Birds on a branch

This morning I worked into one of my monoprinted fabrics.
I was a very simple monoprint of branches (which I forgot to photograph before I started - sorry)
I decided to do some raw edge applique

You can see in the above photo, the pinky fabric at the top is the monoprint, and I have layeres some sheer chiffon over it then free machined some birds onto the white branches of the monoprint.

Here I have cut away around some of the birds, The white bird is a template I made to trace around for the stitching.

Here you can see the monoprint that was underneath after I cut around the birds.

Next I placed a piece of green chiffon over to stitch some leaves.

I stitched a lot of leaves.

I did a bit of cutting....................

And then a lot more.  And now I am presently hand stitching the background.  That will take me a fair while.

Happy Creating!

A mixed bag

I do try to blog most days, but this week has been a turbulent one in our household and the internet has been a bit iffy, so sorry for that.
Today's post is just a bit of miscellany from my studio.
Firstly, remember that felt I was embroidering all over with the embroidery machine?

Well, I finished it.  And then.....

I cut it all up!  If you remember, I said I was going to make a bag.  Well, it is all cut into the pattern pieces for the bag, and I will show it to you when it's done, since it is not my design.

And here is a collage page I did in one of my journals.  The butterfly is 3D.  It contains painted papers, some of the stickers I made the other day, gelli prints and bits and pieces from my collage box.  I was very pleased with how it came out, since I just started sticking whatever was to hand.
On another note, recently, I watched a Mary Beth Shaw webinar and she mentioned that she often uses water based matte house paint as a bottom layer in her journals, so I thought I would try it out as we have a ton of it.

Even though this says white, it was actually egg shell blue

This was my first sample page, where I tried out different media on it.  Clockwise, from top left, watercolour from my palette, inktense blocks, watercolour pencils, a black paint marker, A yellow waterbased marker, a red faber castell marker, a gel pen, pink acrylic in a dabber bottle, acrylic with a make up sponge, and lastly acrylic with a brush.
They all did rather well on it I must say, and it dries very fast, leaving a great matte surface.  So, another thing to recycle that would otherwise have to be disposed of.  It covers better than gesso and is more matte!
So, i now have a lot of pages already painted and dried, going through the final test, which is whether the pages will stick together.  However, if they do, I will just give them a light sand, which is what I do with painted pages when they stick.

So that is my mixed bag for today!

Happy Creating!

No bandwidth

I meant to post  yesterday, but as often happens on the weekend, there was not enough internet to go around in our little town, so I couldn't upload any photos.
But here are a few backgrounds and bits I did in my journals whilst the embroidery machine was whizzing away.

These are all sticker sheets I painted whilst I was working on the pages.  I have done this before, with large pieces, but I was reminded of it after watching a Mary Beth Shaw Webinar

This was a stamp of a dragonfly I made and tested out in my journal

This page used the stamp with some silver paint and the coloured dragonflies were cut from the stickers

After I cut out the dragonflies, I used the scraps to makes some strange looking plants on this page.


Nothing is ever wasted here!

Happy Creating!

A noisy day.

I have had he embroidery machine stitching away beside me most of the day as I am embroidering quite a large piece of felt for a special bag I want to make.

Here is the machine sewing away.  This was earlier today and this was only the second section.

Here we are after about six sections.  As you can see I still have a long way to go to fill the fabric - Perhaps another day's worth?
Whilst the machine Has been going, I have been getting in a little quilting practice.

This is one of my practice quilts, of which I have several.  This one is an old cheater fabric piece I was given.  Waste not want not.  This fabric is absolutely revolting, however it is great for practicing on as it has lots of different block patterns.  I also don't waste batting on these.  For this one, I am using a recycled mattress protector, which is basically poly batting.
I have also been doing a little painting in between the beeps from the machine, but haven't taken any photos, perhaps tomorrow.

Happy Creating!

Butterflies

I really enjoyed the painting I did on fabric recently, so I thought I'd do some more.  I saw some butterflies yesterday and thought, well let's do one then.
I used a photocopy of a dover picture to start me off and free motioned the outlines through the paper onto one of my collages.

I didn't think to take photos until I was nearly finished picking the paper away.  This is a technique that I have shown before, but really, I just sew the main lines of a picture through a paper laid over the fabric, basically tracing with a sewing machine.  You can see above there are still bits of the photocopy on the left wing, and when the paper is picked out (which is quite easy so long as you only stitch the main lines) you only have your stitched lines.  Some of the picked out paper is at the top right.

Here are just the lines of stitching left.  I used a piece of voile over the collage, so the surface of the butterfly would be even for painting.

Here, you can see I am painting the black areas with acrylic paint.  Don't worry, the paint and brush are sitting on some clear perspex, not on my work!

I have finished all the black here and it is a bit messy, but all my mistakes will soon be covered up.

Here, I have taken it back to the sewing machine and covered the black with stitching.
I painted it black, so I didn't have to do so much stitching to cover it.

then I went and painted all the white patches (Which are actually white in real life) with some metallic paints.

Finally, I cut away the voile and I also went and added a bit more stitch, too, but I don't seem to have a picture and since it took me over an hour to upload these because the internet is playing up (as it always does when it rains), you will have to wait until I finish the hand stitching on the background for that.
Serendipity also, that today's design matters TV video (need to subscribe to watch, but really worth it) was also on butterflies, so I also did one of these in my sketchbook!

Hope you enjoyed the butterflies!

Happy Creating!

Some doodling

I found it very hard to get started this morning and one of the things I have done to solve this problem, is that earlier in the year, I made a number of fabric collages (about a hundred), so when I have no idea what to do, I can just grab one and play with it.
This morning I chose a monoprint on some curtain voile, which has been sitting in my pile for a while.

The monoprint was very simple, just green, with leaves drawn with a palette knife.  (And as per usual for me I had forgotten to photograph it before I started)
The first thing I did was use some green thread to scribble the zig zags inside the leaves.  Then I got some orange and drew loops in the background.  I felt that the zig zags did not show up well, so I painted them with a turquoise metallic lumiere paint.
It is a bit quirky, but I will make it up into something, a wallet or a couple of credit card cases, perhaps.  It is about 8 inches square.  Any ideas?


Happy Creating!

Hello dear, what did you do today?

Today was my weekly art class.  It is a very small class, so I usually have plenty of time to do something myself, so today, I did this

I was playing with a palette knife rather than a brush, which is something I love to do as there is tons of texture as a result.
My composition was not good, as I have placed the focal point in the centre, but I suppose I could cut a bit off the alter it.  anyway, it was just playing. The photo is not good due to the shine of the paint, but it's nearly dark here so no natural light.  It might perhaps look better on it's side?
This is acrylic, and would probably look better and have more texture in oil, but with the temperatures plummeting and winter nearly here, it would take weeks to dry enough between layers, so maybe in the spring.

Happy Creating!