In June Texatelier had the fantastic opportunity to work with two brilliant students. A renowned fashion designer, and a professional UK artist living in the locale and tutor Nikola became firm friends from the outset and the 3 day workshop extended into 5 and then with one of them staying on to use the Texatelier studios for an extra 3 days afterwards to continue with the research she had begun during the workshop.
Jennifer had flown in to stay in Benfeita village for 2 weeks and immerse herself in the local life there and to begin her journey in the textile arts arena before moving onto a 2 month arts residency in Lisbon.
Kitty a professional fine artist, attended the course to glean textile techniques and ideas to use in her ongoing artwork.
The culmination of these two working together under the tutelage of Nikola provided an intense and thrilling workshop experience which was infectious and exciting, (so much so it was all extended!)
New friends a lunch.
Nikola also has been involved in November in a group exhibition in Coimbra at the Casa do Mutualidade, exhibiting alongside members of the arts collective “Otherworlds”. Showing some of her recents collage creations developed through the workshops she teaches.
Although 2025 has been a rather lean year at TexAtelier for various difficult personal reasons it has been also one of the most rewarding in terms of making strong connections with enthusiastic students of like minds.
2026 courses are already beginning to fill and Texatelier is looking forward to what the New Year holds. In April 4 students arrive for a week of mixed media collage and Indigo with shibori, this proves to be very exciting as they are all firm friends and want to support one another on their artistic journeys.
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year with lots of artistic endeavour.
Hoping your creative endeavours are bearing fruit and that you are still excited to build upon your skills. Maybe we can help!
At Texatelier studios this year we are hosting 2 different exciting creative textile courses.
In May, 9th -11th there will be a chance to join us for 3 days of mixed media textile collage.
This includes working with dyes, paints and print media in a free and experimental way to create samples for other creative projects, culminating in art works, and art cards for yourself or gifts for others.
By initially creating a stock of experimental personalised papers and fabric samples which you will then proceed to use in a variety of collage techniques.
Nikola will guide you through various processes where you will learn:-
How create your own simple print blocks for making fabulous, interesting prints,
A variety of printing methods including block, stencil and gelli plate printing.
The importance of layering and the building up of surfaces to make your samples really special.
Composition and how to create balance in your work
Colour theory
How to work in mixed media
In July, 10th-13th we are hosting `PLAYING WITH NATURE’S COLOURS`
A week of natural dyeing with plant colour. It is not necessary to attend all the workshops but the course has been designed to link all the techniques in one block so you go away with a huge amount of knowledge of the colour that can be derived from our natural environment.
You will learn:-
Day 1
How to set up a natural Indigo vat using the Michel Garcia 1/2/3 method and create fabulous personalised fabrics for your sewing projects, napkins, cushion covers and up cycled preloved clothing
During the morning you will create your shibori samples using stitch, wrapping, folding and clamping.
In the afternoon when our vat is ready you will dye the samples and unpick/unwrap to reveal your exquisite resist patterns on the cloth.
Day 2
How to make and use mordants and their importance in achieving your desired colours
Natural dyeing with five different plant colours on cloth and yarn in combination with mordants to achieve a huge variety of colours
Over-dyeing using the different dye vats created previously
Day 3
Rust dyeing using oxides and tannins and overdyeing with indigo to create extraordinary cloth and papers with deep colouration, layering and patterns
Day 4
Botanical eco printing on paper and cloth using steam bundling techniques.
You will create stunning cloth and papers with leaves and flowers, that you can use for your sewing projects, book covers, artworks, art cards, and even your preloved clothing brought back to life full of lovely prints from nature!
Each day costs 80 euros per person per day. This includes all basic materials, refreshments all day and a lovely vegetarian lunch (for a small donation.)
Hello and Happy New Year to all of you textile enthusiasts I thought I would tell you more a little more about myself….and let you know about an exciting new 3 day course I am running this year in Portugal.
