Wise Women Bookmarks

It is only a few weeks to the Annual Exhibition of my local Embroiderer's Guild. I have been spending time finishing off my entries including these Wise Women bookmarks. I have made a total of 12 of these beaded bookmarks. They are easy to make and I get to use up all my odd left over beads.

Mosaic cards

Last week was the monthly meeting of the Paper Ars group I belong to. We made paper mosaics from handmade papers we had completed in the past. I really enjoyed doing it so when I got home I made some additional sheets of mosaics. The method is to cut the handmade paper into strips and place the strips on jac paper (double sided sticky paper) and then glue strips of cord beween the strips of paper (or paint from a tube with a fine tip point). When this is dry cut the strips in the opposite direction and then place these strips with the other side of the sticky paper removed onto card and again put strips of cord or paint between strips of paper.

After I completed the sheets of moasics I then cut out shapes and made these cards . I was very happy with the result. Hope you like them

ATC Swap

Today I received two very beautiful ATC's from Solange Bonnet and they came beautifully wrapped (see picture 3). I really love them both - the colours are lovely , as is the design and the quality of the work is outstanding. Thank you so much Solange. I love them

Journalling pages

I have been experimenting with journalling and here are my first attempts. I am not especially happy with the results as they really don't tell you very much. I like the colours but I would also like them to speak out with a story and they do not do this. Next time maybe.

Stencils

As part of the course I am doing I had to make a stencil. To do this I downloaded a photo of a wrought iron window grill and printed it out. I then cut around the part of the picture I wanted to use and then traced that onto freezer paper. Once the stencil was made I placed it on black paper and sprayed it with Moon Shadow Mist (see the second picture). I also used the stencil for other activities and when I was finished it looked almost like wrought iron itself. I then rubbed it with oil pastels, more spraying and goldfinger rub on. Finally I found the white backing of an old dinner napkin that I had used to soak up left over paint and put it under the stencil. This is the finished stencil in picture one. I thought they both finished up quite well although they look quite different from each other.

Collage Patisseries

I love taking photos of the patisserie shop windows in Paris and have been experimenting with using them as a basis for my art work. This collage was made using magazine pages cut into small pieces and glued to make the pastries. The background was done with soft pastels, shaded in to give perspective and depth. I was quite pleased with end result.

Background for Embroidery

Another of my projects over the past couple of weeks has been to make this background. I painted a piece of Vsieflix (Bondaweb) with acrylic paint and when it was dry ironed it to a piece of dark purple felt. I then took pieces of different coloured organza and cut them into strips and turned the heat gun on them to distort into small and odd shapes. I then arranged them on the vsieflix and ironed them on. I then covered all this with a piece of white organza. Then I used the heat gun to burn back the white organza. Finally I ironed a chiffon scarf over the top. I have yet to decide exactly what embroidery I will do but I think it will be a landscape type of thing.

Birds

Here is a piece of work I did for my creative sketchbooks course. It is a collage made using my hand coloured paper torn up into little pieces. I drew the birds on paper and used Japanese brush and inks to paint the branches. Then I glued the coloured pieces of paper onto the drawings. It was a really good thing to do and I am going to take this idea further in the next few weeks.

Faux Encaustic ATCs

Now that my digital camera has returned from its trip to England (along with my husband) I have been busy taking photos of things I have done over the last couple of weeks. One of these is making ATCs using the faux encaustic technique by covering the bottom of an old iron with aluminium foil and drawing on the foil with wax crayons.

A few weeks ago our Paper Arts Group had experimented with this technique and I decided to do more, this time, on black paper to see the effect. Here is the finished product.

More Necklaces

I have also been busy making coloured papers but I cannot show any at the moment because my husband has gone to England for a couple of weeks and taken the digital camera with him. I shall have to wait until he returns before I can photograph and then post them. In the meantime here are several more of the necklaces I have been making.

The day Doreen and I went to Bredbo to take pictures (see my earlier blog a couple of months back) we took lots of them (of course). Here are two more.

