Another leaf and some painting

today's ATC is another leaf!!
Felt, Wire, Silver thread, green stranded cotton, running stitch, couching, chain stitch.

I was looking at  the colouricious site in response to their newsletter, and found a gorgeous landscape by Ineke Berlin.    This one is also gorgeous, too.' 

Ineke uses Lutradur for her landscapes and because it is a non woven fabric, there are no fraying problems.  I thought I would have a go at it.  I have lutradur, but I looked around to see what other nonwovens I had.

I found some nappy lines, some face wipes and baby wipes and for good measure, I added some tea bag paper.

Since they were all very thin, I layered them up, so that ant paint going through would go onto the fabric below, and I decided to use the kids paint brushes I bought the other day. (Instead of throwing out the paint - nothing goes to waste around here!)

Here is a baby wipe painted.  I was using primary colours, nothing very nature like about that, but I will show you how I changed the contrast and colours in a bit.

Tea bag paper - very translucent and yummy!

and some nappy liner - you can see here the colours are much more natural and the contrast is more blended in.  I did this by doing something I often do when painting fabrics for landscape.  I roll the fabric together to blend the paints.  In these two above, I rolled the fabric into a sausage and then rolled it between my hands.  In other samples, I scrunch and roll into a ball and roll between my hand, and this gives a more blotchy pattern rather than the streaks you see here.

My group of tea bag papers.  Because these were so see through, I didn't blend the colours by scrunching.)

Here are some of the face wipes and baby wipes.  you can see the bottom right, green one was scrunched rather than rolled.

More baby wipes and some nappy liners.  The two nappy liners at the bottom show clearly the difference between rolling and scrunching with these very thin materials,

All in all, a very successful session.  Now, I need to do a bit of work on my sketch of the creek, which is what I want to use this for.  and start cutting ripping, arranging and sewing.  Hopefully, I'll have something to show by next week, although I still have one deadline today week to get done!  (It will be down to the wire as usual for me)

An ATC a day keeps the world at bay!
Go see lisa's ATC

A little beetle and a finished butterfly

Today's ATC
 

 Beetle, cast  with tissue paper and painted with nail polish.  Beaded and stitched on to monoprinted fabric.  folded edge.

and now, my butterfly, I was working on here and here is finished.

I added some dyed chiffon in the bottom right and stitched it down, then did a bit of stitching over it.  Last, I quilted/embroidered the sky and called it done.  I might, pehaps add some hand stitching and beads and of course, finish the edges, but all that will take a while to think about.

What are you creating today?

A bit of nature and some stars

Today's ATC is a bit different, but I just thought, "what if..." and made it.  The background is some eucalyptus bark, which is always lying around outside.  The pebbles are ones I found in the garden (not the ones I bought, which are much more regular) and the twine was just out of the drawer.  It was quite easy to sew through the bark to attach the pebbles and I punched the holes for the twine with a simple hole punch!
I like this one, and it is telling me that the simple things are often the best.

Today is tangled textiles challenge reaveal day, so one of my deadlines is finally gone.
Here is my piece in response to the theme of "look up"

It is my view of the Southern cross and the milky way, which I see from the back steps most nights, only of course infinitely more lovely than this.

I started with a closely scribble quilted piece of fabric

Then painted it with acrylic paint.
Next, I stencilled in the milky way with a silver shiva stick and I disliked it so much, I didn't even take a photo.
I tried using some organza to cover it up

but that didn't work!  In the end, I thread painted all over the shiva cloud with a variegated white to blue thread.

I Added iron on sparklies for the stars, but I still didn't like it but I bound it anyway because the 15th was hours away, then as I sat, thinking, I started adding some hand stitching with perle thread, and I started to like it a bit.  Obviously, time was an issue, or I think I would have added more hand stitch.  Next time I will start hand stitching much earlier, as I think I am starting to want that texture in my work.

Anyhow, have fun creating every day.

TAST week 2

Week two for TAST is buttonhole stitch.  This landscape ATC is done entirely with buttonhole stitch.


I found a poor, dead butterfly and put it in one of my little books with pockets

Very morbid, I know, but it was just too beautiful to leave.
And then I sketched it.

I don't know why I tend to do this when I sketch moths and butterflies - that is, only finish one side, but I do (perhaps I'm just lazy)
Here are a few other sketches from my book, whilst you are waiting for me to meet my deadline tomorrow. (or late tonight, maybe)

A quick outline for a landscape.

A fish I want to use in a layered piece.

Some teacups from a home decorating type magazine.

A design for a beaded embroidery.

And finally a shell which was sitting on my desk.

Now, off to finish my Tangled textiles challenge!

Make a playdate with Art!

This was made from a tape transfer with a magazine page, then free motion stitched onto yellow felt.  The ribbon was added with a double sided blanket stitch.

That's it for today,  need to work on my two deadlines which are looming, looming,

Make art a part of every day.

Let's play and go shopping

Today's ATC is a mixed media one

On  an ATC mattboard, scribbled markers (textas), black shoe polish, glitter. enamel square, spiral paper clips, cardboard letters (and tacky glue of course).
and all I've got to blog about is a bit of shopping!
I am the dollar store queen, when it come to supplies.

some pealy brads.  I love brads.

some light wooden circles, which might make a good stamp and embellishment.

some stick on gems, which I of course wanted yesterday for my ATC, so had to do something different

Some great foam stamps, I love butterflies, don't we all?

Some felt sheets, for 69 cents!

leather scraps - a great find!

lots of great stickers with text, pictures, sayings etc.

some great papers.

Greaseproof paper, which is just like craft tissue and which I use in fabric papers and tissue collage. And contact film, clear book covering, which is great for tape transfers and means you are not limited to the width of tape.

some pebbles, which I have been wanting for a while

And last of all, some cheap kid's paint brushes, which you can refill with whatever you want, then squeeze to paint, useful for painting big areas, and for coating pages with PVA.

So, although I haven't got any work to show today, I have done a bit of preparation and since it is my birthday tomorrow, I don't feel too guilty, lol

Don't forget to spoil yourself!

Remember spring, and altered books

playing card, molding paste through a stencil, gesso, watercolour paint, (very messy) decorative machine stitching, lazy daisy, felt backing.

Another brief glimpse into my artbooks, today.

This is a niche, cut into my insect theme book, using layered tissue paper and a cast tissue dragonfly.

and another, layered tissue page in my techniques book, with some decorative stitching on the side of the page.

I have arranged some distressed leaf samples I did a while ago on some paste paper in my leaf theme book.

Here are two little niches, front and back in my leaf theme book.

hereis the page complete, with a metal leaf and a cast made from it mounted.

and from the back, with the distressed leaves showing through.

this page is created using newspaper, gesso, acrylic and then a watercolour wash with salt.

And I am playing with this acetate overlay, but I think I might make one out of stitching to go on this page.

I am very busy with things I can't show you yet, which is quite frustrating, but hopefully next week the pressure will be off slightly and I will be able to get some playing done!

And don't you forget to play every day! 

Don't forget Lisa's ATC