Barefoot Wanderings

Typography

is the theme for Marie Johansen's book for the round robin. I have been fascinated with the art form of words creating images - some art work out there is truly amazing. I was not as yet confident to try this myself, instead I created a word with words... 

I started off by listing all the words I could think of when I thought of love and then used them to create the word LOVE, literally words that make up the word love!

The next layout was inspired by the musical RENT - I love it!

I wanted to use handwriting as a main part of the background since fonts/words is the theme, and as my handwriting leaves much to be desired it needed to sit quietly in the background. I wrote the lyrics to the words Seasons of Love across a painted page with blue ink then turned the book 90 degrees and wrote the lyrics again in black ink. I then used my own handcarved stamp of 525 600. 

The right hand page is one made from my trusty "Cloth, Paper, Paint & Stitch" method that I have used a few times in this round robin - it gives such great texture. I used the same light bluey grey background. (made from mixing Matisse Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine & Titanium White). I hand cut a brick wall stencil and used a mix of Burnt Sienna & Ultramarine paint for the bricks. I used Michelle Wards 'Splattered Paint' stamp with Matisse Alizarin Crimson paint on both pages. Once dry I then used my sewing machine to free-motion stitch the words Seasons of Love. I then adhered the page into the book. Here's a closer look....

 

Postcard Swap

Just as I was striving for the finishing line with the Sketchbook Project, which I am please to say I met, I crazily signed up for Shannon's Mixed Media Postcard Swap. I loved the idea of receiving something in the mail that was interesting and being able to do that for others too. So I created my postacrds and managed to send them all off on time, along with a few extra I made for some of my special friends.

Collage, Acrylic Paint and Ink, 
The bird image is a hand cut stencil 

In regards to the Sketchbook project, I have received confirmation from the Art House that they received my book and it is in the process of being added to the digital library. For those interested you can go there to check it out as well as other impressive Sketchbooks. I have created a photo album in the left hand column of my blog with pictures of all the pages in my sketchbook.

Along the Line

is Sandy's theme for the Round Robin, and here is my interpretation.....

My thoughts went something like this, from Sandy's "objects on a line" to things hanging, like a clothesline to trees to leaves hanging on a branch = line.

Taking it futher... besides being currently obsessed with tress I am having fun playing with free-motion stitiching which to me equates to 'along the line' as images/designs etc.. are created by a line of thread being taken for a walk. 

The result are the leaves - made from a bit of Wool Top being stitched over with Varigated thread. (Note: the idea came from The Thread Studio's kit A Trio of Aussie Leaves. I used my own sketches of leaves and tried to take Dale's idea a little further and make it my own). 

Of course I had to include the tree and all the lovely raised lines.

I loved her idea for a sign in page but was a little put off by the shape of the tag. Don't get me wrong I loved that the tags were different being triangular, I just had a blank with what to do. Until I started thinking a little differently. The only instruction was not to remove the tag from the line, which I didn't..... 

Hope you don't mind Sandy, but I suppose that's the real beauty of a round robin - everyone putting their own into it, doing things differently!

Lose Control

in Penny's book - Music. Here are my first set of pages...

The page on the left is inspired from the Crowded House song Private Universe...'highest branch on the apple tree was my favourite place to be...' This was another Cloth, Paper, Paint & Stitch page, once complete I actually stitched it to the paper page. The page on the left holds a CD I burned & printed on for Penny. Each song on the CD captures a memory, the little note slipped in behind the clear CD pocket holds a brief explanation.

this is a second set of pages I completed...

both pages are coneeced by the band Mr Mister.

The page on the left was inspired by Mr Mister's song Broken Wings.
I wove together two sheets of paper to create the background, the first page contains the Lyrics to the song and the second sheet was some of the sheet music to the song. I then lightly painted over this with white Fluid Acrylic paint. The famous image of the couple dancing is a gel medium transfer. The other elements were hand stitched onto the page.

The page on the right was inspired by Hey Soul Sister by Train.
I painted a colourful background of Red, Orange &  Nic/Azo Gold. Once dry I placed a mask I cut of a woman dancing in the middle and painted the page with Golden Carbon black - lovely and glossy. I removed the mask to reveal the woman alight with music. Once dry I used a white paint pen to write the words of the song.

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.

Celebration of Trees

Inspiration:

Page:

 

Again, this was done using the technique from Stitch, Cloth, Paper & Paint  
It is a very textural page as I was trying to capture the 'scrubiness' from the photos above.

These images were taken in the parks/bushland near my house. I feel so fortunate.

Joyce's book is now making it's way to the USA - I sent it off this morning.

Fish

This is another page I created in Joyce's book. The background is a similar technique as used here.

Celebrating the Butterfly

I am currently working in Joyce's Book ' A Celebration of the Beauty of Nature'.

There are soo many wonderful things in nature to celebrate it was hard to choose where to start.

I love butterflies and they hold so much symbolic meaning for me that I thought it would be a great place to start. As I don't have any photos of my own, I searched the internet and found a few images appealing. I grabbed my journal (a new one especially for this Book Round Robin) and sketched a composition from these various images and used coloured pencils. This was the result:

The journal I have started for this Round Robin is a place where I can keep a record of all my ideas, and as I will not see the pieces I create again once they leave my hands I take notes of techniques, colours etc and make sure I have an image of the completed piece. This way I will always have a record I can look back on.

To the left is the page opposite the sketch. I took notes whilst I worked on and after I completed the page.

And here is an image of the completed page:

I collaged some text & sheet music before taking to the page with acrylic paints. The 'black' of the wings does sparkle a little as I added black mica flakes.

One Image, Three Mediums

The image is of a Scarlet Robin, the three mediums are....

Acrylic Paint:

 

Colour Pencil

I used Faber-Castell Polychromos colour pencils

 

and Machine Thread Sketching

This is my first attempt at Machine Thread Sketching.
If you ignore the fabric puckering, it's not too bad for a first attempt. 

 

"Is it Interesting?"

This is the last page I created in my book of quotes for the Round Robin.

It started out completely different and I really struggled with the page (it is at the back of the sign-in page). I made changes, placed various images and ideas over the page trying to work out why it wasn't working. Nothing was really working, so I left it.

I watched The Lost Thing - a short animated film based on the picture book by Shaun Tan (I know I have said it before but he is an amazing artist - he is a multi-award winning author & illustrator and won numerous awards for the film including an Oscar).

Part of the DVD extras is an interview with Shaun. During the the interview he talks about art and "is it interesting?" That's when I had the lightbulb moment on the page I as struggling with. Asking this question of that page the answer was 'NO! not to me'. I thought this was a great question to ask myself on any piece I create. Inspired, I wanted to create a page reminding me of this moment and thought, and I wanted to pay homage to Shaun. What was more appropriate than in my book of quotes.

Out came the gesso, the Yellow Pages and paints. 

I loved the soft muted colours he used so I mixed similar ones of my own.

As I was mixing, it brought to mind GPP Crusade 53 - Mad Scientist

So I named my colours..... 

the muted green - Cool Aid
the dark shade of green -  Deep Aid
the 'yellow' - Summer Sand
and
the Bluer green - Breeze 

The above page was the result.

Very appropriately placed next to my page with the quote 'What other People think is none of my business'