Inspiring batik workshop with Jenny O’Leary

It was such a lovely summer’s day for Jenny’s batik workshop and so exciting for us all to be back together again without all the restraints of the last two years.

Jenny arrived with her car ladened with tissue papers, PVA, brushes, various mark making implements and large containers for melting the wax.

Our first project was to layer up tissue papers trapping other colours and shapes between and this was obviously a technique which could then be used in various ways using wax and drawing inks. Then we went on to use stencils and a “secret spray” – it was fun to see the effect when you flipped it and created a positive and negative design.

We used stencils and various mark making tools and implements to create more samples.

We all enjoyed a picnic lunch outside before returning to more challenges.

When we had a number of samples to choose from, we were encouraged to create a collage and it was interesting to see what designs could be achieved. Below is a selection of members work.

Thank you Jenny for a most enjoyable day and for being so generous with all your techniques.

Report by Ros

Photos by Vernice and Ros

Jenny’s website: https://jennyolearytextiles.com/

Jenny’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/jennyolearytextileart/

Jenny can also be found on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenny.oleary/?hl=en

Exciting batik & textile artist, Jenny O’Leary

Jenny was our guest speaker for our June meeting. She explained that she had studied ceramics at Wolverhampton and then gone on to teach. In 2005 she stopped, went to France and started running courses for adults to learn batik using tissue paper.

The countryside around her has always been important to Jenny and she showed us two pieces which were inspired by the Shropshire Way. The work of John Piper has also interested her and she showed us several architectural designs influenced by his paintings.

Jenny displayed a variety of her work and talked through the processes. There were exciting sketchbooks to look through together with samples, workshop ideas and experiments.

Jenny was extremely generous with sharing her technique of using tissue papers, drawing inks, oil pastels with stencils and wax. She layers up her work and repeats the processes until she is happy with the design and colours.

Jenny has run a number of courses at Art Van Go and mentioned that a lot of her materials can be bought through their website.

During the pandemic she also lead a number of online classes and has contributed to Maggie Grey’s WOW series of textile project books.