Surface Decorating and Collage

A couple of weeks ago I had a weekend of learning and creativity in Mandy Pattullo's workshop "Surface Decoration". The Saturday was mainly used learning some techniques and playing around with them. On Sunday we created two or three larger pieces. I chose to make just two big ones. Mandy's work is much more "decorated" than mine and I think mine was on the whole least decorated of all the works. Mandy is so very generous with her teaching and it is always really good fun to attend. If you are anywhere near Newcastle it is worth attending. Look in "Horsley Printmakers" website for her courses.

Anyway, I had an idea of creating something to on Elf son's wall and the other piece I had not thought of. I got the son's "boy dreams" picture pieces together much quicker than the other one, as I did not have a ready idea or colour story in my mind. I have called it "particles". The Boy dreams picture has pieces which have special meaning to Elf Son.

There is collage, lino print, print with blocks and wall paper, monoprinting, painting with brusho, resist techniques, stitching, textile and line drawing all in one picture.
The frame is a cheapy one from IKEA. I would have liked to put it in a nicer frame, but I am still slightly nervous about hanging pictures with glass on Elf Son's walls. This is with plexiglass and much safer. I will see if I can buy some proper matting for it as I think that would improve the looks to no end.

The particles picture got a detail added at home:

I added a real old skeleton key buy sewing it on.

As you can see I have used not only Mandy's stamps, but also other artists' copy righted material in form of postcards and pictures. It doesn't matter as this is for myself, I would not do this if I was to sell the picture. Here is the "particles"

I chose to frame it under glass in IKEA frame. When I was measuring this picture for the frame, I remembered another picture I had wanted to frame a long time. This time work of Elf son, two years ago:

These two have same colours and look really nice together in their frames. This is obviously a portrait of me, made for the mother's day. Behind the picture it says: "I love my mummy because she massages my back every evening and it makes my back feel good."

Now I just need to hang them.

Hello Again! and Re-make three: Retro Skirt

Sorry about the far too long hiatus. There was a really long spell of drab grey days which made any picture taking impossible and then my computer went into coma. It took a turn in intensive care unit aka Elf Husband's hands (how good is it to have a helpful in-house computer nerd?) and is now functioning again, yihaa!

This garment was one of the things I was lucky to rescue from my Grandma's wardrobe. She must have made it in 60's. It was so neatly sewn. I took it for its retro fabric and thought maybe making something out of it as I was convinced that I could not squeeze myself into it. I got inspired later to try to make a skirt by cutting it up in strips. When I tried it on the skirt fitted. It was only far too small over the shoulders, yihaa! I simply cropped the skirt off and sewed the waist and made a couple of darts at the waist to give it form. Time used: 5 minutes or so.

While I was doing this I noticed that the lowest button had had an accident either in the making or using. It was patched, really neatly, so that the pattern matched.

I wore the skirt for half an hour and I had the same accident happening to me, just one button up, where the fabric wasn't reinforced. I could have just given up at this point, but I had realised that I WANTED this skirt.

I then put extra interfacing behind the buttons and used some fabric to enforce the button strip. Next thing to happen? The button holes started ripping. So doing the same on that side too. Now I have a really nice retro skirt and no other bits have given up the ghost. And I like it!