Photos at last

Sorry for the last lot of photoless postings - I think a photo really helps on blogs.

So here are my latest magazines - Selvedge:

And this morning my new Quilting Arts magazine arrived - I can't wait to sit down after dinner and have a good look at it:
I also bought some fabric - here's a little bundle:
I did buy a pile from the sale at Kisko - but it needs washing and ironing still - so I'll let you see that in dribs and drabs.

And now the class from last week:
Some of you may recognise these two. Part of the class was for us to critique an artists work - and here are two of our class doing a Ant and Dec style presentation.

I also took my work in for some constructive comments - I already had an idea what I needed to do - but it's reassuring when others agree. So it was a very quick bit of screen printing -

in brown:
And black.

When I got the pieces if calico back home I tea dyed them, cut them up and added them to the final piece.

And here we are - with the words tacked on.

I'm much happier with the result now. There's still quite a bit of work to do - but I can see the end in sight. I'm just pulling together all my entry forms tonight to see about deadlines and exhibition dates. Yes I know - I'm a control freak...

I hope you've noticed I'm doing quite well (so far) with doing something towards my creativity everyday. How are you all getting on?

Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Brenda class

It was so good to meet up with familiar faces at the Bramble Patch today for our first class of 2008. I think we were all feeling a bit rusty after our break - but we soon settled in.

Brenda set us all a challenge - do one thing each day towards your creativity and she calculated that we have 34 days until our next class. As you can see I've added my list on my right hand side bar to share with you all. perhaps you;d like to join in and let me know what you're going to do each day. It doesn't have to be a huge thing - perhaps just looking at a book about an artist or having a doodle.

I've also decided I need to get more organised - yep that old chestnut again.

And, for those of you who go to the class, you won't be disappointed to see my tea bad dying experiment with calico. Here's the recipe
1 pint hot water
3 tea bags - Tetley's decaffeinated
4 pieces of calico added and then removed at 5,10 15 and 20 minutes. I'll post you a photo of the results soon - when I';ve got them in my sample book.
I'm now going to try it on my screen printed pieces.

Oh dear...

...I didn't realise I hadn't posted in a while.
Well I hope you are all well and enjoying the new year. Have you broken your resolutions yet? Or are you like me and haven't really decided on what ones to go for?
I'm playing with the idea of joining a gym. I've got a free 5 day pass for one locally so I'll give it a go and then decide.
No too much progress on the crafting front recently (hence no photos)- but the house is back to normal now my mum has gone to stay with her friend and Christmas is over. It's so nice to have it all back to normal and be able to have my sewing room back. It was also a good opportunity to re-arrange the furniture in there and give it a good clean. It looks great at the moment but I do have 2 boxes I need to empty and then I'm sure it'll look much as it did before (a bit of a mess).
I also have some homework to do for my next class at the Bramble Patch. I really must crack on with it otherwise the week will fly along and it still won't be done.

Review of goals for 2007

When I started my class at The Bramble Patch with Brenda Boardman she asked all of us to think about what we wanted to achieve from the classes, what our goals were. I’m rather bad at this as I don’t write goals well – so I never know if I got there or not. But anyway I did write the following goals:
-More confident use of colour
-Diverse use of different textiles
-Develop techniques
-Develop use of sketchbooks

She then asked us to write what the reality of where we were now against these goals:
-At the moment I play safe with colours and tend to use fabrics from within a manufactured range
-I always use manufactured fabrics
-I am open and willing to develop techniques
-I’m not confident with putting pen to paper

So that’s where I was – but where am I now?
-I have used colours more confidently – for example with my Sunburst – very bright, red, yellow and orange. But I do still need to have more of a go with this – perhaps by making smaller pieces in different colour ranges I could develop a range to refer to when making larger pieces
-I always used manufactured fabrics as I didn’t know how to dye my own. Now I have more of an idea. But what I really want to do in my next classes is to work on more ideas for fabric design.
-I’ve been more than willing to try all of the techniques Brenda has shown us. I’ve really enjoyed it. But what I have found out is that you actually get more from using a technique the second time around as you know what the options are and have seen others in the class using the same technique but in different ways.
-Well, I am better at putting pen to paper – and my art class did give me more confidence, but I need to do more of it.

I found this exercise suggested by Brenda very useful as it’s highlighted what the gaps are with the goals from last year. I can now decide what I need to do to close the gaps between the goal and reality – or perhaps even abandon some of the goals and set new ones.

What goals have you set yourself in crafting for 2008?

Another Day out

Hello all and Happy New Year. I hope the start of this New Year finds you all well.
I'd like to share a few links with for artists whose work I saw at the Ferrars Gallery at Staunton Harold at the end of December. They were really varied and interesting.

The first artist is Blandine Anderson - who paints and sculpts. The pictures at the gallery were predominately of fares and sheep. The texture was created by mixing sand with the paint, applying whilst wet and then sculpting it when dry. The results were really interesting - I resisted the temptation to have a feel LOL.

Priscilla Jones displayed some very interesting fabric pictures - in beautiful pastel colours. I particularly liked the spoons and sundae one.

Next was an enormous pelican on a post (Duncan Thurlby) - it was very large and really beautiful. I would love it have something like that but the reality is I couldn't afford it and we don't have the space.

Darren Dearden angel called someone to watch over me was simplistic. He had used buttons within the heart shape and foil within the wings. Very simple but I loved it.
The funniest things were the ceramic dogs made by Virginia Dowe - they are just so cute - almost like a jointed teddy bear. They have great expressions.

I hope you like having a look at their websites and it you're in the area do have a look in the Ferrars Gallery - they have a wide price range of products - well worth a look at.