Wise Words...

I love this quote from Winnie the Pooh, and when Kim's challenge this week was to use 'wise words' this immediately came to mind.  I've used some photos shot this week of Arbour and Casey, but I've also dipped into the archives to pull out shots of Spencer (we lost him to kidney disease a couple of years ago) and some of the oldies from when they were just young'uns.

As you can see, our dog, Casey, loves her cats.  When we first got Arbour she was so tiny I worried that Casey would accidentally crush her, but she was always so careful.  Arbour loved to snuggle in her 'arms' and that centre shot where Casey is looking at her like a loving mother is one of my favourites!  Now Arbour tends to sleep in my studio on whatever I'm trying to work on LOL, but she also loves to cuddle with the teddy bears on our antique settee.

Spencer was our 'puppy cat'.  He seemed to identify more with Casey than Arbour and although they all got along well, he preferred to be with Casey whenever he could.  I love the shot of them cuddling on our bed as well as the shot of the two of them on their respective steps.  As you can see in the bottom row, when he was sleeping alone, he had an odd way of lying with his butt raised up...too funny!

To quote my husband, "I'm going to have a little nap 'cause it's too early to start doing nothing..."

Hope you all find time to have a little snooze of your own today.  Siesta time is way underrated!

For those of you interested in the processing, I created the collage in Lightroom's Print module and then added the text and textures in Photoshop Elements. Here's a screen shot of what I did in Photoshop Elements:

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, and Sweet Shot Tuesday.

A New Series in Progress...

I've started a new series of work which will be matted in 12" x 12" mats, with an 8" square 'window' in the mat, ready to be framed.  I've been playing with my Gelli plate to create some mono prints on pieces of an old denim shirt I inherited from my husband because the sleeve were too short for him.  I'm  adding various other elements, including rust dyed fabric, machine lace which I made using water soluable stabilizer, pieces of silk fusion and some batiks from my stash.  Here are a couple of them ready to be quilted and hand embroidered.  

Time to go listen to some TV...

WIP

 Here are a couple of close ups of this work in progress.  I had no idea how much embroidery floss you go through making French knots!  I've been separating the floss into 3 strands to get a nice big knot, and I've already gone through an entire skein of floss!  I'm not even half way through making all of the French knots I want on this piece, but  fortunately the variegated green is one I dyed myself, so I can make more.  

I'm off to get my hands green...I know I should wear gloves, but I just find them so awkward and hot!  Good thing I don't have to be anywhere in the next couple of days!

I'm Featured Today...

I've been featured on The Needle and Thread Network today.  Please visit their blog and while you're there you can learn about a lot of other fabulous Canadian fibre artists as well!

Taking Another Creative Jumpstart

I had a couple of minutes last night, so I took another look at one of Nat's Creative Jumpstart ideas.  She used gloss gel medium as a resist by using a stencil and then when the gloss medium was dry she sprayed it with some spray inks.

Although my stencil was giving me trouble (very flimsy plastic, not best suited for this), I quite like the end result.  Because the medium had leaked under the stencil, I used my Uniball Vision waterproof pen to outline the features of the stencil as well as the entire medium marks.  That's the only pen I found worked really well on the gloss medium.

With greater care and a better stencil, I think this technique is fabulous for some lovely texture and shine!

The Journey Continues...

A couple of weeks ago, I started a journal (you can see the first post here), and today I have finally finished the second spread.  The journey is all about thinking positive thoughts and moving forward on a healing journey.  I can't think of a better way to do that than through art!

You can see a couple of the stages the page went through as I worked on it.  I just love seeing the transformation as colour and shading is added to the page.

I use a 0.005 Micron to do the actually journalling on the page once the art is done.

My writing is super tiny, but it allows me to get a lot of thoughts onto the page and work through the many things I've been reading and thinking about.  I also like the added texture that the background text gives the page.  It's a great way to make a pretty looking spread (if I do say so myself) while keeping the 'heavier' underlying text from taking over the page.

Winston Churchill

A few weeks ago, while in Toronto, I took these shots of the Winston Churchill statue.  I love this quote by the great man!















Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, and Sweet Shot Tuesday.

"Beautiful Napkins" Swap

In a recent art journal spread, inspired by a class in 21 Secrets by Cathy Bluteau, I used some flowers in my collage which I had cut out of napkins.  You can see the original napkins in the photo to the right, and how they were used in the close up shots below. 

Although they are a wonderful source of lovely collage elements, it gets expensive to have to buy a whole package and only use one or two images in your arts, so...  

I've decided to hold a "Beautiful Napkin Swap" of napkins that have flowers or birds on them.  What I would ask everyone to do, is go out and buy a package of pretty napkins that have either birds or flowers (or both) on them.  Take one of the napkins out to keep for yourself, and then mail the rest of the package to me.  I will gather all of them up, divide them among all of the participants, and mail you a mixed package of assorted beautiful napkins.  If you're interested, please send me an email (click on 'view my complete profile' at the right, under my profile picture and then click on the email link under my picture on the next page that comes up).  Once I get your email I will send you all of the details, including where to send your napkins.

Machine Doodling on White...next steps...

I finished the next stage of this piece (you can see the first post about it here) so that I'd be able to take it with me and work on the hand stitching while sitting in the hospital with my aunt.  I used Tsukineko ink in black and spring green.  When using these inks on fabric, they need to be heat set with a hot dry iron!

The next step is to add lots of French knots in the green and then decide what to do with the white areas.

Doodling Your Way...

I'm really enjoying the online lessons in '21 Secrets'.  This journal spread was inspired by the lessons of Cathy Bluteau.  It involves using collage and doodle and it was a lot of fun to pull out some of the little stickers, homemade washi tape, etc. to add some extra layers.  Some of the flowers came from beautiful napkins I've collected over time, as well as a birthday card my Mom gave me this year.  I wish that you could buy those beautiful napkins individually instead of having to buy a whole pack.  They often have such pretty flowers on them and they're perfect for collage!  I've also started collecting interesting elements from flyers and magazines...so much easier than having to store the entire magazine!