As a teacher and mentor, I am always very excited when my workshop attendees continue on with their craft and hone it after we have worked together. Especially when they share their projects with me. This newsletter is a celebration of some of those attendees!
I don’t know about you, but I do have many of my own UFOs (unfinished objects) at home. These are casualties of my good intentions. Victims of a lack of motivation to actually complete the project I started. It is sad, but it happens. I don’t like it, but I do understand. I don’t want that to happen with the students in my workshops.
This is why I want to celebrate the victories of completion of a project. This tells me that a workshop attendee is so excited about what they have learned that they want to finish the workshop project.
It tells me that I have succeeded as an instructor! My goal is to inspire others, grow their confidence in their own abilities. I want my attendees to learn new skills and embrace them.
I want them to learn enough to be motivated to continue on their own in their creative journey. I am always willing to add encouragement along the way, but I love it when my students prove that the techniques are working for them.
And when they share photos of their finished projects using the new techniques it makes me even more happy! It is confirmation that they confident enough to continue using their new skills on their own projects.
If this is something you would like to explore in your own creative journey, please book a free call and we can chat about how you can put that creative practice to work. Click the button below.
This first project is by Cheryl F in Florida. She took my 8-wk Get Pigment Confident (GPC) Challenge in 2021. Cheryl framed her finished piece and has it hanging in her studio. And, she is using pigments in more projects. She has promised to send me photos when she is done with them. I will love to see them!
The format of the 8-wk GPC Challenge gives me the opportunity to go into greater detail with my students. The Challenge covers info on pigments and techniques you can use to gain confidence in using pigments to color on fabric.
The format is flexible to fit a busy lifestyle. It consists of on-line material accessed through a web-based app. There are weekly Zoom team session meetings. There is also an on-line accountability group ask questions, post comments and feedback and post progress photos.
These three components work together very successfully to ensure the opportunity to learn and do. It even allows attendees from all over the globe!
Here is what Cheryl said about the Challenge:
“I would recommend this course because of the teacher you are! Your course is informative and you are highly motivated. You are knowledgeable and you share your skills and the lessons you have learnt along your journey. I love 
working with inktense pencils now and other pigments. You have taken the fear of the unknown and replaced it with confidence of trying something new. Yes it’s wonderful to see those pigments dance! Watch out, I’m coming with renewed confidence!”
– Cheryl F. Florida (2021 GPC Challenge)
This project, called “Winter Scene”, was made by Yvonne G in Colorado. Yvonne attended one of my in-person 1-day Confetti/Collage Landscape workshops. She loved it very much and became interested in learning more about using pigments to color on fabric. She participated in my very first GPC Challenges in 2020.
Her project uses both the Confetti/Collage techniques as well as Pigments and Applique. Don’t you love how it came out? This was her goal from the Challenge.
Here is what Yvonne had to say about the GPC Challenge:
“… My biggest fear in doing the challenge was that I wouldn’t understand the art concepts. But Rhonda started everyone out on the same playing field regardless of backgrounds, which made me feel safe. The other fear I had was using pigments in the challenge, … again, I felt safe with Rhonda’s approach and how to experiment with them.
… I overcame the fears I expressed by experimenting and following Rhonda’s guidelines. I honestly didn’t think I could do the challenge with any success. But my success started with trying and following through with my commitment. I now believe, with experimentation, I can use pigments on fabric with more confidence…
My encouragement to anyone is to try it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I am an example of everything to gain!”
– Yvonne G. CO (2019 Confetti Wkshp & 2020 GPC Challenge)
| By the way, I will be starting another 8-wk GPC Challenge in 2 weeks. Now is the time to think about attending! Book a call with me and we can figure out if this is a fit for you. If it is not, then I would be happy to make some other recommendations for you. |
This next completed project photo is from my 1-day Pigment Patchwork workshop that I did in Kyiv, Ukraine, in September 2019. Natalia S was so excited about her piece that she went home and finished it and brought it to show me the last evening i was in Kyiv. She was so proud of what she was able to accomplish!
I had a wonderful interpreter, Maria Nelga, who translated each of the four workshops I taught in Kyiv, Ukraine. It helped that she was the President of the Ukrainian Quilters Association and understood quilting concepts. Maria said that quilting is a language of its own and helps bond all of us together!
I would love to be a part of your creative journey! Want more confidence in your skills? Want to learn new techniques to enrich your creative voice? Want to overcome self-doubt or fear with using pigments to color on fabric? I can help. Click on the button below and let’s talk about where you want to go in terms of expressing yourself in your art quilts.
Until next time.
Take care