I have been teaching textiles for 35 years and since leaving the state education system in the U.K. and moving to Europe in 2005, I set up Texatelier teaching small groups of students from all over the globe and in a variety of locations about the wonderful and diverse world of textiles.
I taught myself how to use plants to create colour on cloth as I wanted to create textiles with fabulous colours while using less polluting methods of colouration than with chemical dyes.
My textiles specialism is surface pattern and particularly natural dyeing with plant colour, indigo and shibori, botanical printing, print and paint on cloth and paper, batik, and mixed media collage and assemblage on cloth and paper.
Our current studio is high up overlooking the river, and is set in the foothills of the Serra dos Açors, 1 km from the lovely and lively schist village of Benfeita in Beira Literal, Central Portugal.
The village has a small local shop, two cafes and a restaurant and lots of affordable accommodation mostly in the form of Airbnb.
Coja is the nearest small town 6kms away with everything that one could need.
The area is largely unspoilt and the landscape dramatic with wonderful walks and glorious mountains to explore. We are just on the edge of a natural park of chestnut forest called the “Mata de Margarança” and the extraordinary waterfalls of Fraga da Peña, where the wild swimming is thrilling! This is an area where many people live off grid (as we do) and use the earths natural resources for power, making for a highly sustainable lifestyle.
As you know I run all sorts of textiles courses including all the techniques mentioned above and more.
The reason I am so excited about this is because currently nearly all my art work is made using mixed media collage and I have never actually hosted a commercial workshop using this method!
So alongside the more obvious ways to create collage and assemblage I hope to be able to share with you some of my special techniques and secrets.
As a sneak preview; It will include creating your own stock of papers, card, fabrics and threads to work with using all sorts of painting and printing techniques.
This collection of samples will be used to assemble using collage, small artworks, cards, and textile pieces with glue, stitch, staples and even screws and nails!
It will be a fun but challenging workshop focusing on colour, pattern and composItion.
It is a workshop for any level of student aiming to build confidence and of course art/textile skills.
I really hope this is of interest to you, thanks for reading and maybe see some of you in Portugal!
Our current studio is high up overlooking the river below, and is set in the foothills of the Serra dos Açors, 1 km from the lovely and lively schist village of Benfeita in Beira Literal, Central Portugal.
We do not offer on site accommodation, so most students stay in the village of Benfeita, a short walk away where there are a few nice places to stay.
(Caso do Alto is an Airbnb in the village 1 km walk away and where many of our students have stayed and recommend, it is the nearest to our studio find it on bookings.com) but there are lots of others too.
The nearest town (6kms) is Coja a charming little town with many cafes, shops, restaurants, accommodation and a campsite, and everything else needed for a comfortable stay.
The nearest airport is Porto with easy bus transfers to a bus stop only 25 minutes away, at Catraia do Mouronho. Or there is a train to Coimbra (a lovely old University city) from Porto. From where you can pick up the bus to the same bus stop or take a taxi to us a 1/2 hour drive around 60kms away.
However to explore the magnificent landscape of the Serra do Açors, a car is recommended.
The area is largely unspoilt and the landscape dramatic with wonderful walks and glorious mountains to explore. We are just on the edge of a natural park of chestnut forest called the “Mata de Margarança” and the extraordinary waterfalls of Fraga da Peña, where the wild swimming is thrilling! This is an area where many people live off grid (as we do) and use the earth’s natural resources for power, making for a highly sustainable lifestyle.
Living life off grid has been and remains liberating and also challenging.
Forcing us to think and choose carefully how, when and why we use the resources that the sun and the river provide us with.
As permaculture advocates we try to use our resources in a cyclical style. The water that rain and river gives is captured and used for my dye pots. We grow many of the vegetables we eat and also the vegetation for use in my natural dyeing with plants, the exhausted plant matter from the dye pots goes on the compost which in turn feeds the garden. The water from the dye pots also waters the garden.
At Texatelier courses start at 10am and finish around 4pm. The minimum number of participants in a workshop is 2 & the maximum is 8. The fee is €80 per person per day
This includes all basic materials, a delicious vegetarian lunch (for a small donation) and refreshments all day long.
