Precipice

At the precipice I almost lost my sanity!

I love trying something new, experimenting and playing, the journey of discovery. If I am lucky I will get caught up in the creative process and go off on my own tangent before realising I have strayed from the instructions. The freedom of creating for no-one, without having to have an end result is a joy - ecstasy if the instructions are easy to follow and actually work.

Trying something new whilst participating in a Round Robin with dead lines and pieces to be created for others can add the insanity to the process. There were, and are, many new things that I would like to try, choosing which ones to do in Jan's book was not an easy decision. Some attempts made it into Jan's book but as many didn't. Some of the end pieces I included in Jan's book are not pieces I think are great but they are in keeping with the spirit of the book. Thanks for the challenge Jan, and the push to try new things.

When I try a new technique from a book I often like copy what they have done, that way I can concentrate on learning a new technique and not worry about what to actually create. I did not feel that I could do this for Jan's book as the work would not be mine. To get over this hurdle I decided to use familiar images, one's that I had created previously. 

This page is the result of trying my hand at techniques from Stephanie Lee & Judy Wise's book Plaster Studio

This page was a little tricky as I had to keep in mind that this was not only a book page but one in a round robin, so it needed endure. After the plaster was applied to a heavy page and dried, I used acrylic paint that I added Ground Marble Dust to. The image used was one I have played with a few times as shown here. 

This was the first page I actually finished...

I had painted this image previously in acrylics, as shown here.
For his page I cut pieces of the flower out of 3 different coloured recycled fabric (fabric from sample swatches) - Blue for the petals, Pale Yellow for the flower centre and Green for the stem & leaves. I then used fusible webbing to adhere them to background fabric which I had backed with heavy weight interfacing. I then used my sewing machine to thread sketch the details of the flower using eight different coloured threads. There is some free motion stitching on the orange background fabric and it was the first time I have used my machine to write a word.

In amongst all of this I was also trying my hand at Digit Art in PSE (see previous post). Time was starting to run out but I felt I needed another page. After a few different ventures this is what went in Jan's book:

The background was one I created using Wet Felting Techniques, whilst the flowers were created using Dry Needle Felting. As I said, there were time restraints so a great deal of work was not lavished on this piece.

Comments

[Jan Adams]

Ursula Clamer! I have only just caught up with the amazing entries you contributed to my book. You didn't JUMP off that precipice, you FLEW. FOUR TIMES!! I can only begin to imagine the pressure you alluded to.... Thankyou dear friend I am thrilled, delighted and very very impressed.
xx

[ro bruhn]

Three fabulous pieces Ursula, so glad the round robin is going well. I know if you're organising it, it will run like clock work. xo