Challenge for 2021

 My textile art group , Broadstrokes, is doing something a bit different this year as we are all exhausted from the Margaret Olley inspired work we made for exhibition in 2019. In 2020 several of our pieces flew to France to be in an exhibition there but unfortunately because of Covid this was canceled , so they all flew home again.

So now for next year, firstly we are making a postcard for each members birthday. The only stipulation is that the theme is travel, which we all enjoy but are of course restricted from for the near future. 

Oops I have posted off this first postcard for 7 th January without taking a photo. I meant to add one here.

The second challenge involved each member ‘putting out there’ what they intend focusing on for the year. We will be held accountable at each meeting as we all know what the individuals chose. All the others who attended the last meeting of the year have had their challenge documented, but as I wasn’t there I have t done so yet.

So , what will it be. Working in 3D making vessels, finishing works in progress, exploring more art journal work, doing and participating in Jane Dunnewold ‘s Creative Strength Training Community for 2021, researching and reading to gain knowledge, stitching , working through and completing all the online workshops and classes I have enrolled in over the years but not completed. 

Started that already with this piece from a Wendy Brightbill class, The Poetry of Stitches

Mixing the media

 A new page in my journal. Using dyed tea bag paper, tracing paper, acrylic paint, pastels, charcoal.

I am really enjoying using asemic writing to add an extra dimension to the layers

.

Christmas collage

 I have been busy making a postcard for a member of the Broadstrokes Textile Art group so am unable to show it until she receives it in early January. We are doing a birthday swap of a postcard among the 9 members of the group. And as we have all missed out on some form of travel in 2020 , ‘Travel’ will be the only stipulation for the postcard. 

It got me going on some other small collages. The Christmas tree I made for a friend and the little nativity collage was some play and doing just because.

Christmas Angel

 Today I made this wee angel for Harriet’s first Christmas. I first made up this angel for my Advent calendar in the 90’s. Made a few also for gifts . All I needed to make it up I had already and after a bit of digging , and searching through my studio it came together easily. The blue is a ceramic pair of wings with holes to stitch it on. I purchased years ago but never got around to using . So perfect for this special project. The hanging cord is either from my grandmothers or great-grandmothers sewing basket. 

For years I made an angel each year for the tree and the anticipation of my daughters. I named them all so there was an Angelica, Christi, Eve, Gabriel, and Maria. This one is Harriet.

Collage with stitching

 I have worked this on a piece of canvas from a standard A4 size canvas pad. It was easier to stitch through than I thought it would be. It kind of slid through as if it was greased.  I was not able to use a hoop but am amazed that it all went on without buckling and now lies flat, because of course with stitching into paper there is no unpicking. 

Pieces of fabric and painted papers from an old book. 

Birds in my coffee

          I had a dream there were birds in my coffee,

                       Birds in my coffee....yeah

Inspiration is everywhere if you open your eyes and look. Many turn to the wonders of nature...the flowers, leaves , trees, landscapes of beach or mountain and small creatures with feathers or fur.

This morning while having a leisurely breakfast I noticed this wee bird on the side of my coffee cup. So simple yet what a lovely image to stitch.

Watch this space .

Three Cherubs

 I had this card for awhile and loved the image. Here I have added the three faces . Baby Harriet, Alanna and Brett.

Collage, but really not much to it but what a sweet image.

Altered image of a detail from ‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’.

Three Cherubs ( detail) by Philippe de Champaigne  (1602-1664).  Possibly painted in the 1640’s for the Abbey of Notre Dame at Quincy , near Tanlay.

Tomeshi

 I made this wrapped stone for my lovely Okido yoga teacher Carina. It is inspired by the Japanese tomeshi Stones that traditionally would be placed to indicate that a place or pathway is ‘out of bounds’. Sort of a keep off the grass sign but in a much gentler way as well as decorative, peaceful and in a less is more sense of the Japanese aesthetic. 

In Okido yoga the same poses are used some different ones , different techniques and self massage into small muscle areas such as feet and face. We use wooden rods like broomstick handles to walk on to wake up and massage the feet, roll it down the back to find other muscle areas of tension.

The stone was from the school grounds where I met Carina as we worked together there. 

It has a vintage mother of pearl button and I embroidered 2020 the year we had yoga on the banks of the Brisbane river at Yeronga. Under trees such as a giant Moreton Bay fig, and magestic  eucalyptus with bird sounds and wind in the leaves always around us. So peaceful.

Okido is a Japanese style of yoga and is more playful and holistic. 

A finishing

 Finished these two small tree decorations. Not sure how long they have been sitting waiting. The Father Christmas comes from a pattern given to me in 1997 for thanks from the president of Coorparoo Quilters when I was workshop assistant. There were several patterns and I did make up this Father Christmas head when I first got it. I imagine I liked it so much that I wanted to make another but got bored with the repetition.

