A little bit more textile art.

 At our Christmas windup in 2020 my textile group was given a gift pack of fabrics, beads and ribbon. The colours in the pack inspired me immediately and I thought it would make a great book. We were then challenged to make something over the break and bring it to our first meeting in February. I took it home intending to make a small pocket sized book of about 6 pages with hand stitching. 

I went through my stash looking for something to use as the main subject for my little book. I came across a pile of sample screen prints that I had done for a class I was teaching several years ago.  I decided to make my book using them. The main print I wanted to use was about A5 size so my little book grew into something larger. I added a few extra fabrics from my stash that went with the ones I had been given. I also included a few fabrics of my granddaughter's paintings that I had scanned and printed at home because they colour matched the rest. 

 This is the book cover and the first screen print that decided how the whole project would look. The flower sequins were part of the gift pack.

 The inside cover.

 

 The first page

I added quotes to the pages by printing on paper then later ironing interfacing to the back to make them stronger. They were glued to the page then secured with stitching. I love the way this came together and it was quick as I only added a bit of hand stitching to secure the fabrics. Some machine stitching was used as well to add variety to the stitched mark.

What have I been up to?

 This past year has been strange for the whole world. Some of my arty friends around the globe have not been creative at all and others have become extra creative during these stressful times. I have fallen into the latter category and kept myself very busy. 

I intended to do a lot more journaling and painting last year so signed up for Paint your Heart and Soul at the end of 2019. It was a year long weekly art course starting in January. I have done about 30 or so lessons so far and thoroughly enjoyed getting back into painting. Access continues so I will complete the rest of the class during this year. These are some of the paintings I have photographed so far. 

As always click on the photos to see them larger.

 As you can see there was a large variety of techniques, mediums and subjects in the course. It was well worth the money to join. The link is https://olgafurmanart.com/ if you wish to sign up for this year. 

During our lockdown stage I also decided to join the Textile Artist Stitch Challenge so I had stitching to do at night. It was 6 weeks of lessons from some UK textile artists. These are the lessons I did.

Week 1 was to use a simple stitch 4 ways. I did 2 other examples of this exercise after being inspired by other people doing the challenge.

Week 2 was a textile collage. I chose to use items from my stash for this exercise. Again I did an extra collage. 

Week 3 was an outline stitching exercise and the subject matter was an eye. I thought drawing and stitching one eye was not an interesting topic so I used one of my bird photos and stitched that instead. 

Week 4 was to make a couching sampler using a simple shape like a circle. I chose to use a leaf shape but did both sides of the leaf differently.

Week 5 was to make a shadow outline of a stick. I nearly didn't do this one as the stick idea was odd to me. I found an interesting stick so chose to do it but made it more arty with a border.

I loved the way it turned out and while stitching this picture I got an idea to do the next one when I saw my threads on the table in front of me. 

This is my favourite piece from the challenge.

Week 6 was a stitched folk art design. I did two versions, the first one was completed with hand stitching then machine stitched on top.

The second one was machine stitched first then hand embroidery was added later. 

The final extra week was to use straight lines to make curves.

It was an inspiring challenge and because it was only for 7 weeks it was a good distraction in the early stages of COVID19. The first week suggested using linen to stitch on so you could use the lines to make your sample neat. I decided that I was never going to cross stitch again so I might as well use those precious materials I had saved since the 80s. I was glad they were finally being used. I did all the exercises the same size so I could put them into a book. 

 

The cover was a tissue paper print of one of my watercolour flower paintings.

The inside front cover was a gelatin print on hessian (burlap) I did many years ago. I added stitching in the blank areas of the print.

The inside back cover has paper clay that was stamped and when dry, painted. I added both machine and hand stitching. 

The back cover is a piece of glossy cardstock that I painted with metallic acrylics for an art journal project. The glossy layer peeled off the cardboard as it dried so it was like a painted film. At the time it was a disaster but I saved the top layer as it looked interesting and now it has found a home in my textile art. 

 

In an unexpected way this simple challenge has changed my approach to my art. After using those saved linens for this challenge I decided to clean out my sewing room. I went through every cupboard and  box, donating most of my fabrics to charity. I only saved a few of the ones I thought I would use as I don't intend on dressmaking very often. Quite a few fabrics seemed dated anyway so I would never have used them. I also found a lot of items that I had forgotten about. 

