cut, paste & easy foam stamps

Like so many of us, I enjoy magazines. I enjoy the first read, then re-read and then eventually giving them away, keeping them or ripping them up and re-purposing the content into a collage, notebook covers etc. I used a handful of these collected pages into a couple of cards I made earlier this week. As well as the re-purposed pages, I also incorporated stamped patterns. 

The stamps were made using "Foamstastic" a self-adhesive craft foam that is easily cut with scissors. It can also be cut with an e-xacto knife for more delicate work. The craft foam is very easy to work with. Once the shapes are cut, peel the paper off at the back and stick shapes onto a piece of cardboard (I used scraps of matting board). Once you have your stamp assembled, use an ink pad to apply colour to your stamp and stamp away. Remember to re-apply ink between each stamping.

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home an individual castle

"Pioneer Home" - paper, imagery, paint, fabric, thread

"Laying Foundations" - paper, imagery, fabric, pen, thread

"Explorers Hut" - paper, map, acrylic, thread

Home: place where one lives - a dwelling, a house. The idea of discovery & home have influenced this collection. As I've gathered images of my immediate surrounds and then further explored and researched I observe the place we call home whether it be a hut or a pioneer home is in fact our own individual castle. These framed works on paper plus an additional four pieces are part of my collection of works that will be exhibiting and available for sale at the Toowoomba Grammar School Art Show

Saturday 29th & Sunday 30th March 2014 - open 10am to 4pm both days

a few moments from "Sunday Drives"

Gathering together a few of the moments so far

Exhibition concludes this weekend, it's been so nice to see it all come together and many many thanks to my visitors and collectors. Exhibition continues until 4pm this coming Sunday 26th August 2012

at Gallery 159, 159 Payne road, The Gap, Brisbane

Gallery open Saturday & Sunday 11am - 4pm

Hooray, we hung my solo exhibition today

Wonderful husband and I went across and hung my first Solo exhibition - "Sunday Drives" today.

It's so good to see it all come together. The exhibition opens tomorrow 4th August and continues through to Sunday 26th August at Gallery 159, 159 Payne Road, The Gap QLD Australia.

Gallery open Saturdays and Sundays 11am - 4pm

 I'm looking forward to the opening night which is this coming Sunday 5th August 2012 at 3.30pm

Hope to see you there

All welcome

 

exploring and learning through playtime

paper, gesso, pencil, colored pencil, acrylic paint, oil pastels, texture paste

A busy couple of weeks at the moment so grabbing the opportunity to create a few play pieces using products/techniques that I wouldn't normally be comfortable using. The boundaries I give myself are enjoy the process, work small and let it evolve. It's all about the exploring and learning.

ink jet printed visoflex, paper, gesso, tissue paper, acrylic paint, oil pastels

Enjoyed some ink jet printing onto visoflex in the above piece. Plan to keep going with this one. And I finally got around to using the Expandable Paint by Pebeo that I bought a few weeks back, had quite a few practice runs working with the expandable paint before I finally started to get the hang of how it works.

paper, expandable paint, acrylic paint, shellac, stitch, cracker toy

Totally enjoy creative playing - very inspiring & motivating

creative play day

It's been a week of many inspiring moments. On Christmas day I spent part of the day with my mum on her property where she has recently moved a 100+ year old building onto her place to restore back to it's former glory. In the meantime I had a wonderful time taking photos of it's current derelict state. So on Thursday when I had a creative play day with some friends exploring the many possibilities with Lutradur, TAP paper and heat gunning metals, my mind went a racing to using the photos I'd taken of the derelict building. I've printed a few of the photos onto the Lutradur this afternoon and planning to create a collage using the images. So enjoy the creative play days, very inspiring in deed. And today Dad and I went along to the Matisse Exhibition which is currently on at GOMA, it was very popular but still very inspirational and certainly worth a return visit outside of the holiday period.

Exploring a theme

Over the last week I've been ink jet printing and painting fabric pieces which will be used in a quilt which has been inspired by "Spilling Over" the theme set back in March as part of the sketchbook challenge. I particularly liked the theme and wanted to explore it further from several perspectives. Over the weekend I was sorting through the images and bits n pieces I've been collecting for the theme and these two collages evolved.

