Metallic inchies for Jan

Here are my metallic inchies for Jan. I used gold taffeta for the background, tyvek and copper paint, paper beads, beading, sequins and sequin waste, wire, the soldering iron to burn holes in organza, and free machining. It's amazing how many elements you can cram on to 3" square! Loved doing these but then they are for Jan and so are a labour of love, we have such similar taste. Hope you like Jan.

Mandala started

I joined Sue's new group the Artist's muse, which is a group to discuss this book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Artists-Muse-Unlock-Door-Creativity/dp/1581808755/ref=sr_1_2/026-2582997-8287635?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176471644&sr=8-2

I don't have it yet as am waiting till pay day! I will be ordering it this week no doubt. Anyway to the point the first chapter is available to read on the online viewer at amazon and discusses the use of Mandala's. I have looked into these quite a lot and found that people use them as a form of personal expression. They originate in India and are used in Buddism for meditation. Now the group decided on a theme of either Worls peace or friendship. Since the internet and yahoo groups has such a masive effect on my development as an artist andon a personal level I chose friendship. So I made a start with Acrylics on calico. I decided on this split complementary colour scheme, to represent the way frienships have common interests and views but then the ability to have an apposing views and opinions are needed and safe within a frienship. I could have chosen any split scheme but I decided on red, orange and green as the contrast. I chose these as they also represent my place in the friendship, as they are two of the colours in the Welsh flag, the colours I think of as the colours of my country. I have also decided to add some weaving to represent the sharing and support that friendships give. I have lots of work left to do on it but I feel compelled to work on this and this speaks volumes about the personal significance of mandala's. i want to thank Sue for helping me with brainstorming how i will symbolise some of these key words. Thanks Sue.

Inchie's from Lynda

I recieved my inchies from Lynda of Purple Missus blog today. The colour I chose was purple and turquoise.They are so beautiful, and the variety of techniques are just astonishing for nine inches square. Not only did she send the inchies but she also sent me a duplicate of each attatched to a tag with an explanation of each technique on them. I will be taking these to school to inspire my pupils and I know that they will be inspired. Thanks so much Lynda I am very grateful.

On the me work front I have had a productive few days I have been working on some things that need to stay hush hush for now as I have been trying them out for my next challenge on TC. I have also been dyeing some paper for my C+G course work tonight and then with the left over dye I dyed some paper napkins. Our next project for C+G is colour and I have some postcards for the surface design group on a colour theory theme. It took all night but I think I got a lot done.

Doors finally worked!!!

Tonight I finally got time to work on my doors. I have only done the first, but I think the rest will come more quickly now I know what I am doing. I am so pleased with it as it is exactly how I have imagined in my head. We have had an interesting debate on Textile challenges this week about how we work and arrive at an idea, started by Leanne. This idea, though some thumbnail sketches have been made in my sketch book (which is taken apart so I can colour up all the pages!) I couldn't actually draw this piece. It is all about the surface and the texture and the sublty of the coloue for me. I rubbed the foil back with a brush to show a bit more of the sparkle of it through the emulsion. Other than that it is just the free machining. Just what's behind the door left now.

Lynda's inchie's

Lynda wanted black and white for her inchies and I had a blast doing them. The first thing I found the day we saw the peacock (regular blog readers may remember him) It was a black and white spotted guinea foul feather. I decided to felt this into a kunin felt inchie. I had a needle felt hand tool for my birthday last year and haven't really used it. I then made the centre of this felting into a nest and added a white bead egg! I did some of the stitches we did on tast and on some I decided to use the VCH emulsion technique in honour of Lynda who has trialled this on her blog. I stitched first then painted with emulsion and when dry with ink, but it all went a sluggy grey so I painted it with black acrylic and then highlighted with emulsion. It was great fun, and I loved making these.

1" art squares - Inchie's - for Judy

Here are the 1st of my 1" art squares for a trade on my group textile challenges. Judy asked for bright pink, and I was in luck! In school we dye fabric 4 times a year with year 8, I use cyan, yellow and magenta for tie dye and we colour mix. So left over from the last one I had a piece of cotton half bright pink and half turquoise ( I know Judy loves this combination as it features strongly in her work). On these i have managed to pack in a lot. Paper casting with solvy in the bottom left hand corner, Middle left is stitching and painting with emulsion and then with pink ink! Then highlighting with silver. The top right square has fabric and fabric mesh ribbon beads ( fullfilling the TC bead challenge for this month too!) There is also a bit of felt melting and printing too, and brads and beads of course. I thought I might have been squared out but I have really enjoyed these. I am nearly finished with Lynda's black and white set, just a couple more beads to add.

