Saturday 28 January 2017

Collections and Fragments

Do you collect all kinds of bit and pieces of stuff? I do.

I see the possibilities for artiness in all kinds of nonsense and although it doesn't make my house tidy, at all, it does make a lovely weekend of messing around with textures and fragments and the joy of just seeing what happens as I play.



This heart is made on a piece of card and has all sorts bits stuck on with glue. It has broderie fabric, lace, vintage adverts, lace, printed tissue paper and pieces of tea bag.

It also has a little fragment of fabric which has been embroidered with the word MEMORIES because this would be a perfect way of preserving objects from the past. 

Little pieces of cloth, fragments of letters or a poem, a family recipe, buttons from a favourite childhood garment, photographs.
All of these could form a collage such as this and would take us back to another place or time whenever we looked at it.

The heart has been mounted on a painted page in my sketchbook. Very roughly painted to give it lots of texture, I have doodled and written onto it in parts to look like lace. It is still a work in progress.

This is also a way to add your own words to a piece of artwork to make it more personal and meaningful. 

If you are a wonderfully tidy person who wouldn't dream of collecting nonsense just share my picture. BUT!
If you are as crazy as me and have some stash, get it out and play. It is no good hiding it in the cupboard! Have fun! x

Sunday 8 January 2017

Chill out Stitching!

It has been so lovely over the Christmas break to have a bit of time to throw myself into some stitching.



I found some silk and wool threads that I had hand dyed and together with my favourite green silk thread from 21st Century Yarns, they looked so lovely. Like a breath of Summertime!



I put them together in a bag with some dyed muslin and silk snippets and over Christmas this slowly happened!.......



I embroidered a Summer Garden onto the front of an uninspiring handmade felt sketchbook cover. 

Last year my amazing, talented friend Suzanne was making all in one sketchbook covers using a resist and I thought I'd try the technique using some wool tops. Hers are stunning but I just used any old colours to try it out. It worked so well, but, because I'd used such dull colours it never felt quite right. It was just waiting...

So my dull old cover now looks like a Wild Summer Garden and chilled me out good and proper over Christmas. I think it will inspire me to do some nice colourful art in there this year. 


Isn't that a nice way to start a new year of Art? 
With a fresh new sketchbook to play in.
I wish you all a very Happy New Year
May wonderful things happen for you and those you love. xx

PS. I thought you may like to see a couple of photos of the dyeing process. This is from a blog post from June 2012 if you'd like to see the whole thing with before and after photos. 

Here are a couple of photos of the threads and other bits of silk, velvet and cotton I space dyed. The colours make me so happy.