in order to produce a realistic translucency, depth and design of the marble.

After trying it out on a piece of cardboard we started on a plaster fireplace. You may recognise it as one of the models made by Alison Davies. It so happens that I already wanted this model for the small salon on the bell-etage of Swinnendael. So the fact that Simone had chosen this fireplace for the workshop was very fortuitous indeed! 

And here is the result. I could not finish the gold painted details in time but I am very happy with the result. I have the gold paint and varnish to finish it now. The workshop was great fun and Simone is a great teacher who has given me a lot of tips about the techniques of faux marbling and the intricacies of different types of marble.

In the picture above you also see my loot from the Show in Arnhem besides the fireplace. I did not buy the miniature Khang-Xi vase, that was a birthday gift from last year. But I did buy a lovely copper candlestick from small-scale and three porcelain plates made by Cocky Wildschut. And that brings me to my second workshop this year. Miniature porcelain painting! I myself a lover of porcelain and although I do not really collect it (1:1) myself, a house like Swinnendael can't be furnished without a decent collection of Delftware and Chinese and Japanese porcelain!  

And so, after talking to Cocky and her husband Rien in Arnhem I bought a few plates and applied for one of her workshops.  With a small group of enthusiasts we gathered in Cocky's studio in her garden. I was the only one who had not attended a previous workshop but that was not a problem. Everyone could work at their own pace and on their own projects. In order to learn to paint porcelain, there are a few steps you need to follow. First we started with a small plate with a Kakiemon design. Some of you may recognise it as the design of the plates in the kitchen/diningrooom of the Petronella Oortman in the Rijksmuseum. 

In the picture above is my version of that plate. I am very happy with the result. The second plate shown on the black velvet was the next design I made. Unfortunately I totally forgot to take a picture of my plate but it looks quite similar to the original. :-)

For me everything was new. Cocky helped me patiently every step of the way. I finished the two plates quite quickly. So after I had finished I had time to spare. It was certainly not enough try my hand at the large bowl for workshop 2, but Cocky suggested to me, to try a free hand decoration. Who was I to say no at this opportunity? I chose a five sided plate and a reference plate for the decor of a bird on the branch of a little tree. The above picture is the result. The border decoration is my own invention and I experimented a bit with shading the blue paint.  

I am very happy with the result but you can aso see that I still have a lot to learn. It was great fun and I had a jolly good time! If I get the chance I will certainly follow another of Cocky's workshops. 

That's it for this post. I have also made a few miniatures of my own. I will show you those as soon as I have finished them. And furthermore I have had the opportunity to buy some exquisite miniatures I will show some of those pretty soon as well.

Thank you for popping in. Feel free to leave a comment below. Enjoy your own projects and till the next time!

Huibrecht