A Flock of Mixed Media Birds

 

The latest Art Sisters Exchange is all about mixed media birds and yesterday I finished mine.  There are nine of us in the exchange so once again I have broken my little promise to myself about not joining exchanges where I need to make lots of the same thing!  The funny thing, though, is that I found making these birds to be almost meditative (well at least once I make a prototype that I was happy with and then later, except when I stitched two to the wrong backing pieces!)

I wanted my birds to be a recycling effort and to be simple in style.  The front of the body and the wing is crumpled recycled brown paper packaging.  I painted the body parts patchily with gesso and then stamped them with a new little abstract stamp that I love.  The wings are plain and then stamped with another favourite new text stamp called "Jack and Jill".  I wanted to make my birds with materials I already had so I've used a piece of fusible fleece and another piece of quilted calico (both of which I must have had for at least 15 years) for the middle layer and backing.  The fibre, buttons and beads likewise all came from my well-stocked craft cupboards.  The trickiest thing was sewing all the bits together without making too many holes in the paper.

I'll share the results of the exchange later in May when all the other birdies fly over here.

And to finish - last weekend we had a family brunch for my husband's birthday and once we'd finished eating, a couple of uncles (our two youngest sons who are of course now young men) took charge of the "keeping the nieces (2 & 5 year olds) occupied" department.  Neither son willingly participates in photographs very often (especially if there is the remotest chance I might share the photos beyond the family) so I took this quick snap as I just loved the symmetry of the four of them.

A Beeswaxed "Bee-Themed" ATC Exchange

This is the result of the recent beeswaxed "bee-themed" ATC exchange that I participated in.  Lots of bee goodness!  The scan is not brilliant - the ATCs were sliding around a lot on the scanner!  All of the other participants were American and the wonderful Kimberley Hopkins was the organiser.

Clockwise from top left, my ATC, then ones by Heidi Elmendorf, Darlene Hagopian, Kimberley Hopkins, Connie Fendley & Joyce Rainwalker.

And an update on my mixed media birds - my first prototype (experiment?) with a gesso-ed brown paper front and a quilted back looks OK but a bit too plain for my liking.  I think I am going to stamp the paper first on the next one and see if that makes it more interesting looking.

Mixed Media Hearts!

Here are the results of the fantastic mixed media heart 

exchange that I participated in back in February 

when of course all things heart dominate! 

The hearts hanging in my "bliss box" (aka my little papercrafting room)

Another view - the lanterns look so pretty at night!

Gaye's adorable heart

Gaye's packaging - a beautiful pocket

Sue's gorgeous heart - showing the little lacy heart that lives in the pocket on the front of the heart

Margaret's beautiful layered heart & stitched envelope (I don't think Margaret has a blog)

Jacky's gorgeous recycled linen heart

Kasha's sweet felt heart

Nic's very unique wrapped heart (love the shell dangle)

Nic's lovely tissue pattern packaging

Vanessa's lovely recycled jeans pocket heart (I don't think Vaness has a blog)

Another view of Sue's heart - this time with baby heart tucked back in its pocket!

My heart

 My next project is very similar - 

mixed media hanging birds - 

still playing with ideas at this stage but 

I need to settle on one and get on with it as I making nine!

A Catch-Up Post about some ATC Exchanges

This is a little bit of a catch-up post about some ATCs trades.  I belong to Surface Design Group and recently participated in a Metallic Theme ATC Exchange with a group of people located in the US, Scotland, the Netherlands and Australia.  Their ATCs have started to arrive and I think most have received mine, so I thought I would post about the ones I made.

This is a fabric-based group so it is generally preferable to use fabric as an important element in any exchange although there are no restrictions about what else is added!  The colours in the top photo are a lot more accurate than the photo of all nine of them

I had some stretchy very bright green stretchy sequin fabric (I think it is mostly used for dance costumes) which I toned down by painting it with a few coppery and olive shades of Lumiere paint.  It is layered with a felt and then cardboard backing and the metallic embellishments are beads on metallic wires and squares of copper sheet that I heated, cut, embossed and distressed with black paint.  I thought I would make the copper edges less sharp by folding over all the edges but it created a nightmare for my sewing machine when I came to stitch them on!  I eventually finished them although by sewing some of them on by hand because I got so tired of the thread being cut on the metal.

I also belong to a Beeswax Collage group and a small group of us are exchanging "bee" themed beeswaxed ATCs.  I had to join that one seeing as my name (Deborah) is Hebrew for bee.  My ATCs turned out quite a bit darker than I intended as I wasn't thinking about how much a black background would darken the dictionary book page once it was covered in beeswax and made semi-transparent.  I have stamped stencilled, coloured (with inks), machine-stitched, foiled the edges and added a little square sequin and seed bead in the corner.  The orange layer is just background to the scan!

