DVD REVIEW: MAKING YOUR MARK WITH CLAIRE BENN & LESLIE MORGAN

If you want to take up surface design but don't want to buy every book and DVD out there (er, does that sound like me?!), buy Making Your Mark.  Sorry scrap that.  Forget the reasons, just rush to Amazon or Claire and Leslie's website and buy this book.  You won't regret it, not for a single infinitesimal moment,  Yep I love it!

Leslie and Claire are known collectively as Committed to Cloth and what I like about them is that they are serious about what they do.  Go take a look at their website and see where they work and what other books and DVDs they have.

Making your Mark is a straight forward 52 page instruction book about making marks on fabric, by printing, stamping, doodling, writing etc, using a variety of tools.  In addition, the 52 page book comes with an 2 hour instructional dvd.  Actually I guess the DVD comes with a book.  On the dvd Claire and Leslie demonstrate mark making and you can't help but be enthused by their approach.  There is none of that awful time filling stuff on this dvd either, no product placement that goes on forever.  They show you what tools they use and then get on with using them.  If you buy the book/DVD it costs £22.50 on their website (link here) but they also have a list on their site, of people who stock their books in the US, Australia etc.

There are no projects on this DVD, so if you need your hand held you may have to just try and directly copy what they do to start off, but it is so inspiring I think most people would just want to grab their dyes and get on with it.

The final reason why I love the DVD is that a lot of artists are slightly awkward in front of the camera but both Leslie and Claire are quite natural.   

Now not to get myself too excited, but I have two more Committed To Cloth book DVD combos that I haven't watched yet.  How lucky am I?!