Undercurrents - Collaborative Exhibition

The postcards for our up-coming exhibition arrived today. I can't believe it's only a few weeks away now. A collaborative exhibition with Felicity Clarke, Tricia Smout and myself. This is the first time we three unite in exhibition. Felicity has been involved in art for a number of years and her pieces incorporate various practices using modern synthetic fibers and illumination juxtaposed against classic felting techniques. The human figure with all its flaws and beauty are also featured in her works. Tricia's passion is calligraphy and lettering(of all shapes and forms) and she loves exploring the tactile qualities of papers, fibers and the fabrics while playing with different texture and color combinations. Our exhibition opens on the 9th September and will be open daily (10am -4pm) until the 14th September 2011 at the Art Factory Gallery - cnr Merivale & Glenelg Streets, South Brisbane. The opening night celebrations are on Saturday 10th September 4-6pm.

Workshop with Joan Schulze

warming up with postcards - collage

image transfer & collage

Totally enjoyed the recent workshop I completed with Quilt and Collage artist Joan Schulze Great content and great company were the perfect combination to learn new applications and expand ideas and boundaries. We started with a postcard project moved onto altering/using slides, image transfers and then onto mixed media collages. The workshops for next years Fibre Arts Australia - Ballarat have been announced.

word as pattern

Exploring a technique called stacked word, I've been enjoying going back through a few of the previous blog posts on the The Sketchbook Challenge and stumbled across a posting by artist Judi Hurwitt called Stacked Journaling I was drawn to the patterns and shapes that developed simply by working with one word and re-writing it onto it's self in several directions.

I started with the black pen onto white paper and the word "encourage" and then moved onto several pen colors and the word "spirit". Finally playing with the top mixed media piece using charcoal, acrylic paint and pen on paper with the words "happy, joy and change"

stitched portraits on paper

I've been really enjoying the acrylic painting but I tend not to stray to far from stitch or textiles so a few weeks back I started to explore with free motion stitching onto various types on paper. The first picture is stitched onto white paper, the second picture I have painted a background and then stitched over it. The third picture I have painted various pieces of paper, stitch one piece, cut the others up and then collaged them onto a piece of watercolor paper and further embellished with hand stitching. I've been really enjoying this adventure - paper isn't as bulky as a quilt but is doesn't have the flexibility of a quilt so there has been a couple of little challenges with maneuvering  the larger paper pieces through the machine.

All three images will be availble as prints at mels redbubble gallery

writings on the wall #2

current work in progress

Following my return from the McGregor Art School, I've been playing/experimenting further with acrylic paints onto various textile types to see what effects I can achieve, how the handle of the fabric changes and what I can still sew through. 

During the process the above collage piece is evolving - acrylic paint, quilting fabric onto primed canvass.

After the creative barriers I worked through with creating my first piece from the saying the "The Writings on the Wall". I didn't think a second piece would evolve but I'm loving the process and certainly enjoying the journey.  Looking forward to finishing off the piece.

Writtings on the wall

Hooray, Hooray - finished as well.

This wall quilt was my response to the saying 'Writing's on the Wall'. I'm part of a creative group called 'Broad Strokes' and we set little challenges throughout the year. We've all had a turn at setting a challenge theme and this one was Kate's (a link to Kate's blog is in my blog list). When Kate first suggested the theme I really had no ideas bounce into my head and felt rather blocked and blank about the saying. But I also saw this as the perfect reason to tackle it.

I ended up doing a word play exercise and just writing down every word or group of words that was my response to the saying. I then went to the dictionary to look up the definitions of some of these words and in some instances that took me in another direction. Through this word play exercise I discovered that there use to be a religious belief/group called 'Positivism' in the early 1800's, seemed to disappear by the 1900's.

Anyway once I had all the words together I had play around with different ways of putting words onto fabric. I've used acrylic paint, sharpie pens and ink jet printing. I also scanned one of my pencil drawn portraits and played a little with it in the computer (both faces on the quilt are from the one drawn picture) and then printed them onto 'TAP' paper and ironed them onto fabric. I've also taken one of my photos of Alcartraz and used the kaleidoscope feature in the computer to alter it.

I really did end up enjoying this challenge and wouldn't mind exploring another saying. So if anyone has an idea for another saying please let me know or pop it in the comments section.