More necklaces

I have been busy making beaded necklaces for the last few weeks. These are just three of them. I have managed to sell a few and, given a few away to family (my daughter and grandaughter). I am planning to enter some in this year's annual exhibition of my local Embroiderer's Guild. I love getting the beads together choosing which beads go to make necklaces that are so different from each others even though the technique remains the same. It is very interesting to see how a change of bead size, shape and colour can make an original necklace.

Mythical Creatures

This little creature is one I drew for the drawing class I am attending. We were asked to draw a mythical creature and I decided I would do an underwater creature. After drawing we were asked to colour it. I used my Koh I Nor watercolours. I love these paints as their colours are so beautiful and the clarity of the colour is outstanding. I really enjoyed this activity and can see how they might be used in my textile work.

Beading

In addition to my felting and dyeing I have had a blitz on making beaded necklaces. So far I have made six. These photos show two of them. I will add the others to the blog shortly.

Dyeing and Felting

I am participating in the Creative Challenge for the Canberra Embroiderer's Guild annual exhibition later this year. The brief for the challenge is to use running stitch on a piece of fabric no large than fat quarter size to make a three dimension item. I have dyed two pieces of silk georgette, one of which I then felted (see Picture One). I based the colour scheme on the Australian King Parrot which has distinctive colouring of almost irridescent green head and wings and a bright scarlet body. I now have to do the stitching and turn it into something - I think I will make a bag. I still have to decide what I will do with the second piece of fabric which is not yet felted. Maybe I could make a nice scarf to go with the bag.

Creative Sketchbooks

Part of my most recent work for this course was to draw several sketches from a plant source. This is my work. (pictures 1 and 2 show my sketches) and picture 3 is an image of the original eucalyptus leaves and nuts. This course is really interesting and challenging but doesn't make you feel that you cannot do it. I know my drawing has to improve but nonetheless I feel this was a reasonable attempt for a learner.

Preserving

My husband Alf is a keen vegetable grower and here is his latest lot of tomatoes, capsicums and zucchini - turned into a sauce and preserved for winter. Don't they look good - it makes you want winter to arrive quickly - which in Australia it is not far away.

Photo expedition with Doreen

Doreen has already written in her blog Creative Meanderings about the really lovely day we had at Bredbo taking photographs. You can see Doreen here along with my photos of fences. I had a fixation on them that day. They really are good means to provide perspective in a picture. I hope to do an embroidery with a fence in it. Bredbo is a small town about an hour's drive from Canberra an although so so dry as you can see from these pictures the ambience was beautiful. So quiet, just the sounds of birds and a lovely light breeze blowing and the warmth of autumn in the air. Doreen bought a delicious salad for lunch. It was a great day.

New Papers

Part of the Creative Sketchbooks course I am doing is to create some papers made from brown paper and watercolour paint. This is what I managed to do. I was very happy with the outcome and it has given me some food for thought about how to take this technique further. I feel I am beginning to get back on track and have a number of ideas bubbling away in my head for further experimentation.

Tassels

Aren't these tassels just fantastic. So beautifully made and elegant in look and colour. I just love them. I wish I could have bought them all home with me. Oh well, it was lovely to look at them.

Apples and Pears and Biodiversity

When in France at the end of last year we visited Liz and Peter Maidment (see her blog at http://lizzie-artembroidery.blogspot.com/ and they kindly took us to an apple fair where there was a display of heritage apples and pears. There were over 400 varieties of apples and 200 of pears (I think). The first picture above shows a few of the pears. The picture in the middle shows apples (this one with red flesh - I wonder whether the wicked stepmother in Sleeping Beauty would have liked one of those). The final picture shows one of the tables of apples. After the fair we came back to Liz and Peter's place and had an apple tasting (alright I admit we also tasted some wine) and it was really interesting to taste the difference in the apples. I think farmers who preserve the old varieties of fruit and vegetables are doing the world a real service.