Other more special fabrics and scarves can be purchased at a small cost.
Hoping this gives you a good idea of what you might expect if you join us at ‘Texatelier Studios’ for a fabulous time of fun and exciting art textile experience, where you will leave with some beautiful personal art textile work and also having made new friends with similar interests and having experienced a slice of the real Portugal.
So far for this year we have four courses scheduled – one in Beauville at a generously lent and rather wonderful studio just outside our village, and three at our new studios in Portugal. All the details and booking information can be found on the main website here .
After the most horrible two years for all of us and when all my workshops were cancelled I am so very happy and excited to be teaching textiles again!
As an artist my teaching informs my practice and vice versa, both are intertwined and I really look forward to meeting and working with like minded textile enthusiasts…..so now I am back in my element working with people and really looking forward to this Summer. Texatelier is offering a broad variety of courses all based around surface pattern (the colouring and patterning of cloth and paper) and we hope there will be something for everyone, whether it is fabric collage, blockprinting, handpainting, natural dyeing with plant colour, eco printing or indigo with shibori.
If you are interested to join us and are coming from abroad with need of accomodation we can put you in touch with a variety of very friendly and reasonably priced Air B&B’s, close to our studio in Benfeita in Portugal. It is a beautiful part of the country in the foothills of the Serra do Acors. There is so much to see here with fabulous walks, cycling possibilities and wild river swimming, combined with the enjoyment of immersing yourself in exciting experimental textiles too.What could be more fun?
Hoping to meet and work with you this Summer. Let’s make it a good one and hope to see you soon.
Everything was lost last year: all courses were cancelled and my major commission with Wilberforce Trust put on hold for lack of fund-raising opportunities and possibilities.
But this summer I will be running safe, socially distanced small workshop groups from my new facility in Lot et Garonne (dept. 47) France.
The courses will be located in a hill-top ancient Bastide village not far from Agen. The details will be published soon and will be available here and on the main website – link above.
Walking the dog, I spend most of my time looking at my feet. Today I noticed the blossom (which was not at my feet) and a daisy.
There’s something about a singular item that always draws my attention, as well as the incongruity of human debris, something that is on the decline in these current times – thankfully for the planet.
I remember taking this picture when I came by to visit last month – it was a lunch date, before the “lock-down”, I came with the kids, we had grilled sardines and the boy’s spent most of their time chastising your new chickens! x Tex
‘Playing with Nature’s Colours’ : my course title for workshops in natural dyeing with plants, (leaves, flowers, roots and fruit), rust, (not only from iron/steel but other metalic oxidations as well) and eco-printing, (applying plants to textiles and paper to alter colour)
[A week-long residential course at a restored chateau in SW France – This course will appeal to textile lovers and gardeners alike. Participants will be patterning and colouring cloth and fibres using a range of natural techniques, creating bespoke samples and lengths. The course includes natural plant dyeing with different mordants, indigo dyeing with Japanese shibori resist, eco printing, rust dyeing, 15th-21st July 2020, see link below for more details]
Natural dyeing
Natural dyes are dyes or colourants derived from plants, invertebrates, or minerals. The majority of natural dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources—roots, berries, bark, leaves, and wood—and other biological sources such as fungi and lichens.
Archaeologists have found evidence of textile dyeing dating back to the Neolithic period. In China, dyeing with plants, barks and insects has been traced back more than 5,000 years. The essential process of dyeing changed little over time. Typically, the dye material is put in a pot of water and then the textiles to be dyed are added to the pot, which is heated and stirred until the color is transferred. Many natural dyes require the use of chemicals called mordants to bind the dye to the textile fibres; tannin from oak galls, salt, natural alum, vinegar, and ammonia from stale urine were used by early dyers. Many mordants, and some dyes themselves, produce strong odors, and large-scale dyeworks were often isolated in their own districts.
“Dyed in the wool” then spun.
Textile fibres may be dyed before spinning (“dyed in the wool”), but most textiles are “yarn-dyed” or “piece-dyed” after weaving.
