Friday, May 29, 2009

Dandelions

This post relates to a request from Kathi who is about to do some work based on a photograph of a dandelion. Funnily enough I had thought recently to throw away some of the design boards from what I worked out as being 17 years ago. The stitching is quite heavy and mostly on felt, which I thought related to the subject but which the tutor didn’t like as she thought it killed the light. Some of the sketchs I remember doing in the car whilst waiting for my son to finish swimming lessons; you can see from my last post what he's doing now.

The piece I actually liked, which was based on the delicate tufts of seed heads, was sold and I didn’t unfortunately photograph my work at the time.
Well have fun with those dandelions. I can’t let you sample the dandelion wine I made; I assure you that you had a lucky escape - it was rough!!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Monday, May 25, 2009

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Wax Resist

This is a small piece using the original images from the Mayan Glyphs with wax resist. I like the colours and worked bullion knots just because I fancied doing some for the great texture.


I had forgotten how to work these, one of my favourite stitches. I knew there was an easier more successful technique and eventually remembered that I had learned it from Tracy Franklin’s book ‘Contemporary Whitework’; a book which I don’t own but have borrowed from the local library. I had to order it and this time plan to copy the instructions as I am sure to forget by the time I want to work them again.

Most of the machine embroidery was done after the hand stitching.
I used perle thread and some hand dyed cotton thread and quite a large needle with a big eye (don’t know the technical name,probably crewel).

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Photography

I am just starting to try and follow through some ideas from my sketchbook course. I like the idea of working on images squashed into small spaces like the Mayan Glyphs which were forms of writing and which I photographed in the British Museum.

I‘ve been a bit distracted from the theme, as usual, but I have been consistently working on an artists’ book for the Closure theme organized by We love Your Books. More about that later; I’m waiting to find out if it is accepted for the exhibition.
I have had great fun with these photographs using some of the faux techniques, such as ‘toy camera’ and ‘Polaroid’ which I linked to in my last post. I recently bought a very old Polaroid camera, but have since realized that the film is no longer manufactured; so I’ll stick to the faux version.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Showcase/Photography

Trying to promote my shop today, mine is the flower in the bottom right hand box.
Here is a link to an interesting photography site where the talented photographer is willing to share fun actions to use on your own photos .

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Red Coptic Bind

This is the second of the two books I have made recently using Coptic Bind. I have been motivated to get on and complete them because my son said he would ‘commission’ me to make them and reimburse me for the cost of the paper – that won’t happen but it was worth it for the motivation. As you can see I stencilled flowers on the inside of the cover in silver acrylic to co-ordinate with the lettering on the cover.
The bind on this second book was not as successful; I had some problems getting the front cover on firmly. I do like it though because of the embossed flower and the nice shade of red. I was lucky to be given a pack of paper samples at my drawing class which had just the right colour for the spine. The date inscribed inside is ‘99’ which I am sure must be 1899. I am on the look out for more interesting covers now; I have a couple on the shelf waiting for me to work on them.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Embroidered buttons

So what else can you do on a Bank Holiday Monday? Make some bread,done that; do some cleaning, don't think so; why not make some buttons,I've been fancying that for some time, for no apparent reason.
The colours were determined by the May button swap and the French Knots by the fact that I am practising for the next workshop.The fabric is a nice piece of linen which I found in a Charity Shop. Took me ages to remember how to set a pattern on my old embroidery unit, but its all good for the grey matter.

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