If you wanted to paint a portrait, you wouldn’t get started without the right tools. Canvas, paintbrushes and paint are all essential for success, so with these basics, you’d be well placed to begin. But no matter how good your technical skill, unless your tools were of excellent quality, you could easily end up with patchy areas of watery paint; bristles from the moulting brush caught everywhere, and an uneven finish thanks to the poor quality
canvas.
In order to do any job well, your tools are vital. The same rule applies when you’re mastering Tambour. You can’t hope to achieve the finish you want without a good quality Tambour practice frame, a smooth, made-for-purpose spool holder and, most important of all, the right hook.
Your Tambour hook is the tool which will ultimately drive your success with this technique. Although there are all kinds of hooks on the market, just like there are all kinds of paint brushes if you really want to experience the magical fluidity of Tambour you need to go back to the source. Tambour has been perfected by the ateliers of France and therefore it is no surprise that the best Tambour hooks you can buy are French. Because France is such a long way from Australia, and because the number of expert professional teachers in Australia is so small, trying to source the perfect French Tambour hook is incredibly difficult. However, because I know that your road to success will be opened by working with the best tools you can get, I’ve done the difficult job of sourcing exactly what is required and packaging it into a fully inclusive Beginner’s Tambour Kit.
When you purchase your kit, you can be assured that you will have everything you need to start your Tambour journey, confident in the knowledge that these tools will be the very best you can get. They will accompany you for many years as you develop and grow your skills. Included in the kit are your bread and butter essentials: a high-quality Tambour practice frame and spool holder, special tape and pins for dressing the frame and all of the materials you need to get started on your first piece. These include silk organza, the right thread, beads and French sequins, as well as PDF instructions on how to get everything prepared. And, of course, included in your kit will be your exquisitely crafted French Tambour Hook. From the minute you pick up this hook, you’ll feel how perfectly weighted it is in your hand and how comfortable it is to hold. This tool will be your constant companion from now on, and will remain with you all through your artistic journey.
The Beginners Tambour Kit represents your first step on the path to mastering Tambour. I’ve developed it to ensure that that step is not just confident, but taken in a style which will shape every step to come.