Rust Dyeing/Printing
Indigo silk scarf over-dyed with rust transfer [N.O.]
Rust dyeing is a surface pattern method that adds depth to your fabrics and fibres. I use the technique mostly on cotton or silk fabrics also on wool although this can become a little brittle if rusted for too long. I also use cotton rag watercolour paper (for use in collage/bookmaking projects.) Natural fibres take the rust colours better than synthetic fibres. You can place or wrap rusty objects with wet fabric and develop rust patterns over time. However, vinegar and salt will speed up the rusting process, as it aids in the oxidation process. Rusting occurs normally due to oxidation, i.e. contact with the air. Rust dyeing with just water takes about a week and requires patience Whilst using vinegar and salt produces colour in less time usually twenty-four hours. Cloth and fibres must be washed thoroughly in detergent to remove the iron residue.
Eco Printing
At its root, eco contact printing refers to the act of directly applying plants to textiles to alter colour, apply colour and create interesting designs. “ Natural dyeing” is a component, as everything used is natural, such as flowers, leaves, bark, bugs, roots etc. and the use of different mordants to obtain different colours from the plants is also involved. It is straightforwardly a method of bundling leaves and other plants in fabric, and steaming the bundle(s) to print their natural pigments onto the fabric. The bundles must be tightly wrapped and tied so the fabric is in direct contact with the vegetable matter, using a piece of dowel can aid this process. The bundles can be simply steamed dyed in a dye bath to give extra colour. Using an iron blanket as a mordant (or another mordant) between the leaves etc. and the cloth to be dyed can create extraordinary and vibrant designs on the cloth. Bundles are steamed for up to an hour and best left unwrapped for at least 24 hours so the colour has a chance to penetrate the cloth fully.
If you want more details about my course Contact Gertrude and friends, all the information on this and other courses as well as the chateau are to be found there.
A kimono style jacket that has references to Boro cloth, using Shibori patterned and Indigo dyed pieces created in previous indigo workshops.
This summer at a crafts retreat with residential facilities at a restored chateau in, Aquitaine SW France, have invited me to teach some courses. One of the three courses I will lead is ‘Magical blue and Gold‘ ; Indigo, shibori and rust dyeing. It will be a combination course week looking at three related techniques that at least have one major connection in that they are all historic natural dyeing processes. The Kimono jacket is one of the ideas for something that the students may make as a way of contextualising their indigo, shibori and rust samples and experiments. Such an item, in other words, is the ‘walk-away-with’ product.
The Japanese term Boro can be roughly translated as ‘tattered’ and defines a genre of indigo dyed textiles ingeniously patched, pieced and mended throughout Japan from late C18 until the middle of the C20. It’s message of re-use and re-purposing aligns very much with what we, at Texatelier, are about.
Shibori “The inventive Art of Japanese shaped resist dyeing” Wada, Rice & Barton. The patterns which resist the dye when dipped in the dye vat are usually made on white cloth. The exquisite nature of the patterns are akin to an individual’s handwriting as no two hands can recreate the same pattern. Basic methods to create resist patterning include stitch, wrapping, clamping and knotting which can then be dyed in the natural indigo vat, after which they are untied or unstitched to reveal beautiful, intricate and inividual shibori resist patterns.