Tonight we are putting up the Christmas tree . It will be fun seeing all the decorations I have made over the years.

Christmas

 I need to make a Christmas tree decoration for Harriet’s first Christmas. When my girls were young I would make them each a new one each year for the tree but haven’t touched Christmas crafts, quilts, stitchings for several years. There never seemed the need as I had so much to put up around my house and on the tree. So I pulled out my quite small box of Christmas fabrics and found several well intending to make patterns , and some half started or cut out decorations ready to complete.

I will attempt to finish some of these for this year. I already have a plan for Harriet’s angel. Need to have it done for a Tuesday when she will be here to help decorate my tree. 🌲 

Sketchbook

 A Page in my sketchbook. Water soluble crayons, aquarelles, eye drawing. All smushed around with a paint brush and water.

I am doing a fabulous online class with @laurakemshall . Mixed media with paint, collage overlay sketching so far there are three videos yet to watch, but so far it is very good.  The idea for this page however did not come from the course but I put it in anyway. 

This page is painted with acrylics, the houses are frottage on lunchwrap with a graphite crayon, then attached with gel medium. Figures drawn with graphite, around the paint that serendipitously appeared on the page. Leaving home or heading out on adventure .

Mixed Media

 I worked on these today as I was feeling really unsettled. Went to yoga this morning on the river bank at Yeronga, Japanese yoga. When I got home I felt more energised and got lost in the flow of making these four small mixed media pieces.

They are collaged papers, fabric, some lace and then inks acrylics and aquarelles. This was a free online class #artistsoulretreat with @lalymille.

Treasure Box

 I was involved in a swap for ATASDA this year. Each person created a tiny treasure and sent to their partner. The partner then had to make a receptacle for the treasure to be contained in. So this is the receptacle I made for my partner Mary . She made the brooch that can be seen inside the opened box.

When I first for the treasure I felt it needed to be in a box lined in black velvet. Stitched some feather stitch stems in a variety of threads that match the fibre work on the front of the brooch. These will be on display in NSW later in the year.  Looking forward to see the receptacle for my tiny treasure angel. 

Bookmaking with markmaking

 

I had tried to put up a video of a small book I have made but the file is too large. So instead here is a video taken in August this year in North Queensland, near Airlie Beach. It was here that I collected some beautiful pieces of driftwood. Not sure what for  but I liked them. After returning home I enrolled in an online course through FibreArts with Lorna Crane. One of the first things I needed was some driftwood to make handles for home made brushes for mark making. 

So the book I tried to put up was of some marks made with these brushes .  I will take photos. It is a great class and still going. Today I will do some mark making with my own visual language onto cloth, silk, muslin, calico.

Mixed Media

 i have just completed a few pages for a scrapbook journal of inspiration. The images are not glued but stuck down lightly so I can use them in a mixed media piece. Following along with @lalymille in a free artist retreat online. She is very inspiring and so gentle in her teaching. 

I have done a few of Laly’s online classes and return to them from time to time as there is always something that enter’s into my art practice. 

These are Laly’s words but I align my textile work and consequently hand work with them as well. 

Rememberer, Creator ,Collector , Connector

 

This pice has photographed sideways but I decided to leave it that way as it is giving thoughts of an abstract landscape. 

All the little scraps I have saved now are useful when developing colour studies, shapes , textures, marks and compositions.  Really looking and seeing what colours I am drawn to . Peaceful greens with highlights of orange pinks. 

More drawing

 

Self portrait,using non dominant hand and looking in a mirror without looking down at the paper.

I might stitch this onto some vintage fabric. 

A little sketch

 This sketch was done from a very small and old photo of my sister and I when small girls living in New Zealand with our parents and younger brother.

I have been wanting to develop more stitched pictures after seeing many really inspiring ones in some of the online images from artists I follow. I decided to use this image. It is amazing how this brings back memories and even though I don’t recall the action , day or place I do know from family lore that we were showing the ducks our dollies. I am the smaller of the two and you can just make out the head of a doll that I am holding.

We are wearing beautiful warm hand knitted beanies , made by either our mother or grandmother, as both were avid knitters and we needed warm clothing in Wellington, NZ. We are wearing woolen coats and leather shoes , warm trousers possibly corduroy, as I recall a lot of corduroy as well as tartan, knits, vyella and flannelette. 

Ducks in duck ponds form another special tale in our family’s story. Once my sister and I were swinging on a chain between two posts on the edge of a duck pond when the chain broke and we went flying into the pond. My sister was mortified but I recall finding it highly amusing, possibly more so by her tears and stress . 

The first gift my Dad bought for my daughter, his first grandchild even before she was born was a small  ‘rubber’ ducky for her bath. I still have it in my bathroom now. 

