a feel good type of thing to do

I'm happy to say that I just delivered my piece for the 2011, Textile Museum of Canada, Shadow Box Auction. This is my fifth year of donating to this very worthy cause. The pieces will be auctioned off next March, with all proceeds to benefit the Museum. If you're in the Toronto area, please join us on February 23rd, 2011 for the Artist Reception and Public Preview. The actual auction is on March 10th and tickets will be available from the Textile Museum. I promise that you won't be disappointed by the wide array of tiny, but exquisite art pieces.

A somber pallette for me, but one that I feel is both classic and sophisticated. Of course, I just had to include some hand and free motion machine stitching, recycled fabrics, a little bit of acrylic paint and shiny, sparkly beads!



More detail from the bottom section.



I originally intended the piece to be just sky and land, but the tree was quite forward and demanded to become a focal part.

The rocks are hand ruched fabrics in silks, velvet, cotton and mixed fibres. The beading includes stacked and free-form filler stitches. The sky is strata pieced and has been accented with free-motion straight and zigzag stitches, machine couching and hand stitching. Acrylic paint was scraped on after the machine and before the hand stitching. The tree was a last minute addition and let me tell you, it's not easy free motion machine sketching a tree AFTER all the beading had been done! Needless to say, more beads were added to cover up the fact that the tree was floating in the air. Giggle!




"The Sentinel"

I spent an entire evening collaging little tiny pieces of Citra Solve, dissolved, National Geographic pages on to the unfinished pine shadow box. I started by wearing gloves, but when they started sticking to the piece, I ended up using my bare fingers to smooth it all down. Thank goodness for wet wipes and nail brushes! I'm happy with the results though, because I feel that the box actually looks like it's made out of marble.





Do you believe that I started this last Friday night and finished it on Sunday evening? Am I crazy, or what? Needless to say, no cleaning or cooking was done in my house last weekend!! The things I sacrifice for my art!

BJP 2011 Registration

This collage represents the first and only six pieces that I've made for 2010. Please ignore the April date under the header on the collage. Picasa entered it and I can't figure out how to either edit or get rid of it completely. Grrrrrr.....

The registration for the 2011 Bead Journal Project started on November 8th. I believe that it stays open for one month. If you're interested in learning more , please check out the detail in this blog post. While you're there, wander about and check out some of the work. If you're not moved, you're a stronger person than I am! I've just signed up again, despite the fact that I stalled at June. Don't worry, I will finish the other six, but life happened and it won't be in 2010. I'm already getting excited about my new plans for 2011! Is anybody going to join me? I promise that you'll have fun!! BTW, you don't need to be as obsessive as I am about bead embroidery. It only needs one bead!!

Recycled Inchies

Don't you just love anything done in miniature? These are from a swap I hosted on the Cloth Paper Studios Yahoo Group . The only rules were that you had to make one inch pieces of embellished art that included a recycled element, in the medium of your choice. As you can see from the collage, it was an excellent swap!

Just keep in mind these are 1" square. Mine included the following:

-free motion machine stitched leaf on watersoluble stabilizer, using leftover netting and rayon thread ends
-fabric paper trimmings from another project (scrap tissue paper, glue and acrylic paints)
-Japanese lace paper found crumpled up at the back of a drawer (sprayed with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists)
-beads from the stash
-the background is from a jacket I started in a class too many years ago to count. Loved the fabric, but hated my embellishment choices. No plans to ever finish it! Plenty of fabric left to play with
-backing - used computer paper and leftover paint from another project
-I butted thrift shop yarn up against the edges and then zigzagged over it





BTW, do you like my envelopes? I wrinkled up some kraft envelopes, flattened them out and then rubbed on Tim Holtz distress inks (stamp pads). After they dried, I brushed on acrylic medium for strength. The ongoing challenge is for the participants to re-use the envelopes in some of their own art. I can't wait to see what they come up with!

Here's a larger photo of the envelopes:





I'll probably be hosting another swap of this type, again in the new year. CPS is great for swapping a wide variety of mail art. Nice people and you NEVER get burned. If enough people express interest, I may even host another swap on this blog.

I fixed the collage (it was missing one set of inchies). Now I need to go and stitch!!!