Sundayitis

Bleak horrid weather outside- but the rain is needed and I slowly see dams that dried out last summer filling up again slowly.

I have been doodling in my journal , playing around with lines for linocutting. The flowers are inspired by lace, and the face by an image of Mary from the St Serge Convent in Maloula by Michel of Crete ( 1813). I love the detail of ornamentation on the icon image.

Finished!

 

I have been quiet- life has gotten busy and I have been desperately trying to finish my quilt so that I can send the entry to EPM Concours. The photo is of a snippet of the quilt- can't really show you the whole- but I did use the three colours of the flag- just changed them into a much nicer red and blue!

We have also started our on-line lino cutting course and that has been fun.Developing the work for the course has been a good exercise- it has really pushed me to look hard at design, which is not a bad thing!I will definitely be doing another on-line course starting sometime in August- I already have a waiting list.

And on another note- Fiona Wright from Creative Art Safari's and I have been working/dreaming on a tour we will do in August 2010 of England and Belgium inspired by the Arts & Craft Movement. The design elements of the movement fit in nicely with the lino-cutting work I am doing) So I am also looking at the philosophy underlying the movement- revisiting John Ruskin ( whose work I so briefly encountered when doing my masters)I love researching things- it fulfills the intellectual side of doing.

Cold Weather

 

The image is of some work I have been preparing for my on-line lino-cutting course.The spiral block has been done on a speedball block and though the edges looked rough on the cuts, it printed cleanly, which surprised me. Can you see the cutting mistakes I made?It is taking a lot of time cutting the blocks demonstrating various aspects of lino-cutting- and despite the fact that there are books out ther eon lino-cutting , there is very little that is design oriented. There are some that show the work of artists utilising the medium , and though they are wonderful , the images can be rather daunting for someone starting out. I look at some of the images and think how on earth did they do that? Was surprised that dremel tools and routers and power tools are used ( I am not sure why I was surprised by this- just had not thought of it I suppose)

However I am enjoying the directions the cutting is pushing me in with this concentrated effort at creating blocks. Now to make a book with worthy content... I mean a book with images- a hand made book.

Time Flies

 

My eldest daughter turned 18 today- such a milestone but where has the time gone???

Yes I do have a cat- and finally I am sharing a picture of her- she sleeps on my bed most nights- who knew a cat takes up that much space????? I am probably 50 times (or more) her size and yet she manages to take over the greater portion of the bed. But nonetheless she has been a part of our lives for seven years now ( it's her birthday soon). Her name is Mitsou- she is a lilac point burmese and has a wicked sense of humour, and is just a little crazy, but funny as well. But most of all I think of her as a "vredig beestje" - it's dutch I am sorry- it sort of means peaceful animal- but a little more and in a sense more surrounding as a feeling- it's gotten me through some of the worst moments thes e last 2 and a half years- it's my little mantra- she sits on my lap and I think "vredig beestje" ( even though she is super good at killing mice ,rats and I hate it ,but birds too, and she has even be known to bring home decapitated baby snakes, one wonders where the head went????) In fact it has become such a mantra- that when I sit to hand sew/quilt she thinks that is the signal for her to sit on my lap and be vredig! We are hoping to find her a home for a year when we are in France ( anyone interested?)- the quarantine regulations make it too hard to take her with us.

Couleurs d'un Pays

 

I think I am making some headway in my thinking for the theme for Val d'Argent."Le Carredour Europeen du Patchwork invited all the continents to show their treasures. From this idea,travel through the country of your choice, upon a free topic, as long as the piece only includes the colurs of the flag from your selected country"

As someone has already observed red/white/blue of the Australian flag are hardly inspiring and yet when you think of th eoutback you do think of red and blue- just a different red and blue, and there is white too with saltbush, bleached bones and flannel flowers...... i am still thinking but this blue/red combo is much more pleasing and so much more like the country I live in.

Evolon Madonna

 

A week or so ago I showed the Madonna transferred onto the Evolon. I have now stitched her with machine stitching. She looks quite different to the hand stitched Madonna I did awhile ago.

I also have to put the thinking cap on for the Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork concours this year with the theme "Colours of a Country"- you have to include the colours of the flag of the country- and well red white and blue of the Australian flag is hardly inspiring. I do have a few ideas, but I am still not entirely happy with how they are panning out.

Lovely Lutradur

I haven't fallen off the planet but the power supply to my computer did and I was left computerless for five days as the necessary repairs were carried out. This put a considerable dent in the week but perhaps it was for the best as last week the contract arrived for the publication of Lovely lutradur written by Marion Barnett and myself in French. We had discussed it eons ago with Editions de Saxe and as we had heard nothing I had assumed that maybe they were no longer interested. Wrong..... but alas I had sold some of the work we photographed for the cd and I could no longer track it all down. And of course the publishers want to take their own phtographs. So I had to recreate quite a few of the smaller pieces. I decided as long as the subject matter was similar I didn't think it mattered it the work wasn't exactly the same.

So I sewed and sewed to get everything ready for the courier by Thursday afternoon. Thankfully my machine behaved, the twelve weight threads that I am trialing for Aurifil proved to be a godsend ( these are brilliant for doing satin stitch binding and quilting- I hope they do decide to go ahead with producing the threads), and surprisingly some of the pieces turned out better than those I did first time around. I don't really revisit work but I think the little stone angels piece and the boabab tree are better the second time around. The fabric I lay behind the printed tree on the lutradur proved to be particularly effective for creating interesting texture.