Glass course in Bristol with Chris Ainslie

Something I'm always keen to do, despite having made items for quite some time now, is to spend  some hours attending courses with other people to add to my glass working skills.  It's all very pleasant working in my shed at the bottom of the garden with the cat for company but sometimes there is nothing like meeting new people and being in a workshop somewhere else exploring  new ideas and learning something new.

The end of July saw me on a train out of London and taking a whole weekend out in Bristol at the Creative Glass Guild exploring a workshop led by the interesting and encouraging Chris Ainslie.  While Chris's web site lists him as an engraver, which he certainly does excellently,  his interest in painting glass using enamels, silver stain and the usual glass paint is another of his areas of accomplishment that were explored over the two day sessions.  There are pictures that I need to post of the experiments carried out when I have had the opportunity to get them leaded and photographed but I am keen to share the information before August quickly turns into September.  I haven't said much about the techniques since it seems only fair that anyone interested should have a look at the courses for themselves.

What can I say, plenty of materials, everything ready, useful notes, a great pace so that we covered lots of techniques, freedom to explore and all held in a terrific clean and well equipped workshop surrounded by inspiring work from other artists.  The staff were friendly, we were supplied with copious amounts of tea and biscuits and I left with a real sense of achievement looking forward to revisiting some of my own painted work using the techniques covered in the workshop.

Of all the places to be and forget my camera.  Bristol looked fantastic with some of the first sun for at least three weeks.  Although travelling alone, there was a welcoming B&B The Greenhouse, (you get a discount if you are doing a glass course) some great places to eat The Souk Kitchen a long walk around the waterside area and the Olympic opening ceremony on the TV.  What more could be required?