Bits and Bobs

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These photos have all loaded in reverse order so I'll start at the end and work forward to the beginning! ;-)

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I have been panicking a bit about getting caught up on my Contemporary Quilt Group Journal Quilts as we are coming up rapidly to the next 4 monthly deadline. My original quilt for July is a very slow work in progress and I have gone off at a tangent and am currently working on 3 JQs! Something reminded me that I had been wanting to try faux chenille so I thought I would get some fabrics together and have a go. I googled faux chenille and straightaway found this free project from "twocreativestudios" otherwise known as Sue Bleiweiss and Terri Stegmiller. The photograph above is the result of my efforts.

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I have used about 6 or 7 layers of fabric, mostly cottons and silks with a brilliant orange shiny base layer which isn't cut through. Unfortunately I don't possess a tumble drier to fluff the fibres up so I have had to employ a suede brush to fray the edges. I am quite pleased with the effect although I am not sure that I used the fabrics on the correct bias. I may add some beads yet, too. Anyway, this is officially now my July Journal Quilt.

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Since my DH's blog friend in Norway was planning to give us a guided tour of his home city I felt I wanted to make him a little something as a thank you. But what do you make for a gentleman? I decided on a bookwrap with a notebook. The photo above shows the inside of the bookwrap which has been painted with metallic paints.

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The bookwrap was made from fabric paper that I made by layering brown paper, muslin/scrim and tissue with watered down pva glue. Once dry I painted the fabric with various fabric paints including metallics and also squirted some inks on to give a bit of tone. Once dry I sealed the surface with some acrylic medium (I think!). The tie closure is a bootlace with several coverings of metallic machining.

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I used to do a lot of painting and just lately have been wanting to have a play with my oils again. My first effort was a quick sketch from one of my DH's holiday photos of Geiranger Fjord taken in the early morning.

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This sketch above was done really quickly and, not to make an excuse, I was fighting the quality of the white paint which was an alkyd oil and a bit old. It didn't want to blend or move smoothly.

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Last week I went out painting with members of our art group to the grounds of a local college which used to be a statey home. I spent some time making rubbings of bark and stone walls but eventually settled to do another oil sketch, this time of a view across the valley to the nearby hills. You may notice one or two kamikaze flies that insisted on investigating and ended up stuck. I did warn them! For a change it was a lovely sunny day with rapidly moving clouds which made for a lively sky.

Take it Further April

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I am pleased to say that I have actually managed to complete the April challenge on time! Yay! I kept to the postcard format I had decided on at the beginning of the month and chose to use the brown paper fabric that I had made for the Fibre & Stitch challenge previously.

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All the materials used in the postcard have been changed from their original appearance or purpose :

*The brown paper has been painted in many layers with acrylic paint, inks and metallic paint

*The leaf has been painted with gesso and then copper acrylic paint

* The key has been changed by rusting

* The lace has been changed by dying with inks

* Beneath the lace is a copper garden label which has been rusted and the spiral metal piece is rusted copper wire from the copper tag.

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In keeping with thoughts about change, which can be for good or not so good, I have free-motion embroidered over the surface of the card to suggest the path that change can lead you on in your life. Some of that change, and its effects, may not be obvious initially and I think that's why I wanted the copper label to be partially hidden and only hinted at under the lace.

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Change is a funny thing. Life is full of change. We change as we grow, and we grow as we change. Our outlook changes as we develop and as we meet other people on our journey. Sometimes we are not aware, at the time, that we are changing or that change is affecting us. Other times, change is obvious and overwhelming. During my life I have experienced all kinds of change, some of which I resisted and which made life very difficult for me. Other change has been a joy and has happened without any conscious decision on my part. I have just gone with the flow. Other change has been a definite decision on my part.

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I would never have dreamt a year ago that my art interests would have changed so much and that I would be so involved with experimental and textile art and meeting people all over the world who share my interests. It seems appropriate to say thank you here to everybody I have met over the last year and to everyone who has left comments here. Thank you for sharing my journey of change.

Take it Further

The Take it Further Challenge for March was to consider the little things. You would have thought that this would have led to an avalanche of ideas but I have to admit ideas were a bit slow in coming this time. I think the main reason is probably that I seem to have had a busy month and haven't made time to sit and really ponder. I did think of "little things mean a lot", "good things come in small packages", the ripples in a pond when you throw in a small pebble and the rings get larger and larger, the tiny pebble that I love to collect from the beach and which has been eroded down from a huge rock, the tiny details in a close up photograph or a microscopic image, the infinite smallness of this planet we live on in the scheme of the universe.

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As far as it goes, I have settled on "good things come in small packages" and to this end have been working on a surface that I will eventually use to make a box. (This also fits in with a challenge on the Fibre & Stitch group).

It is very difficult to photograph painted paper and I may have got some of these in the wrong order but the first step was to paint a sheet of brown paper with three colours. When it was dry I crumpled the paper up and then smoothed it out again.

For the next step I used a pad of distress ink and stroked it across the surface so that the raised areas took the ink.

I then discovered that the distress ink was not permanent as I put a wash of copper acrylic paint loosely over the sheet and this disturbed the ink. (Doh!) After this was dry I used a turquoise oilbar over the surface and rubbed some of it away.

Next I painted over with a very wet mixture of deep reds and prussian blue. At this point the surface reminded me of rock structures.

The final step was to take a brush and some gold acrylic paint and brush it very lightly over the raised areas of the paper. Where I felt it was a bit heavy I knocked it back with a baby wipe. I am really please with the look of the paper now. The surface glows and has some very interesting textures on it. The temptation is to carry on adding paint to the surface but I am going to stop here.

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The next step will be to fuse the paper to fabric and construct the box. Watch this space!!