More Textured Surfaces

Some more textured surfaces - the experimentation continues!

And this one (below) is a progress shot - more to do, it is way toooo dull!

Textured Surfaces

Just a quick little post tonight as I am midway through painting a whole lot of textured surfaces!! Waiting for layers to dry so I can do the next lot takes more patience than I have when my creative time is limited to after-work hours!

Here are the first few of my "Textured Surfaces" experiments from the Fibre-in-Form workshop I am doing. The workshop involves (amongst many other things) using moulding paste but someone recommended flexible gap filler so I have tried that as well and absolutely love it. It works out a lot cheaper and is such a lovely texture plus I am sure I will be able to stitch into it. I have already used up a mini can and will definitely be getting more! The picture at the top of this post is the flexible filler on fabric with a text stamp pushed into it while it was still wet. It has had multiple layers of paint and metallic rub-on added and is still very flexible - like a thinnish leather.


This photo (above) is of strips of cloth (recycled rice bags) painted, inked and then bleached in places. The effect really makes me think of old weathered painted wood.


This last one is completely outside of the class "style" as it has only one light layer of paint dry-brushed over the filler but I just really like the effect with the white filler and bits of the rice bag text peeking through. This one is also very flexible.

Now back to my painting...

Stuff!

First off I am sharing a photo of a beautiful scarf my friend Adam G in Melbourne knitted for me. Not only is it the most beautiful shade of green (a favourite colour of mine!), it is lovely and long and very warm. It also has a lovely long fringe which I think makes a scarf feel really decadent and luxurious. The scarf arrived in the mail last week and today I wore it to work - it passed all scarf tests - it was warm but not itchy (I am allergic to lots of fibres including most wool and a lot of synthetics), it looked great with my black clothes (what I mostly wear) and to top it all off, the lower portion survived - unharmed - the drive to work hanging out of the bottom of the car door (lucky I am only a very short distance from work and I didn't drive through any puddles!).

Note to myself for future reference - check whereabouts of all extraneous extremities before closing the car door. P.S. If you write scarf more than three times in quick succession it looks really really weird by the third one!

And now to a creation of my own - while I grew up in a household (or was it just the era???) where we made clothes and learnt to sew, I am very new to fabric surface embellishment of the experimental type. It has become a real addiction in recent months and I am gradually trying new things and adding to my repertoire. The scan above is of a fabric postcard that I made on the weekend for an exchange with Purple Missus - it is a sandwich of blue felt, random scrap threads and snippets of organza with a layer of blue organza stitched randomly over the top. On the lower half I have then added a pink organza triangle again randomly stitched. I have used a wood burning tool to burn holes in the pink layer and then added sequins and seed beads to embellish it. I have backed it with painted heavy weight lutrador. I love the resulting colours and although I was planning to try a lot more techniques I decided this was enough on this one - plus I didn't want to wreck it by that "one last thing"!

I received the latest Somerset Studio magazine today and found my two tags in the Expressions section - they are coated in beeswax, another addictive technique - I love the smell - maybe because my name (Deborah) is Hebrew for "bee"???? I really love the way they (SS) photograph artwork! On a good news note, I also got a couple of emails late last week to let me know that I have a couple of items in "Sew Somerset", a new biannual publication which comes out in October, so that is a real thrill. Mind you, I got very excited a couple of years back when I was told that a piece I had made using a transfer of a photo of my maternal grandparents was going to be in Somerset Wedding but I don't think it actually got in there as I never heard anymore (and I certainly didn't get a complimentary copy).

So now I am off to attend to domestic stuff (food primarily) and then I am going to "progress" a set of six fabric postcards that I thought were due at the end of July. It turns out I lost a month somewhere along the way. Thankfully I am not alone...

Easter Monday & An Autumn Clean-out!

I know it is spring when you are supposed to be sufficiently motivated to give your house a very thorough clean out but I had the urge today. Obviously in one day I did not get everything done but it feels good to have made as much progress as I did. As a result I did not, however, get any time to be creative so I am hoping to find some time for that this evening.

The photo above is another of my art quilts from last year. This one was for Danielle. Her theme was "Elements" and while she didn't have many restrictions, the quilts were to be linked together accordion style within the most wonderful quilted book wrap that Danielle made. I wanted to represent the elements of fire, water, earth and air in my quilt and used half diamonds to emphasize their interconnectedness. I chose fabric and surface embellishment to fit with each element. Design-wise it is a very simple quilt. The surface embellishment ranged from silk paper, hot fix angelina fibres and foil (fire), burned back tulle and square sequins (water), washers and other metal bits (earth) and random tiny gold stitches (air).

Back to work tomorrow but at least it is only 4 days to the weekend!