Sashiko stichingCollar detailKimono back
Sashiko is a form of decorative reinforcement stitching that started out of practical need during the Edo era. (The Edo period or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country’s 300 regional daimyō. [wikipedia])
Boro sample [V&A]Boro bag [V&A]
Tattered or repaired
Derived from the Japanese boroboro, meaning something tattered or repaired, boro refers to the practice of reworking and repairing textiles (often clothes or bedding) through piecing, patching and stitching, in order to extend their use. It is associated with the indigo-dyed hemp clothing traditional in Japan before the introduction of cotton. Worn areas of cloth are patched over or older garments cut up and joined, with running stitches or areas of sashiko (running stitches sewn through layers of fabric), used for reinforcement and to quilt layers of cloth together. This historical spirit informs the contemporary trend for ‘distressed’ or repaired-looking clothes. [From V&A]
Thrift and creativity
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, boro garments might be handed down through many generations of impoverished rural families, their making an expression of mottainai – conveying a sense of regret concerning waste. This is an extreme example of patchwork’s association with thrift, but, as in other textile traditions, the joining of pre-existing materials to create a new fabric has generated a highly distinctive cultural product. Today, boro textiles, often futon covers, are regarded as works of art and a cultural record of homespun cloths, dyes and techniques. The most heavily patched side of a boro panel, prized for its spontaneous and abstract qualities today, is often the back or inside of the piece, as more care was taken to arrange fabrics on the side that would be seen. [From V&A]
An “arashi” (polewrapped) shibori patterned and indigo dyed Thai silk scarf overdyed with rust.
The two dye stuffs, indigo and rust, represent what I describe as the “Magical Blue and Gold” that can be achieved on cloth. Beautiful and individual scarves are another of the “walk away with” outcomes that students on my courses will be able to create.
If you want more details about this course Contact Gertrude and friends, all the information on this and other courses as well as the chateau are to be found there.
I am happy to announce that my recent UK tour of Living Colour on Cloth, went really well. All the participants in workshops achieved some stunning results using Eco Printing and shibori resist with Indigo. It is always so good to meet and work with new people and hear their stories too. I am planning to hold some more UK workshops in the Autumn, details to follow.
Three weekends of Eco Textile Workshops with Nikola Orpen M.A.
Sat & Sun 23/24 March 2019 Chapel in the Garden – Bridport
Sat & Sun 30/31 March 2019 Mettingham Village Hall – Suffolk
Sat & Sun 6/7 April 2019St. James Centre, Stonesfield (near Witney and Woodstock) and “Hillcrest”, Islip road, Bletchingdon, OX 53DP
Day one
Indigo and Shibori (Japanese resist)
Students will learn how to make up an ORGANIC INDIGO SUGAR VAT (no
nasty chemicals) and using Japanese shibori techniques will create
exquisite and unique samples on cloth.
Day two A day of Eco Printing using flowers and leaves. Students will learn how to make beautiful prints and patterns on cloth and paper by capturing colours directly from nature using contact printing and steam. There will also be an opportunity to purchase some ‘special’ cloth and plain silk scarves to dyes. Please bring an apron, rubber gloves, fabric scissors, notebook and pen and any special (not synthetic) yarns or cloth of a neutral colour that you may like to use. Refreshments are provided all day, please bring something for lunch to share.
It is not necessary to attend both days but will be more
fulfilling if you do. Both courses are suitable for all levels.
A reservation is necessary as courses tend to book up quickly.
For more information and to secure your place with a £20 deposit per
day please ** email me** Nikola
By public subscription, your subscriptions, I have completed my three months of voluntary service in Ghana.
Thanks to your generous support for my ‘Out to Africa’ and ‘FaceBook musical challenge’ appeals, much, much, much … has been accomplished. I want to share it here with you and let you all know what you have really contributed to, for it wasn’t ‘me’, it was for the hope and direct development of real people with real fear and loathings …. real need and, in the end: real gratitude, that I am asked to pass on.
I’m going to lay it out as a simple list for ease of speedy reading – I’ll follow up with some pictures and minuté in later blogs.
