Fishing for a bit of Lutradur

Wow – posting early this week. Must be a first for me! Here is the latest page from one of the little swapbooks that I’m doing. This book belonging to Judy is themed “water” so I had a play with a bit of fish leather and paint…

Dragon Waves

In the meantime I also had a play with some lutradur. I love the way it cuts so easily with the soldering iron and you can fuse various layers together. Here’s a postcard make for the Textile Art Festival coming up in 2 weeks.

Dreams

Its made up of two pieces of lutradur painted different colours with some Angelina fused over and then mounted on painted paper. I cut holes into it BEFORE putting it on paper   (but I know you would have guessed that!!).

Only two weeks to go to the Textile Art Festival here in Brisbane, Australia. Trying to get everything packaged, labelled and in some kind of order. I’ll be at stand 46 so come and say hi on the weekend of May 29 – 31 if you’re in Brisbane and near the convention centre at Southbank.

A little extension…

After stamping the beaded piece last week, I also stamped a couple of left over pieces of fabric to use up the paint. This is what I turned one of them into…

"The eyes have it"

The rings look like litte eyes with the blue centres. I’ve painted a frame black so this one can go straight onto display. the white paint has a very shiny finish to it so depending on how the light catches it, the piece is another sparkly one.

Also getting ready for the next challenge. I had a piece of fabric I had painted some time ago so now its coming into play.

Before

What we have to do is chop it up into ATC sized pieces and then swap with the other members of the roup and do something with all the ATC sized pieces.

After!

Each little piece is unique so I’m looking forward to what peole do with their little stack of ATC sized fabric.

WIP: Bead Challenge

Last month I was given a little packet of mixed beads as a challenge – go forth and do something! So here is what I got from Kathy…

An eclectic collection of beads

So got to work trying a few different things and this is what I came up with. Its still in progress but shows the general idea.

The challenge piece

Hopefully have this one finished soon.

Inchies Plus

Finally found the camera cable and so was able to extract the image of the inchies that I did at 2QAQ on last Saturday. These are inchie plus sizes i.e. 1 1/2 inches square. I’m going to make the middle one into a brooch I think.

A Rosy Inchie Plus Trio

The middle one has a mosaic tile on it – its red and sparkly so you can tile your whole bathroom in one inch red sparkly tiles!! Used the mesh grid its set on to attach to the hand dyes baby wipes behind which are backed by felt. Dyeing baby wipes you say? I use them to mop up after packing my dyes and so I end up with lovely colourful fabric to play with. The flowers are simply cheap foam shapes attached with a little bead.

I’ve just finished a paper casting tutorial over on my website Essential Textile Art so drop by if you’re interested in this great technique. It’s a good way to extend the use of that stamp or texture sheet collection.

More inchies and mayhem

Been so busy last week I couldn’t get around to posting. Firstly on Tuesday I did a design exercise with the Reddy Art Quilters which I’m part of.  The photos of great compositional cut-up exercise will appear in due course on the Reddy Art Quilters Blog . In the meantime there are some great pictures of our other activities there.

Wednesday was workshop day and a lovely group of ladies joined me to learn all about paintstiks and how to use them in various ways. We started with the easiest technique of rubbings and then moved onto blending and mixing etc. A great time was had by all. I’m looking forward to the next one, a mixed media play day with lutradur, tyvek, angelina and paperclay, more details at the Workshop site. All workshops are held in Brisbane, Australia.

Thursday was the ATADSA market day and I did a little demo of painting with a roller. Another busy day as the ladies took the opportunity to see a selection of stuff from my business Essential Textile Art. Next big day out is the Textile Art Festival in Brisbane at the Convention centre, Southbank  May 29 – 31. Its going to be a huge weekend as there is an exhibition of quilts at the West End, Handspinners and Weavers have their open day on Sunday May 31 and other things going on.

Saturday was ANZAC Day here in Australia (see the ABC’s website  for a great intoduction to what ANZAC day is all about). In the afternoon I went to 2QAQ and had a play with making inchies. Unfortunately I can’t find the camera cable to upload what I did so I’ll post all the images later.

This week its heads down and tail up to get some artwork finished and out the door. My textiles club at my daughter’s school starts tomorrow too so that another new venue for me. I’m hoping my little group are going to love the project I’ve got lined up for them.

From ugly to inchie

Given the challenge of transforming an ugly piece of fabric I did the usual gesso and paint number on it. I forgot to take a picture first but here is the painted version…

Painted Fabric

Then I remembered that I was going to give a demo of beaded button hole edging and whipped stitch edging so I needed something to edge. Also at this moment the memory of 2QAQ’s interest in inchies this month popped into my head. So I backed the fabric with felt to give it a bit more substance and chopped up some inchies from it to use for my demo…

Wholly Inchies

And thus “Wholly Inchies” were born!

In the meantime I popped down to the Ipswich Art Gallery with my daughter as they have a children’s gallery as its school holidays here at the moment. We had a lot of fun making some wheeled objects from the collection of stuff on offer. I couldn’t resist picking up a few bits for myself so…

Where are we going? series!