Feeding ducks in ponds is for many, a highlight of childhood activities 

Experimenting with weave

 I have had this bead weaving loom for awhile but of course as per usual I collect all the tools of trade but never get around to using them. Same with fabric and other textiles I collect but am very slow to work with them. 

So today I got some crochet cotton and warped up , or is it wefted up? I have added a beautiful piece of rusty wire I found on the road only a few days ago. 

A bit loose, tricky but truly mesmerising once in the flow. Not sure how far I’ll go or what I’ll do with it or what I might add but hey that’s what sampling and experimenting is all about. May be I’ll rust the piece when off the loom. I might somehow add the rusted washers from a few posts back , stitched on , not woven in. 

Maybe now that I am looking at this  might weave in the loop of the wire on the right.

Imposter

 

This was developed to this stage several years ago. Acrylic paint lightly washed over cotton quilting fabric. The image is of Katy Perry from a picture I cut from Brisbane’s Courier Mail when she toured Australia years ago, I think she was still with Russel Brand then. Traced onto tissue and machine stitched. The stitches came out very loose and I was not happy with it so put it aside ,where it mulled away until now . I needed to find an image to post on the gram that symbolises Imposter. 

So here she is . Katy is not the imposter though ,I am. 

Marking Time

 This is my entry in the Marking Time Exhibition in Tasmania. The exhibition is curated  by Rita Summers of @gonerustic and is displayed in her workshop and studio.

It is handstitched using ecodyed fabrics and thread. Stitched on daily during Covid 19 lockdown to signify the minutae of the relative  peace in my backyard. This includes watching trees, turkeys, birds, plants and other imaginings as there are a few wee folk in there.

A sac for oddments

 This sac was made from some ecodyed hemp. I then embellished with small leftover bits of lace and linen  buttons, silk scraps and string. It is all handstitched and was so much fun to make from envisioning the shape and end product , to working in 3d to bring it together.

The side were added to in a Boro sort of way until it felt firm and well covered.

Inside are more scraps waiting for their special project to come along .

Embellishments

 I needed something to do on a recent stitching day and as usual I can never find anything to work on. Of course when I get home I realised that there are so many projects that would benefit from some time of simply stitching. So I took along sone rusty washers and cotton crochet thread. I wrapped each washer using  blanket stitch. Then dipped poured a little tea from the teapot and a splash of vinegar and left for 12 hours overnight. They turned out this lovely browny black which is a perfect tone.

I found another which is beautifully rusted and I am sure that I can find more hidden away in containers to work on more. Maybe I’ll wrap rusty screws as well. Just play and experiment,exploring techniques and ideas. This will build up,a stash of these wee beautiful textured and coloured embellishments. The time will be right when they are needed.

Finished at last

 This piece of stitching has taken so long to finally step over the finished line. The stitching went on in bursts and then it sat for so long. At that stage I was going to hang it with a rod pocket, so needed more work until I decided to stretch onto a canvas now that I have worked out how to do that quickly and easily with my staple gun. One thing changes a whole new perspective on presenting work.

There are many different embellishments and techniques as it really was a sampler of sorts, just working out what I could do and so added them. It is on a piece of rusted polycotton that was a light fawn colour to start with. 

Harriet goes exploring

 

I had fun with some collage and photocopied images of my granddaughters face. She looks so happy that I gave her a watermelon dress and bag and some funky legs and feet. Off to Buenos Aires.

I might continue as it was so relaxing ...could do a whole series of Harriet exploring different parts of the world that hopefully one day she will get to see. 

Feeling very creative and immersed in the activity without needing too much overthinking. It’s just for me , daily practice ? Not sure if I can , maybe weekly.

Momogami

 worked some paper using the momogami te Niue, informed by Cas Holmes in Textileartist.org Stitch Club. Using a small amount of wallpaper glue developed a scene, however as I had sampled the momogami with a piece of beautiful red paper I was determined to add it. Was to be a setting sun. Too red so covered with white tissue. Wrong shape so tried adding sun beam stitches 😂 . Nothing seems to work so I’ll just leave it as a strange big red blob in the sky. 

I used a ruby beholder to look at value in the image. The top right needed something darker so the little bird was stitched. The red blob looks dark but is a medium value in this way.

Some finishing

 

Beetroot on canvas for SotA fundraising . These canvases made by members of 2QAQ are usually sold at SotA exhibitions but hasn’t occurred this year due to Covid. So they are for sale on the Queensland Quilters website. Felt , fabric, lace, yarn were used. Handstitching included stab stitch, running, couching, feather and random seed stitch.

This has now been SOLD

Ecodying a wood nymph

 Spent the day at Boonah ecodying. We had three pots with eucalyptus in one , onion skins in the other and an iron pot. Some beautiful results. I laid a few out and was given the lighter piece that has been rust dyed.  A wood nymph, can you see him? The dark twine is the hemp string used on the bundles today.