As an overarching instrument I created a named initiative under the ‘INCOME’ and ‘Procom’ projects of the Ghanian NGO TradeAid, namely: “Procom Organic Vegetable Initiative” (POVI)
My role and aims were to educate and assist local farmers into organic farming methods and transitions ; the main reasons, simply stated,
increase income, and thus abrogate poverty
desist in detrimental and polluting activities with over use of costly synthetic farming chemicals
In three months I have, (but not without assistance):
set up two small test farms
conducted more than 20 ‘Farmer Field-school’ trainings – reaching four separate communities, thereby touching up-to 100 farming families, possibly as many as 400-450 individuals by DIRECT INTERVENTION.Delivery of key components by practical demonstration:
Natural and ‘fast’ composting methodologies
large volume composting pit methods
soil building
crop-specific compost and soil adjustment
non-chemical integrated pest management and
natural liquid pesticide manufacture and application
design, overseeing and monitoring of 6 large scale, triple pit composting chambers for the manufacture of up-to 3.000 liters per chamber-set per season of mature compost
manufacture of three free-standing compost ‘cubes’
membership and contribution to CAOF, an upper-east region organic farming coalition
production and sharing of more than 25 self-penned locally-aimed illustrated training documents, with the commencement of some translated into local dialect and language
networking
outreach and community liaison
4 detailed training films
all work photographically and film recorded and shared
creation of ‘dropboxes’ and web-sites and facebook pages
POVI farmers are: Anti Agri-Chem, Anti poison and Pollution, we are: ‘Forward and Towards Organacism’
Towards a cleaner, healthier, more valuable, non-polluting cropping methodology
Towards greater soil health, fertility and productivity
Towards a new ‘ethical’, sustainable farming practice
Towards a more fullfilling working practice for jobbing farmers
Towards greater and better quality yields for enhanced income, therefore: greater food security and decresed poverty for farming families.
Unlike some African countries Ghana does not have a particularly aggressive road-side sales culture. Then one meets the irresistible Melody whose charms had me smock-wearing in about 2 seconds, fully documented and the live-fed on FaceBook, to prove it.
I did look as good as she claimed in the traditional Ghanaian smock, but I didn’t buy. She was fine.
The real find of the day was in fact new friend Melody – She’s a real blast!
Another demonstration of 1 cubic meter of fast compost (30 days then ready for application)
I am encouraging these to be built everywhere as free-standing, readily available soil nutrition. The farmers are being taught to make them, and the take-up for the training is most frequently the women, who make them fast – 2 hours tops.
This is a ‘direct-action, lightening-strike’ intervention that has captured the imagination … compost can do that!
In some of the villages and farming communities that I am working with, we have constructed 6, three ‘tank’ , deep compost-pits from block work. Each chamber will hold upto 1,000L of finished compost – but compost that is a year in the making and maturing.
With the two types of compost generation we will be able to sustain huge annual land coverage and soil-building.
They call me ‘Compost-Man’ – I say fine …. but shouldn’t that be MR. Compost-Man?
Soil-regeneration by compost = Greater fertility, Higher yields, Decreased plant disease, Enhanced water-retention, Erosion eradication and Pollution abrogation … Where’s the down-side?
It’s all very well to get farmers, who didn’t really know how in the first place, to make all-organic general compost from the ‘wastes’ of their harvests and land clearing …. but to to transfer the fine-tunings of NPK, (Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium), took some very complex translation into Fra-Fra and, as such … one hell of a long afternoon!
I am struggling to plant up in the organic demonstration gardens in our Ghana P.O.V.I. Initiative – because …..
We can not gain easy access to heritage seed – we can find treated, hybrid, GMO anything and I can grow it organically but it won’t be ‘organic’ produce!
I am appealing to all and any who might have some supplies to help us out – ideally, of course, I need a West African source as the mailing and importation issues are somewhat of a challenge.
We are interested in growing any variety of the following crops: Tomato, carrot, chili pepper, okra and cabbage.
Ad-lib dance to the Compost – in Novrongo – Upper east region – Ghana. October 2016.
The first field school training for local farmers in our attempt to lure them towards sustainable organic farming experimentation and away from costly dependency on chemical fertilizers.
Since I arrived in September the progress is that:
I have made five site visits in the field, supervised two composting station layouts and the initial construction of one, visited and observed/recorded our two demonstration Farm/Garden sites and started all the planning and educational materials for the now defined and ‘plotted’ : Procom Organic Vegetable Initiative (P.O.V.I.)
I have also visited old friends at the basket-makers co-operative and gotten dragged into building cobbed rocket-stove cookers in one nearby village.
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