Intentions

For today's Beyond Layers word, 'Intentions', I've come back to an image of a doll I made a few years ago.  I think, because Fiona is stitched and certainly with some flaws (I know-I made her. LOL), she is the perfect image to illustrate this Augusten Burroughs quote.

Bead Journal Project: May

I finished my May BJP piece and I've got a full day to spare!  The colour inspiration again comes from Vicki Welsh's Colour Palette Challenge.

May has been about gardening and enjoying the beautiful spring weather we've been so fortunate to have.  I started off with the three larger flowers with their long stamen.I then went on to do a collection of fun little flowers that stood up on bugle bead stems. Pulling in the various colours of the palette, I just continued to fill in areas as I was inspired and slowly the piece came together.

Here is the finished piece for May:

And here is the growing spiral, January through May:

Change

Yes, today's word in Beyond Layers is 'change'.  I had two great quotes and I couldn't decide between them so I used them both.  For a change, I've given you both images to compare at the same time instead of using the 'mouse over'.  

Peace

Mouse over photo to see the 'before' image.

Kim's word for today, in Beyond Layers, is peace.  You can see from the 'before' shot that I cleaned up the branches that were in the top right corner and then altered the tree line at the bottom.  I used a painterly texture from Jerry Jones at Shadowhouse Creations.  

Beekeepers

Mouse over photo to see the 'before' image.

This week in Beyond Layers, Kim's challenge to us is to come up with a quote the speaks to the assigned word of the day.  Monday's word is Life and yesterday I shot this photo of a bee.  Considering the whole 'birds and the bees' thing, it seemed like a good image to work with.  When I found this great quote by Sue Monk Kidd, I knew I was on the right track.   

I have added Kim's 'Sunday' texture as well as Bonnie's 'Antique Farewell' texture.  I've also added this minimally processed version, to the right, because I really love the original shot, too.  I just did a bit of cropping and added the subtle frame.

These photos are being linked to Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday, Our World Tuesday, This or That Thursdays, Photo Art Friday, Shoot, Edit, Submit and Photo Friday Link Party.

Breaking News

I'm sorry to say that computer gremlins have reeked havoc on some of the images on my blog and I have not been able to correct the problem.  In this case, the process shots are missing, but I was able to restore the image of the finished piece, and some close ups of the stitching which are at the end of the post.

No, I don't have anything particularly exciting to report other than I've finished a piece I've been working on rather extensively over the last few weeks.  'Breaking News' is the title of my newest mixed media piece.  It started with a cup of tea...

Last summer Doeteke, a friend of mine, was saving tea bags to use in her art and as I was drinking a cup of tea a couple of months ago I remembered this fact and started to save my own tea bags.  Then,  in April, Heather presented our GOE group with a challenge that involved using newspaper and the wheels started turning.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

My first idea was to create a collage using wine labels and an article in the newspaper that talked about Copula's vineyards in California.  I decided to get my colour palette from the tea bags: mostly browns with some reds (from the herbal fruit teas).  I started with a piece of muslin, some acrylic paints mixed with gesso (thanks to something Leah, another friend and member of GOE, had said about a piece she was experimenting with) and my old driver's license, which I used to apply the paint.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

My next step was to use some matte medium to collage the wine labels (searched on-line and printed 'cause I just don't drink enough. LOL) and newspaper pieces (torn from the article mentioned above).  I then layered on some random pieces of hand-dyed cheese cloth to give it more texture.  So far it was going nowhere and I was feeling discouraged.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

I pulled out more paint, this time adding various metallics in coppers and golds as well as the original colours I had started with.  I also collaged some of the tea bags on at this point to try to get more of a subtle effect with the wine labels.  The tea bags are great for this because they have some opacity to them.  I was beginning to see hope at this point.  Ironically however, the more paint I added the less of the underlying collage I could see.

I have also been experimenting with rust dying lately and thought that some of the rust dyed fabric would work well on this piece.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

I cut several random circular pieces (freehand so they wouldn't be perfect), and I started laying them on top of the painted piece, auditioning their placement.  I settled on a gentle curved path that rose up from centre left and then curved down toward the bottom right corner.  The piece was looking too monochromatic at this point so I added some bits of a sheer black fabric to break it up a little.

