Lace printing

A very dear friend gave me a huge amount of white lace recently, she'd had it in her stash for quite a few years and decided she'd never use it, so I was the lucky recipient. It was in my house for around half a day and boy has it had a transformation.

I resurrected my gelatine plate from the fridge, the one I'd made and used in an earlier post and the images below are the results.

I've mixed the dyes to create 'old fabric' colours, they have a slightly oriental feel. They really do look ancient in real life. I want to turn them into a hand stitched quilt.

These were made using other fabrics and stencils. The gelatine plate now has a flaw in it which appears in the prints adding to the aged look. I've also noticed the plate has shrunk. I'm amazed at how long it's lasted, it's now back in the fridge waiting for it's next work out.

And this is the lace that was used to make the lace designs on the plate. I love the colours and intend to use these in my journals.

Finally another section of my re-arranged studio, this is now my journalling desk. The book I'm working in is one that belongs to a fellow member of our art group. I decided I needed to work in it and not leave it until the last minute as usually happens.

I'd like to thank everyone for your support over the past twelve months, I really do appreciate your dropping by and especially leaving comments. They make me feel it's really all worthwhile.

Also a huge Thank You to everyone who supports my Etsy store, I'm hoping to have lots more items available now that I'm doing my art full time.

Have a fabulous New Year and I hope 2011 will bring you all even more Happiness and creative success.

The domino effect

I think I've bitten off more than I can chew. I decided on Sunday that as I'll be working in my studio full time now it needed re-arranging to make it more efficient. Well I'm still going, I needed to move one of my steel plan cabinets to get to my very long work table, this required me to move a smaller table out of my studio altogether while the move was on. I moved boxes, books, fabrics, papers and tools out into my workroom where I hold my workshops. Things were thrown out, that was very painful, others went into a give away pile. Now you'd think after all of that I'd have a very tidy, neat studio. It's now Thursday night and I've just found the top of my work bench, all of the furniture is in it's new position. I'm not sure what went wrong but I still have a pile of stuff left in my work room that now won't fit back into my studio, even after I've thrown all the other things out. It looks like I'll have to do another cull before I can hold my next workshop.

This is the new home of my fibres and sari silks. I have strung them from an old metal film reel that my lovely son-in-law found for me.

The ribbon reels are now housed on an old skirt, pants, tie rack, not sure what it is. I've had it for years and new it would come in handy for something one day.

Tonight was the first time I've done any art all week. I made some 'leather look' paper above and did some more gelatine printing below. I'll be putting together some paper and fabric kits in the new year to add to my etsy store. These can be made into small journals or used for collage and card making.

I'm going to over print this one as it's a little stark.

I'd like to thank you all so much for your lovely, encouraging words re my new career. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time now. I'm really looking forward to going to my studio each day rather than all of the travelling I've been doing over the past twenty years.

I'd like to wish you all seasons greetings and I hope you all have a very creative and happy 2011.

Full time Artist as of Friday

This Friday will be my last day of working as a full time graphic designer. I've travelled two hours a day, there and back for the past twenty years. I certainly won't miss the travel. I will still be doing some work for them from home, but it will only be on a part time basis.

My new full time career in art is about to begin, I'm really looking forward to being able to get some of the ideas that keep spinning around in my head out and onto paper. I started today by making some gelatine prints, something that I haven't made for awhile. I'm thinking that might become a workshop in the new year.

I will now be concentrating on more teaching and I'm hoping to start creating some online classes too.

I haven't been near my jewellery table for around a month, now that's all about to change as well.

These prints were made on paper, the second pair show how I made a blue print on the left, then did a second print which was lighter. When it was dry I overprinted it with a similar design in a rust colour.

These prints were made on fabric. I used my Indian wood blocks for the top four. They look so old and almost Japanese. I love how all the flaws in the gelatine plate add interest. The bottom left was made using a paper doily and the right used some of my pomegranate cut outs.

