Coming soon ……. Wonky Phone Productions in association with Real Artists Hands and Slightly Dodgy Lockdown Hair present Breakdown Your Palette the online workshop …..

Yes, after a restorative few months focusing on my art, I have started my next ‘big project’. I love teaching in my studio. I love demonstrating at shows. And I love giving talks. But I hate having my photo taken and the thought of standing in front a video camera has me running for the gin. So I have been putting off creating online workshops until now. But here I am.

It is a very steep ‘learning curve’. There is lots of help out there and I’m grateful to all the textile tutors who have shared their experiences. For the first time ever I am also grateful for uTube. And it seems that if you have an iphone / ipad / mac then iMovies makes it all fairly seamless.

Hmm …. if only. I dusted off my old laptap. Which started making the most horrendous grinding noise as soon as I googled ‘video editing’. I have found it a comfy corner to live out its days and moved my PC to the centre of my studio. Good job the studio is currently closed as I have cables running everywhere!!! Turns out that the webcam on my PC is rubbish. My rather old android phone has a great camera. And works with Zoom for live streaming. But I can’t find any combination of bits of software / settings that allows me to use it to record video via my multicam capture software. So I am now the proud owner of two decent quality webcams. And a serious boom arm to allow me to shoot from above my print bench.

I starting making short test clips and used them to learn how to use my editing software. Let’s just say that it is a good thing that I don’t have a swear box in my studio. My family are staying well clear …..

But I am making progress. The workshop will be an online version of the five day class I teach in my studio. It is going to be split over eight units each containing downloadable PDFs and videos (about 30 of them in total!). I’m just not brave enough to do a ‘live’ workshop but will be providing support via a private Facebook group and email. And will run monthly Q&A sessions via Zoom. I’m hoping to have it ready for early March and will share more details soon.

In the meantime, if you hear somebody crying whilst banging their head against their PC it will be me.

Leah x