The “Where are we going?” series was born as I’m sure a few people will be saying that as they play with making inchies at the next 2QAQ meeting! The gold bead represent that golden nugget we’re always pursuing – be it success, fame, money, whatever.

In the meantime Barbara M has finished her first page in my swapbook. Here is her piece…

Barbara's page in my "Texture" book

So I’m working away on my next page for my book. Going to add a little texture to my painted fabric and see what comes about!

Swap Books, Cartouche and a little bubble!

Had fun this week getting a few things out the door. My entry into ATASDA’s Cartouche exhibition went Friday so it better make it to Sydney by Thursday. Here’s the finished result:

The finished entry

Took heaps of photos as I may not see it again. Its all sparkly with metallic paint and silk fabric so it wasn’t that easy to get a shot of it. After that moved onto my swap book project with Barbara M from Adelaide. The progress so far is:

Barbara's CoverMy Page in her book

I was trying hard to keep to her colours. Had to put a wash over my page to tone it down. Its going to be a process of slowing getting myself there. Barbara is trying out a different product on each of the pages she is doing to have a play with different mediums and materials.

My Page in Barbara's book

Another group I belong to is doing a swapbook too. My cover for this is made out of stuff I had piled on my sewing table – all the offcuts from various things. Thus I have decided to call my book “fragments” and each person will be encouraged to use fragments from past projects to create their page and then write a little note on the back to say what the materials were from. Here’s the cover:

Fragments

As usual its sparkly! Also reflects the colours I’m into at present – coppers, greens, black. I think this swapbook group is going to be very interesting!

Lastly I was well pleased with a little experiment I did for an upcoming piece on an old shipwreck. Got stuck into the puff paste and a bit of lutradur to produce…

Rust and ruin!

Painted the background fabric for the art “quilt” and will now go forth and paste it. Love the texture of the rusting metal of the ship so that’s the base and over that will go a bit of machine embroidery. Think I am pushing the group’s definition of art “quilt” as I’m not that quilty really but I do have 3 layers and yes, some stitching will hold those 3 layers together!

Have a great week and a lovely Easter everyone. Looks like its going to rain heaps for us here in Brisbane. A traditional Easter downpour!

Paperclay fun

Popped back to Adelaide on the weekend so I’m now chasing my tail to catch up with everything. Been playing with a bit of paperclay. I love this stuff – air dries and you can stitch through it. Here’s a small sample of some of the bling I’ve been creating…

Paperclay Bling

It paints up really, is very light and easy to manage. Here’s a few of the unpainted shapes. I think I created about three dozen!!

Unpainted Bling

Its all to go on a little piece I’m creating for ATASDA but I’m coming down to the wire on the dead line as I’ve only got till April 9 to get it in. The full piece is currently like this…

A little textile..

Its a work in progress which must progress a bit faster. I was checking out the placement of all the little pieces for this shot.  Also its handy having a copy of where everything is meant to go. OK, back to stitching. Have a great week everyone!

Challenge Piece

I was given a champagne bottle wire closure along with the gold foil and set the challenge to do something with it so I can up with…

"Wines I have Known"

Its based on  whole drinking experience! The figures in the middle come from my favourite wine label. I stitched a couple in bold because at the start things are in sharp relief while later things become a bit more shaky as in the second of the two figures. Then things start to get a little off centre – hence the champagne items slightly off and then by the end of it all, we’re usually a bit ragged and burnt out around the edges…. and off course – out of focus!  The background was transfer printed so it was all a bit of fun!

A few weeks back I went to 2QAQ, a Queensland based art quilting group and we did a little live art project. We all brought black and white items and red hearts. Then each table of members were invited to come up and do a little creation in a bout 5 minutes.  Here is what my table did:

Black and White with a lot of heART

It was a great afternoon with much creative action!

And lastly the cute award goes to my friend Sue’s new dog Bailey…

Another new Textile Art Assistant...

Flat out after a hard day helping Sue with all her creative activity…and lots of digging large holes!!!

Transfer Painting

Had a bit of fun transfer painting the other day. I had painted all these pieces of paper back when I couldn’t find all the equipment for some dyeing that I wanted to do. So I changed to transfer (disperse dyes) painting instead. Here’s a few:

Painted paper

I used ordinary A4 paper that I had lying around. I tried a few things like the old butterfly splat (fold paper in half), wetting the paper with a spray bottle then applying paint, applying paint then spraying water and just painting it on with a paint brush.

After a few days I got back to it to try the ironing part as I got distracted bya few other activities in the mean time. First of all I had to get ut of “ironing” headspace as I put the iron on synthetic instead of linen!! Without a hot iron not much transferring takes place .

Transferred to fabric!

What a difference some of the colours were. The only thing I would say is beware the yellow – it transfers very brightly! I love the way browns come out blue or blacks come out green.

I had a piece of pale green sation from my friend Donna so gave that a bit of a makeover and ended up with a piece that looks very sea inspired.

Sea Foam

 I love the way you can just keep on printing with the sheets to get lots of lovely overlays and playfulness in the patterning. Did a few papers with flicking paint onto the sheet and using a resist of thread and paper – very interesting space! Now I’m off to burn the edges of one of my pieces…have to make sure I have the bucket of water ready just in case!