 

After reorganising I started to use items from my stash to make textile art. Now I have done 2 and a half different projects using only items from my stash. A lot of saved items are finally finding new arty homes. More on that will follow in future posts. I will also be sharing a lot of painted or drawn art as well. I told you I had kept busy!

 

Stay safe and creative wherever you are in the world.

Painting patterned trees

The lead up to Christmas for me is a very busy time. I spend a couple of days cooking so I can spend the next couple of days entertaining and enjoying the company of my guests. I like to spend the day after Christmas relaxing and winding down from all that activity.  That usually means sitting down all day to rest my tired feet and painting a new picture for our next year's calendar. I have a perpetual calendar with a blank spot above so I can put a different picture there each year. I like to try something new, either from a book or workshop.

Earlier this year I bought the Painting Patterned Trees video download from Artist's Network.   If you wait for one of their sales you can get a good bargain, I paid half price. The video has lots of information and is very easy to follow.

It is acrylics on canvas with a bit of pen work. The acrylics are very fluid and a different technique to how I normally use them. I love how this project turned out and will probably do more of this type of work in my journal. I think any subject would look good with a bit of doodling on it.

Colour me Positive 2018

I had good intentions to do another year with the Colour Me Positive challenge in 2018. I started out well but as I had to support my daughter with an extremely serious health battle for the first half of the year my interest in keeping up with the art journaling faded away. I will share the pages I did complete here.

  

Week 1: I stencilled gesso onto my page and when it was dry painted it purple and added copper highlights with metallic paste. It is a simple and fast page. 

 Week 2: I used coloured pencils to draw the eye on a background that had been painted then some wiped off before drying. My journal was made from old scrapbook paper that had a thin layer of gesso spread on it with a credit card.  You can still see some of the printed paper through the blue paint.

Week 3: I used a die cut machine to punch butterflies out of left over scraps of painted papers. After they were glued to the page I outlined them to be more visible. 

Week 4: I wanted this page to be focused on the words so I kept it simple. I used a stencil for the lettering on a previously painted paper that was glued in. I then doodled around the painted areas on the page. I did add some more paint in some areas to make them darker. 

Week 5: I had this picture of a vintage lady that I wanted to use so the rest of the page is done using vintage style papers. A little brown ink around the edge of shapes makes everything look old and work together.  

Week 6: This page was an experiment. I traced the sunflowers from another journal page I had drawn onto tissue paper. I then crumpled the tissue and glued it to this double page. While it was wet I sprayed on the blue and green background. When it was dry I used watercolours to paint the flowers and added the insects. 

Week 8: I don't know why I didn't do week 7. This background was randomly made using a credit card to spread three colours around the page. When it was dry I could see a fox face so I added more paint to enhance the face I could see. It is all done in acrylics. 

 Week 9: I got some new watercolours and decided to test them out on this page. Sometimes simple and quick means you get more done.

 Week 10: I wanted to try a masking technique when stencilling. You can see where I placed a circle of paper before using gesso to stencil a pattern over the whole page. When you remove the stencil the circle lifts away too and there is a smooth area to write in. The page was quickly coloured using dye sprays.

Week 11: I wanted to doodle one evening so this page was made. I used a lot of scrap papers and a few collage pictures to make the squares then doodled and wrote on all of them. I love working with grids because it is easy to make a lot of small things and then put them together to make a large piece.

Week 12: This was the last page I did for the year and the last page in this journal. I used perforated paper for the background. It is meant to be used for cross stitch and was in my stash. I wrote out the quote then added a simple border. It was coloured with standard markers.

 The cover of my hand made journal has a picture that I saved from a Flavia calendar. I love her style of art.

The back cover is a collage of some torn. previously painted, paper strips. When it was dry I added the doodles.

The inside front cover was zentangled. Sometimes I just want to sit and draw or doodle. I find it relaxing.

This zentangled page is the inside back cover of the book. That was the end of this challenge for me. I still journal a lot but now I try ideas from the many art books I own. I have decided to stop looking at them and actually do the exercises from the books. It is a fun way to learn new things.