Doing my own thing

I am continuing with the Colour me positive challenge but doing it my own way. I always seem to get stuck for ideas if I use someone else's quotes so I usually choose my own quote for inspiration. Sometimes I pick my own theme too.

 Week 27 - the one you love. This week I was pressed for time so I kept it super simple.

 Week 28 - Glitter. I was looking at my colored pencils on my desk and thought I hadn't used them for a while so they became the inspiration for this week's page. I used 'Ice Stickles' for my glitter. At least that way it stays on the page and not on me.

 Week 29 - This weeks prompt was not for me so I did this quote that has been on my pin up board for a while. Sometimes I come across a quote that speaks to me and I save it so I can put it on a page. I wanted to add some mixed media tags so I made them and used my die cutting machine to cut out hearts and butterflies for a papercraft style page.

 Week 30 - I love this quote by Walt Disney. When I used my pencils a couple of weeks ago I forgot how nice it is to use them.  I wanted to do more coloring so this week I made a coloring page then colored it in.

This is the page I drew. If you want to download it for yourself just click on the image to make it larger and right click then save the picture to your computer. You can then print it out onto any type of paper you want and color it your own way. 

 Week 31 - No prompt this week so I drew some of the items that were on my sketching table. I usually sketch while watching tv with my husband in the evening. I collaged on the hearts and flowers for added interest. It was a fun page to do. I am still surprised that I can draw things that I thought would have been impossible ten years ago. Practice really does make you a better artist.

Fibres West

In July I went to a week long art retreat called Fibres West. It was a fantastic way to mix with other like minded creative people who also love textile art as much as I do. 

It was held at an agricultural college that is actually a working farm. It is a lovely setting and a great place for taking a long walk but it was freezing cold in the middle of winter. 

 

 My class was using water soluble fabrics to make thread only pictures taught by a wonderful Canadian, Amanda Mccavour. The first few days we did a lot of samples and experiments, then the last three days I did my final project.

 The leaves on the right were originally the same size as the other samples but I had the machine tension too tight so as I stitched it got smaller and smaller. It was a lesson learned.

 Next we trapped pieces of paper or fabric in the layers of stitching. I was tired of square samples by now so wanted to try a bit of drawing with the machine. I did daisies. The blue bits in the petals is mulberry paper and the centers are Japanese paper supplied by our tutor. I later colored the white centers with watercolors because I put it on a white background.

 Another experiment we did was to use shading to make an image appear three dimensional. I enjoyed this lesson and will develop the technique more in the future.

 Amanda does wonderful installations, sometimes using many multiples (4000!) of one shape. She showed us how to do one of her favorite designs that is based on the spirograph. It may look simple but it was very hard to stay on track. I did end up with a bowl shape but it will take a lot more practice to get the stitching even.  

 My final project was to be a bird cage and I decided I wanted to add a couple of birds. This picture shows the sheer fabrics I added before I stitched the birds. I didn't want the black cage to show through them so that is why I added fabric.

 My finished piece turned out the way I wanted it to. I used some patterned plastic bag on the cage. It wasn't as stiff as I would like so later on I did add more stiffening to the piece.

  Our wonderful tutor Amanda is center front wearing the green jumper. I am standing at the back right in a purple jumper trying to keep warm, lol. You can see a lot of the work of the class on the wall behind us. It was a superb class and wonderful week.

 I later added the daisy sample to a journal page to go into my fabric art journal later this year.

 I have used beads to raise my birds off the white background here so it could be displayed recently. That worked well but I am going to stiffen it properly soon so it can be framed and hung proudly in my home. I like the way the shadows are on the background and want to play on that. The possibilities of this technique are endless.

Art journalling is one of my year long projects.

This year I have become very involved with my textile group, teaching and working on the committee side of things so it has kept me busy. I have been creating art but not posting so now that my lessons have finished you can expect a lot more sharing from me.

I have been keeping up with my commitment to the Colour me positive challenge and have created a journal page a week. This year I have been experimenting with a lot of different techniques in my journal and as I look through the 30 pages created so far I can see a definite style is there in each technique. I always seem to do neat, graphic style work with simple backgrounds.

 Week 21- Gratitude. I collaged on deli papers that had been previously printed then I carved some stamps and used them to start this uneven grid style page. The stars, heart in a square and square star are all stamps I made. The rest of the page is drawn and coloured with paint pens. 

Week 22 - Creativity. I used a white wax crayon to draw the houses then filled them with india inks and let them blend together. It was a really fast, fun technique and I love the finished effect. 
 

 Week 23 - Attitude. I was cleaning up and found some cut outs I did for an older journal so I used them to make this simple page. The background is tissue paper and paint.

 Week 24 - What soothes your soul? For me it has to be music that has the most effect on my moods. There is nothing like putting a great song on really loud and singing along. It always makes a dark day brighter. I cut the words from scrapbooking papers and glued them to a previously painted background.

 Week 25 - This week I used the quote supplied and the extra challenge to create a silhouette. I still struggle when it comes to drawing the side profile.

Week 26 - Learning new things. The prompt this week was very appropriate for me as I spent the week away at a textile art retreat learning new things. I made a simple page about the retreat that was Fibres West. I will shortly do a post about the work we did there.