Since retiring I’ve enjoyed a few little workshops. I did a full day book-binding last month, this month I’ve done a couple of mini workshops here in Otley. These were only £15-£20 for a morning or afternoon workshop down in Otley Common. The Common is a new community space in what was the Methodist church. I understand the church still use it on a Sunday morning, but the rest of the time there’s community events and classes. This workshop and another I’ll share tomorrow were part of a Wildlife Friendly Otley weekend.

The mosaic project is being run by a local mosaic artist, Frances Taylor, she has a workshop in Otley and runs regular courses there.

I spent two hours helping to make a mosaic for the town. This was being worked on over several weekends, we each helped do a small part of a bigger picture. The design is beautiful, showing some of the wildlife found around Otley. It split down into small sections so we could each have a bit to work on. I was doing part of the sky.

I’ve not done mosaic before, it was quite good fun cutting up the little glass squares to fill our section. We glued them upside down onto brown paper. As I understand it these will be put in moulds and concrete poured on top, once set the brown paper and PVA glue can be easily removed and the pieces will slot together nicely. I didn’t do all this sky, just the left hand cloud and some of the blue underneath:-)

There were about twenty of us working on it that morning, as you can see there was still quite a lot to do but apparently after another weekend of workshops it was nearly finished.

It’s going to be displayed somewhere around Otley, it was lovely to take part in a community event like this and it will be nice to be able to spot my cloud on the finished mosaic! I’m quite tempted to do one of Frances’s workshops at her home too.