Make your own wooden artwork? This is how a workshop at the atelier works

Making your own wooden artwork is entirely possible, even if today is the first time you hold a piece of walnut. In a half-day workshop of about three to four hours you create your own wall object in solid wood, guided by a maker, and at the end of the afternoon you take it home, finished and ready.

At Wonder by Wood a series of workshops is in the making, in 't Gooi near Amsterdam. Artist Nadine Smeding, who designs and makes all of her wooden artworks from start to finish in her atelier in Bussum, takes small groups into her craft: sawing, sanding, finishing, and above all learning to look and feel the way a maker does.

What do you make during the workshop?

Participants create their own version of Foss, the work that has found its way from the atelier onto many walls. Foss means waterfall in Icelandic: wooden objects in droplet and stone form that together become a small landscape on the wall. This work lends itself beautifully to a half day. Each object is a manageable size, around 22 centimetres, and the result is a fully fledged artwork rather than a practice piece.

You choose your own wood, solid walnut or oak, the same wood used in the atelier. At home you hang the objects with a magnetic system, so you can keep rearranging the composition and expand it later.

How the half day unfolds

1. Getting to know the wood

Every workshop starts with the material: how to read the grain of walnut and oak, why the direction of the fibres determines how you saw and sand, and how to choose wood that suits you.

2. Sawing and sanding

Then you set to work yourself. Every step is calmly demonstrated first, then it is your turn, with guidance at arm's length. The forms of Foss are forgiving: small deviations are exactly what make your objects personal.

3. Finishing

Sanding in ever finer steps until the wood feels silky soft, and then the finishing layer that brings out the grain of the wood. This is the moment most participants fall silent.

4. Composing

Finally you lay out your objects in composition: form beside form, shadow beside shadow. You take the hanging system and instructions home with you, so your work can be on your wall that same day.

Who is a wood workshop for?

For everyone who loves working with their hands: on your own, with a friend, as an outing with your mother or daughter, or as an original team event. All tools and materials are laid out ready, every step is demonstrated, and the groups deliberately stay small, so there is plenty of room for personal attention. Enthusiasm is the only requirement.

Workshops in 't Gooi

The workshops take place in 't Gooi, in the area around Bussum, a short distance from Hilversum, Naarden, Laren, Blaricum and Huizen, and easy to reach from Amsterdam and Utrecht. The exact location will be announced together with the first dates. If you would like to soak up the atmosphere first: the atelier in Bussum is open by appointment for a private viewing.

Want to be the first to choose a spot?

The first dates are being planned right now. On the workshop page you can join the interest list, free and entirely without obligation: you will be the first to hear when the calendar opens and the first to choose a spot. Adding your town or city helps in choosing the final location.