I then grabbed a paint brush and some white paint to give it some pops of accent colour.  I started by painted the three circles near the centre left and then I created another random pathway, using straight lines and adding a few square shapes.  I also did some stamping using an old potato masher.  As I was adding the white I was sort of wishing I hadn't because it was just too glaringly bright.  

Seeing as the paint had for the most part obscured the newspaper and wine labels, I wanted to bring in some more newsprint (Remember the GOE challenge!) so I started tearing narrow strips and collaged them overtop of my white painted lines.    It was perfect to knock back the starkness while still keeping some accent.  A few more teabags were collaged over the potato masher stamps to knock them back a bit too.  By the way, at this point, the vineyard article was long gone and I was using newspaper from the front page of the paper.  That's when the name of the piece came to me.  Breaking news.  I was literally breaking (or tearing) news stories, and I was seeing words about killings, blood, etc.  That and the random areas of red paint, the footprints (or are they finger prints?) created by the potato masher stampings, and I began noticing 'evidence' appearing as if at a crime scene.

The next step was to layer it with batting and a backing and take it to the sewing machine for literally hours of intensive thread sketching/quilting.  I used a coppery red colour thread to highlight some of what I now saw as blood stains, as well as doing the pebbling effect on the rust dyed circles for some added texture.  A gold thread was used to bring out some of the areas that had been painted with the metallic paints, and the rest was stitched with a subtle taupe colour to create texture while at the same time pushing those areas back a bit.

Here are a few close up photos showing the stitching.  Click on them to enlarge, if desired.

And finally, here again is the finished piece, trimmed and ready for hanging.  I photographed it on a black background so that you can more easily see the shape of the finished piece.

ATCs From Trimmings

I working on a piece of mixed media art right now (almost done) that involves paint, fibre and paper collage and a lot of stitching.  Yesterday I was trimming it up and I just couldn't bring myself to throw away some of the more interesting bits that were left over.  Instead, I pieced them together and made a couple of ATCs.  Waste not, want not!

Life at the Cottage

In today's lesson in Beyond Layers, Kim showed us how to play with text to create words that had a photo image showing through in them.  I decided to take it one step further and I layered the original photo over top (as you would a texture) at a 'soft light' blend mode and then bumped the opacity down a bit.  By using a layer mask and taking the 'image texture' off of the lettering, the feature word popped.  What fun!

Couldn't stop at just one...  this is a photo of my son, taken about 10 years ago.

Combining My Photography and Lettering

I took this photo last fall at Wasaga Beach.  I loved the simplicity of the single piece of grass with the lake in the background and I was experimenting with depth of field.

Yesterday, while playing around with my pens I decided to print a copy and do some lettering right on the photograph so that I could use my own hand lettering to add a message instead of adding text in Photoshop.  I was pleasantly surprised by how well the pens work on the photo paper.

The black was done with a Copic Multiliner.  I used a Sakura Gelly Roll for the highlights, and finally put in some shading with a grey Copic Ciao.

Step One: Prepare Substrate

Sadly computer gremlins have stolen the images from this post and I have been unable to restore them.  

Well, as I said in yesterday's post, you'd probably be seeing this image again.  I was so inspired by the colours in this altered photo image that I couldn't wait to get in onto some fabric so that I could begin some hand stitching and beading on it.

I found some pale yellow woven fabric at a thrift store a couple of months ago.  It's fairly stiff and it has a good salvage edge, so I cut it to 8 1/2" x 11", crossed my fingers, and fed it into my printer.

 I must say there were a few tense moments (and some funny sounds/noises) but out came the printed image!  Yah!!!

It's not as bright and intense as it was on the screen, even though I bumped up the intensity of colour before printing it, but I'm still pleased with the result.

I've used Misty Fuse to adhere it to a piece of wool felt and did a bit of machine zig zag on the edges to keep it from unravelling while I do the hand work.

I'll post the finished piece once I have it stitched, beaded, embellished...