On my table

This is a very busy time of year. Spring is here and there is much to do. Gardening has been on my mind which leaves me even less time in the studio. I haven't posted for a couple of weeks taking advantage of the nice weather for yard cleanup. 
After work I've been working slowly on another background for more of nature's offerings.

This time I was inspired by a book I was re-reading called "Bags with Paper and Stitch".  I started with canvas and I glued newsprint to it. Then I distressed the fabric and tore the newsprint away in sections that weren't glued. Then I applied plaster and paint.
 

There is still much to do but working slowly lets it progress over time and allows my mind to play with different ideas.
I'll have lots of time to ponder & collect more of nature's offerings in Ireland over the next couple of weeks.

Studio Peak

This is a piece that started to develop when my husband, Chris, gave me some metal out of his studio's wood stove.

It's the cutting strip from a celophane box. I had some bark that had already been prepared with paint & encaustic and going through the offering bowl had my creative juices going. So I have a general layout & now this piece is in the beginning stages of preparing the background.

Stimulating ...A GOE Challenge

One of the members of the GOE group gave us a container with some odds & ends and a word for inspiration, for us to use in our challenge. I've been pondering for quite some time & finally I had to just have it done because today was the last day I had to work on it. No more messing around. I always seem to run out of time and pressure to finish seems to be my best friend lately.

The word in the box was Stimulating. So I just did something that I find stimulating...that's working in encaustic. I used a wipe up tissue that I kept from a day of dying at a friends house for the backdrop. The colour matched perfectly with the rovings that were in the box. I added Pearl X, beads, a crayon coloured bottle cap, a tyvek & copper bead, along with some felted trimmings my daughter gave me last Christmas.

This is just a detail shot.

More Loot

Every month my husband attends a Saturday meeting in Cambridge. These meetings usually entail me tagging along & shopping for books, beads, fabric & art supplies. This is because Cambridge has a fabulous bead store & on the drive home we drive through Guelph. There's a fabulous quilt store as well as an art store & antique's...just the perfect drive. This is of course not so great for the wallet & seeing that we've been spending quite a lot of money fixing cars lately, I was going to humbly stay home & enjoy beading in my studio. This did not happen. At the last minute Chris advised he was going to pick up something in Hamilton & wanted me to tag along. Well that got the juices flowing & of course...cha ching. I stopped at the bead store, because I need beads like a hole in the head & then we stopped at the art store.

I have a terrible time mixing colours. I much prefer just buying the colour I want. The staff at the art store are very knowledgeable & helpful...which of course leads me to buy every time. At the checkout I was given a tube of Torrit Grey, this is a collection of all the waste pigment caught in the air filtration system. Rather than sending it off to land fill, they give it away. The colour is not consistent and if you're interested, just click on the link.

There's Beauty in Rust

Spoiler alert...the current, quarterly GOE challenge is a picture of a rusty grate. Not just any grate, it has to be something with this particular grate. It's in a golf course in Mexico & it's surrounded by grass. 

 Isn't it beautiful....I thought so but I just didn't know how to do it and make my piece interesting. I've actually been pondering it for 2 months & still nothing was coming. So I did some more intense study on the internet & decided that I was going to schedule Saturday for my encaustic bench. Now here's the spoiler part...those who don't want to see it until the reveal...don't look...all of those who would like to see it...check it out on the read more.

Mr. Boston ATC

This ATC (Artist Trading Card) was made for the GOE monthly meeting exchange. I was playing around with a different colour for me. I really wanted it to be red but for some reason it looks more pink. I started off with card stock, overlaid with white & printed tissue. Then I added a Boston postage stamp that I had in my stash & worked water over the tissue until it framed the stamp the way I wanted. I then dry brushed some bronze Lumiere paint for accent & used some rubbing alcohol to remove some of the excess paint so that some of the printed tissue would show through. I put it aside at that point because I wasn't sure it was finished but didn't know what I could do to be more interesting. So the next night I added some random hand stitching and then it was finished. I really love the texture you can get with the tissue. I should know who the person on the stamp is...but sorry I don't...at least not at this point. Maybe someone will enlighten me.

Mah Jong ATC

This is an ATC (Artist Trading Card) that I made for an exchange that the Surface Design group organized. The background was actually a piece that I made in the previous open studio get together. I've been trying for quite some time to get a particular effect using paper in which I have not been successful in achieving. If you follow my blog, you will know what I'm referring to. It was, once again, a Quilting Art article. I started off with canvas that I gesso'd and painted. Then added torn papers, Sudoku, in this case and then laid distressed cheese cloth over it. Dried it with a heat gun...because I'm very impatient and then added more paint. I didn't like the piece and it sat in the corner of my studio for months but when I broke it down into smaller sections, I ended up liking it much better. It's very ironic how I had trouble doing ATC's in the beginning because of how small they are and now I'm quite happy to break it down into a manageable piece. At least mentally breaking it down. The Lapis beads were purchased when I was on vacation in Turkey and they seemed to be the only beads I had that matched the blue denim paint. And I have a lot of beads....a LOT!!

Remembrance ATC

This is an ATC I did for the Group of Eight (GOE) swap. Remembrance Day had just passed when I started painting and I decided that I would do a poppy...but I wanted one that would show the poppy head with no pedals. I just love the dried poppy heads in my garden, so much so, that I don't cut them down. I leave them in the garden to spread seeds for the birds over the winter. I've made made several pieces using them. I find that the actual poppy comes so early in spring that they only last a day and the weather usually takes the pedals off. So as soon as the poppy opens...I take the camera to the garden and snap some pictures. That seems to be the only way I can enjoy them for a longer season and I can prove that yes...I did have some poppies. So this was a "Lest we Forget" remembrance piece.

Burka Beauty ATC

I've already posted a picture with "Village People" but I wanted the ATC to also have a post for itself. I've recently come back from a holiday in Istanbul. A beautiful vibrant city. I've been asked quite a lot about going to a Muslim country as many people have a great fear of what they don't know. Istanbul is a very modern city and not many women actually wear the Burka. At least, I didn't see many wearing them. My husband and I did notice, however, that a lot of the younger Burka wearing ladies had their eyes done up like they were models. I guess if that's all that was showing...then it had better be good...right. lol

This ATC was for the Group of Eight (GOE) swap.

Village People

The Surface Designers had a workshop day the weekend before Thanksgiving. These workshops can be anything you like...no rules...just have fun and be social...I love it. This time one of the members did a demonstration on Self Portraits. Now I've been playing with this idea for a very long time. I keep taking pictures of myself...not a pretty site...so they end up being deleted because you know what they say "a picture never lies"...I have to ask WHY the HELL NOT!! I for one would love some lying in that department. lol
At first it was quite intimidating but I just loved what she had done. She had such fun doing it and I was drawn to several of her compositions. I also just loved the peaceful...non stress of them not actually being self portraits but rather expressions..."green with envy"..."bruised"...my personal favorite. So I sat back and watched everyone for a little bit and started drawing. I'm much braver after I've sketched it...although I'm not a drawer of any kind it just makes me more comfortable with the movement I'll be doing on the cloth under the needle.

So these are my "Village People", of course they're not done. I have to add hair and whatever else to finish them but I just don't like the fact that I haven't posted in a while. It's just so hard to find the time to do everything we'd like to do. They were done with stitching using black thread to give them a more sketched look. Then you add water colour anything...paint, crayons or pencils until you feel that they have enough. Then the next step is to add the hair and embellishments...which I haven't done yet. Now the "Village People" are watching me on my design wall. Thanks Pat, I loved the demo...very addictive.