I'll share the ATCs I receive back once they have all arrived.  And now I am off to paint - still inspired by last weekend's workshop and wanting to play while I remember Flora's techniques!

I've got a Whole Lot of "Flora" Love Happening!

Flora Bowley with her two paintings

This afternoon I got home from a totally wonderful two and a half day intuitive painting workshop ( in the Western Australian bush ) with the incredibly talented Flora Bowley.  Flora is a fantastic teacher and her love of painting just oozes from her. She has a beautiful serene way of encouraging each person to open up to possibilities and to have trust in themselves and in the process.  Seriously good fun too!  My camera was playing up so I only have a few photos but this one is last night when we were sitting out on the deck at sunset taking turns to talk about our paintings.  Flora is standing next to the two wonderful canvases she painted as her demonstration pieces during the workshop.  I don't think of myself as being drawn to the colour red but the red painting in particular was absolutely stunning!

Flora's paintings underway (on the easel & central wood pole)

I painted on 30 inch square canvases and it was the first time I have painted on anything that big (and although I haven't finished either of my two) I am surprised how much I enjoyed the freedom of big paint strokes.  Most of the group painted on even bigger ones and Flora reassured us that it was a case of the bigger the better with her painting style.  I'm looking forward (already!) to getting back to my two - maybe next weekend, with a bit of luck.  I had taken a photo of each of my canvases at some point during Saturday and I almost didn't recognise them today when I uploaded the photos as they changed so much the next day.  A good reminder to document the process occasionally!

Michelle, Dixie and Jayne on the deck taking a break from painting!

Donna Jensen organised the workshop and it was fabulous to meet her and all the other girls - it was one of those incredible situations where a bunch of strangers (only two of us had any sort of previous in-person connection) come together and have a wonderful time.  I've included a couple of photos that I took at one stage when nearly everybody was inside getting a cuppa so that you can see what a wonderful outdoor "studio" we had (although we all got a big lesson about kookaburra aggression!).

The setting for our painting workshop!

Special thanks to Flora and Donna - I had a wonderful time!

February = Hearts (of course)

 These are my little fabric hearts made for an Aussie swap with some friends spread across the country.  (You can see what Nic and Jacky have made here and here).

Mine are made with white fabric that has been stamped, masked and sprayed (a lovely heart shaped mask and Glimmer Mist in Coffee Shop both by Tattered Angels) and have some iron-on fleece in the middle to get a bit of "puff".  I forced myself to loosen up and do some pretty random machine stitching around the heart shapes before adding the extra layers and embellishments on the front. 

And this week I received these two fabric ATCs from a trade with Chantal from France. 

 These are my ATCs for Chantal - one has a sun printed fabric base with two overlays of different tulle and some small fabric embellishment rectangles (it is actually a lot brighter than the scan shows) and the other is an extra from an earlier ATC swap and is based on woven ribbons.

Stretching Those Boundaries!

Very exciting news - a couple of weeks ago I heard (via my art friend Julia over in Melbourne) that the wonderful Flora Bowley was coming to Western Australia in March and doing one residential weekend workshop - it is an intuitive painting workshop - "Bloom True"!

For the last several years once a year I have treated myself to an annual art retreat of some sort, usually in the eastern states, although the first one, which was fantastic was organised here in the west by Jo and her mum, Jackie.  No-one was however organising one for 2011 so I figured I'd just save my money, but as soon as I saw this, I was hooked.  I like to play with paint and I love working on canvas but I am definitely not a painter (yet?) but this workshop seems like a great opportunity to stretch my boundaries and to loosen up.  What has made it even better is that I caught up recently with a new"ish" art friend and she immediately decided to go too!

In the meantime I am gradually getting back in the creative swing and I've been working on some fabric hearts for an Australian swap and some ATCs for one-on-one trades.  I've also been "playing" with some paint and canvas too because I got so excited about Flora's workshop - so at the top of this post there is a progress shot of one background (that will be largely covered up later of course)!  PS I am a bit addicted to masks and stencils (as it seems is the rest of the blogging world!)

 

I had some time recently to re-organise my little "bliss box" (aka my delightful but very small paper-craft room) so I thought I'd share some sets of the bedlam.  I was going to say that it looks a lot tidier now but it doesn't really because I have stuff everywhere because I decided to stamp and spray (with Glimmer Mist) the fabric for the hearts I am making.

Finally I have to tell you about my latest book purchases - firstly the awesome Pam Carriker's "Art at the Speed of Life" has been released and recently arrived in the mail,

 
then I bought this one on ebay "Incredible Acrylics" bu Jean-Paul van Boxtel 

 
and finally these two at one of those "remainder shops" - "Nature Inspired" by Tracie Lyn Huskamp
 

and "Playing With Books" by Jason Thompson.  They are all wonderful and quite different.  It seems my art/craft book collection will never reach saturation point...