Easter eggs

I saw this little tool on Sara Letchners blog. I had fun playing with it. Here are two of the results.

One very happy little girl

My Mum came over yesterday to buy Ellie an Easter pressy (limiting the chocolate!!!). So we set off for Swansea to buy a barbie and look what we came back with!!!!



We now have one very happy little girl. Spotty as she is now known (Don't I have a creative daughter!!!) has a pink lead and gets to wander the garden with said happy girl. I think it is Granny's perogative to totally spoil granddaughters!
Happy Easter!

New header and "Blogger Angel"

Hi all, I want to tell you about the fabulous tutorial by Brenda on how to personalise your banner on you blog. The tutorial is here:
http://serendipitypatchwork.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-create-personal-blog-banner.html
Not only is the tutorial really simple, but as I am a proper techno learner I needed some extra help and I emailed Brenda. Having never met me before she held my hand through about 8 emails and coped with my official "thicky" status with aplomb! Thank you Brenda for your time and patients I am most grateful as it is something I have been trying to work out for sometime and I am ecstatic at the finished result. I am most grateful "blogger angel".

Doors challenge and C+G project 2

So no rest for the wicked! On to project 2 - Boundaries. Based on a FAT journal quilt challenge that I have submitted to QA magazine (see previous post) I made "The devil's in the details journal quilt and I researched the deadly sins. So when boundaries came up as a task I decided to do spiritual boundaries - How far will you go? I have done a lot of research into the sins and found they were links to both animal and colours for each sin. So my JQ became a sample and i decided based on the Doors and windows challenge on Textile challenges to do the doors to each sin. I knew what would do behind each door but had no idea what to do for the doors. So after looking at Rodin's gates to hell sculpture and a number of other works I decided on a gothic door. The sketch shows what I am aiming for and the other pic is of the background so far. This is my first proper mixed media piece I have used tissue and silver foil on to pelmet vilene. I stamped the top piece with a fluer de lis paper punch and stitched it on and stitched on the steps at the bottom. I printed the hands with a rubber stamp onto hand made paper and then put them under the layer of tissue and put a wash of cream emulsion over the lot. I wanted the hands to look like sinners were trying to get out! I have to put the detail in with stitch next!
As this is my first go at this I would love to know what you think, do you think it looks ok?

Water hanging - finally done

I finally finished the water hanging and what an epic it has been. I have been working on it since september! Never mind I think it has been worth it. i still have the slips to do and the button hole bars to scatter over the surface so that people can alter the appearance of the piece. I have sewn them but have the hooks and button hole bars to do. I will re photograph when I have it hanging, I am going to put it up in my classroom, as I have nowhere else to store it. It was designed for a large display space and is 3 m long.

I have been starting on my Doors to hell project, and have been laying up paper and emulsion onto pelmet vilene. I have all the pieces ready now , and need to put them together. Hopefully this will start to take shape this week, but ii must mark my GCSE coursework too, and i have Ellie home from nursery this week and next so how much I get done will be a mistery.

Peacocks and beads

I made these paper beads for my hanging and i thought I would mention how I made them. I layed up paper with PVA watered down and then scrumpled a piece of tissue and let it fall on the PVA, then smooth out with a wet brush to leave cracks. When dry i painted it with watered down acrylic in raw umber and yellow ochre, and peobo metallic copper fabric paint. Then I cut them up into long trianles the length of the paper. With thin PVA I painted the back of the paper and then rolled it up around a piece of wire. Sorry the photo is a bit grainy, my camera does not like close ups. This is the challenge for April on TC, so i thought I would get in early. But i do intend to do some fabric and tyvek ones when i get five!




































I took Ellie to the Gower heritage centre yesterday, and i am ashamed to say i have never been there before, I didn't know how much was there. Anyway it was fab! We saw this big boy! I loved him and he was dead tame I could go right up to him, like 20 CM away! As you will see Ellie was not so sure! You can see Nannie was holding her close. I got obsessed with photographing him. I could see a project! I also photographed lots of machinery and cogs and stuff as they looked like potential too.