Our Altered Books and Beyond group are having our Christmas get together on Tuesday night so I've been putting together some little gift packs to hand out. Each one has a small heart decoration made from my fabric papers.

I'll be back soon, blogging more now I hope.

Another small journal

This is the other small journal I hadn't had time to list on my Etsy, it's now in there. I'm still working on orders and one I can't show until later next year.

SOLD

These are a few of the pages in the journal, they feature my decorated papers, printed pages of my art, some original cut out pieces of art, fabric elements and a variety of other papers.

I met with our art group for a wonderful Christmas lunch last Saturday, we always have a great time, so much show and tell we hardly have time to eat. I received some wonderful gifts from Patsy, Jacky, Dot and Julia, all beautiful. I haven't had time to take photos of them but I have a photo of the gifts I made for them. They are hearts stitched using my paper fabric and then they have jewellery elements added to the bottom. The backs are lined with fabric.

Here's a photo of our get together compliments of Dot.

Finally these are the pages I made in Jacky's book for our altered book swap.

This page has many layers of collaged paper napkins, built up to create texture. Jacky loves owls so I managed to add one to the right hand corner. The gold squares are cut up foil chocolate wrappers.

This page features is a fabric collage quilt.

Small journal for sale

I've finally listed another small hand made journal on my Etsy store. I made it about a month ago but haven't had time to list it. I hope to have some paper and printed fabric packs available too soon.

The journal pages, most are decorated, some are plain, there are fabric, stitched elements. Some of my hand drawings and collage elements and some hand made papers from India.

A random selection of pages

The cover is hand painted and decorated, it has sari silk trims top and bottom and hand dyed lace down the sides. The inside covers are lined with fabric.

SOLD

Busy, busy workshop

Saturday's painted fabric workshop was a great success. The sun shone beautifully for our sun printing, after a week of rain I was beginning to wonder what Saturday would hold, but in true Melbourne style the sun came out and everything was fine.

The ladies made some wonderful paper fabric too from paper napkins and there stamps and printed fabrics where gorgeous.

Joanne and her mountain of torn napkins.

Nicky with her elephants.

Caryn's beautiful rich colours

Sue's old world look.

All heads down.

These are some of the wonderful results of their sun printing and their stamp printing.

These are the gorgeous paper fabrics.

Sorry ladies I didn't get photos of everyone's but they were all fabulous.

I was also very lucky to have one of my felt brooches added to Glass Creek textiles Etsy Treasury.

Thank You, that was very kind.

Full class

The fabric workshop filled up very fast which is great news. I'm going to hold another one early next year for those who missed out. The photo below is one of the things we will be doing in the workshop, it's paper made from fabric and paper serviettes. You can stencil over it with paint, add fabric scraps to it. Hand or machine stitch it and also add beads.

These are the papers after they have dried, they are not as shiny as they look in the photos.

This is a section of one of the sheets. I stitched over the butterfly and created flowers with organza, then cut away the remaining organza to show the paper.

This section has lots of machine stitching with metallic threads.

This has lots of seed beads added.

I also made another mixed media quilt inspired by Beryl Taylor, it's not finished yet, I think it might end up as a page in a journal I've been commissioned to make.

New Journal

This is my latest journal on my Etsy. I completed it a little while ago but have only just got around to photographing some of the pages. I decided to group them so each mosaic shows four double pages.

This is the cover, it has a jewellery pin attached for decoration.

These are some of the pages showing fabrics and papers.

There are lots more pages, this is just a sample. SOLD

I purchased the sari fabrics from my friend Julia she has now added some to her Etsy store. They are fabulous fabrics and Julia puts the colours together so well. They are such great value.

Our drought has definitely broken. On the 31st of October we had more rain in one day than the average total for the whole month. The weather had warmed up too so the garden has gone crazy, it looks like the tropics. That's just a snippet above of the lushness.