Thursday for Tips and Techniques

I nearly forgot to blog today.  I still cannot get my head round what day it is after a brilliant very intense two days at the Groovi Retreat, followed by a two day bank holiday.

I have not long got back from our fortnightly meeting of Bromsgrove Parchers, where we are all working on a new project together, helping each other.  One of the important techniques entailed trying to improve our embossing.  It is possible to get very white white work quite quickly BUT it never really looks as good as it could.

Parchment craft is not a speedy craft if you want it to look good.  In this country, we are fortunate to have Linda Williams, one of only two Master Tutors in the world, who is generous enough to share her skills and knowledge with the rest of us.  Having been fortunate enough to have the benefit of her teaching for the two day retreat, I thought I would revisit the subject of embossing.

One thing that Linda said to us was that if we "finished" the piece we were working on within a couple of days, we would have done it wrong.  It should take us at least a week to get it right.  If you are impatient to get work finished, then what you need to do is to start five or six pieces at once.  By doing that, you have the chance to play a little every day, without rushing it.  If you start a new piece each day, that will keep you busy.  By the end of a week, you could have several really good pieces of parchment work ready to mount and give to your friends and family.

When I got back from the retreat, I was desperate to get to work, so I started two more pieces using the same plates.  (I cannot show pictures until the plates are officially launched on 2nd May.  It is only polite to allow Linda to show her creations herself.)  That allowed me to refresh the knowledge I had been given, but still avoid over working the original.  It did take me just over a week to complete the embossing, five or six times with the No 6 ball tool, before using the No 4.5 ball tool three times.  Then finally using the No 3 ball tool to add the final highlights, using it gently on two consecutive days.  After that, I felt that I was coming close to what Linda wanted from us.  I felt proud of my achievement.

If you can afford it, I suggest you treat yourself to the Pergamano pink embossing mat.  It will help you to better embossing if you are a bit heavy handed.  If you cannot afford it yet, one tip that seems to help, is to put a plastic bag between the soft side of the black mat and the parchment and emboss over that.

In the end, you need to train yourself to be more patient and softer with your embossing and colouring too.  You will be happy with your results, I promise you.

This has been a rather rambling post, for which I apologise, but I hope it will show you that you need to relax and take things slowly.