I am now thinking it might just be a bunyip. Needs something for her left arm ,a face not sure how to make a bunyip face , 

Harriet’s Mat

 Today I finished the binding on this floor mat for my gorgeous granddaughter, Harriet. Made from fabrics in my stash including a pink butterfly print that my daughter used to make a wrap around skirt in High School. 

This new Interface is difficult to operate. I somehow put three photos on but can’t work out how to edit to remove two of them. Will keep trying. 😼

Medal

Stitching on a piece inspired by Haf Weighton for Textileartist.org Stitch Club. A medal for healing, repairing , mending. For me, if related to this uncertain time of Covid 19 I became quiet or quieter. Reflection of what the world had become before this Pandemic.

I quite like it as it is rather than cutting out to become a round medal. It was stitched onto two pieces of fabric that some time ago I had stitched together with folds and pleats as if to make a landscape. But this was put aside and found just as I was searching for fabric for this project. I like the landscape idea that this has been stitched on as it implies a quiet landscape ,in my backyard,with no need to rush off to participate in outside activities. A quiet , guilty pleasure. 

Sacred Shrine

beading and stitching on this small shrine. More stitching then will cut away the opening to add an image. Not sure what will go in the aperture yet. Slow going.

Life Drawing

last night on SBS was an online life drawing class. It was hosted by Rove Macmanus. There were several life models and  5 different poses to draw during the Two hour show.

Theses are my attempts. I missed the ist one as I didn’t realise we had to get the pose up on another device as the tv camera was moving around through the room looking at the five artists drawing along in the studio.

I really enjoyed the session. The only other time I explored Life drawing  was when The Art Shed at West End organised a session to try and get in the World Book of Records with the biggest Life Drawing session. Didn’t manage to break the record but it was so much fun as well. 

Animation

I downloaded an app onto my iPad that can take photos that can be strung together to make a little animation. It was fir the  recent Qagoma drawing sessions with Bill Platz. It was easy and so much fun. But I can’t work out how to share the three little animated videos I made of my drawings. So will maybe have to just take a still image to put here of the three pieces I developed along with Bill Platz.

The first one is the tea cup and it’s shadow. This was based on a photograph by Olive Cotton and it is well known because of the shadows which caused her to name it Tea Cup Ballet . The cups and shadows were like dancers lined up with the handles being the arms crooked as if a hand was on their hip. So this animation had the tea cup moving across the page. The second animation is the bath tub. It was based on part of a print. The animation here was using adding and take away by erasing spots of water to look as if the shower was turned on and then off.

The third animation was from an image in a propaganda poster. The man marching with his flag was animated to wave his flag up and down and then finally fall down the hill. 

Footprints

These are the little footprints of my new wee grand- daughter Harriet Isobel. My daughter and I had fun with printing them. I have used black screen ink and painted it on with a sponge brush. She was not happy. We were going to print her hands as well but she was a bit distressed with the process. I got the bottom two feet prints as the second print . The first went onto a nice piece of card. These are on 100% cotton for me to do something with.
She was four weeks old when we did this printing ‘challenge’. Will try for her hands later.

Textures

After participating in a Japanese style of Yoga I went for a bush walk on the new Spotted Gum Trail at Mt Coot-tha. Saw many beautiful specimens of Spotted Gum. They are easy to pick because of the distinct markings on their trunks.

Amazing texture. The dark almost looks like the charcoal remaining after a bush fire. I am now thinking of how to reproduce this bark feature in fabric and thread. The lighter part looks like small mosaic tiles with the darker ones laid over the top in random areas. Rich dark colours , velour or velvet.

View from the riverbank at Yerongpilly where we do the yoga. River , birds ,eucalyptus’s, grass, sun and gentle breeze.  I won’t mention the ants 🐜 and the bumpy bits under the yoga mat which need adjusting occasionally .

Avocado dye

I made some avocado dye from 2 pits I had saved in the freezer. Chopped and boiled on the stove until water reduced then strained. Then when I saw the left over pieces of avocado in the pan  looking red and soft and full of luscious ness  I decided to print into my journal/ ledger / notebook / sketchbook. When printed I was going to draw a grid with a black pen but suddenly I saw a chicken. So with a beak and some legs she came to life. Then there was another chicken , and another and a little bird, then an owl and before I knew it the ink blots had all turned into some kind of feathered friend.

Tea towel stitching

I have been slowly stitching, adding elements and mending holes on a vintage french linen tea towel. This is following along with India Flint for her online Nomad arts title sailing in the armchair as during Covid lockdown no one could sail anywhere.

This little section is of a moth that I put near a swathe of tiny rusty stains. A patch covers a larger hole and a tiny scrap of vintage french edging covers a little section of a frayed end.
Stitching randomly in place using some cotton thread I had ecodyed with the last avocado dye pot .