AEDM day 29 and shared art

(photo by Gwen of Foxglove Hill)

I met Gwen of Foxglove Hill through AEDM and greatly admired the flowers she was making at the same time as I was making my felt ones.  So we planned a trade - my felted flowers are heading her way but her muslin ones arrived at mine today.  Thanks so, so much Gwen, they are STuNNiNG!

Not much time for art over the past few days but I did manage to get some work done on some tags.  I love circles and used some scraps of paper and my sewing machine to add some pattern.

I've been identifying patterns I like as part of my surface design course and interpreted this one using a previously inked baby wipe, some scraps of paper and my sewing machine.  Now I'm off to celebrate with my sister - it's her 40th birthday today :)

AEDM days 20 and 21 - in the 'Drawing Lab'

Honestly, I can't recommend Carla Sonheim's 'Drawing Lab' highly enough!  It's just brilliant for getting you painting or drawing without that highly invasive 'inner critic' sitting on your shoulder whispering into your ear!  It's also full of short arty exercises for when time is limited, perfect for me at the minute.

Yesterday was mostly spent doing school prep so just before going to bed I did some one-liners, drawing animals using one continuous line.  Carla has a short video here on the Sketchbook Challenge blog if you'd like more info.

I started with pigs, then a couple of flowers followed by an owl who looks like a penguin!

I've been avoiding drawing cats as I'm not that keen on them picture wise, but finally gave in and love these manic kitties!

Then I gave some birds  a bit of a go.  For the last one I wondered what it would look like with 'walking legs'.  Normally my brain wouldn't even let me have a go at drawing something like that as 'I can't do it', but with one liners they're not going to look like the animal anyway!

It was my first day back teaching today after having bronchitis.  I was still feeling a bit wiped out so after a day with three different infant classes in a special school I came home and fell asleep!  Woke up feeling the need to do something relaxing so flicked through 'Drawing Lab' and..

...decided to finally give Lab 8: Imaginary Creatures a go....and created a moustached penguin lying back in shock at..what?!!  Hmm, that's in your imagination ;)  I love how fun he is, yet I never would have drawn a moustached penguin lol!

It started off with layers of random marks made with watercolour paints.  These yummy koh-i-noor ones were supposed to go in my eldest son's Christmas stocking - oops!  They are such handy, stackable palettes and rather nice paints too.  I bought mine whilst out in Wales somewhere, although checking online they're cheap enough to get George another set!  

AEDM day 19 - found poetry on a spoon

I love rummaging through old books and finding quirky sentences that make me smile.  These snippets of 'poetry' were a little more controlled in that I just hunted for descriptive words relating to my chosen topic!  

I started making these spoons earlier this year after seeing something similar by the hugely talented Kelli Perkins.  It wasn't 'til I just checked for the link here that I realised how similar - oops!

I've got a few more inked up, it's the word hunting that takes the time!

Prompted by Gwen's lovely flower yesterday I got started on some felted flowers that have been in my head awhile.  I added some merino wool and snippets of fabric to a piece of yellow felt, then free machined some flower outlines before cutting them out.

It was the container that gave me a bit of trouble.  I bought five pepper pots from Dunelm Mill the other day for just this purpose, inspired by Sue Pelletier's wonderful snowmen.  I just couldn't decide what to put in the jar!

I tried buttons, beads, even tiny stones, but went for snippets of fabric in the end.  It still wasn't looking right until I added some snippets around the base and some cotton around the rim.

Just to show you the back - I stitched the felted piece to some old net curtain as two layers of felt, one of which was felted on top, was a bit think for the sewing machine!  Ok, off to write more poetry.  Thanks to all for the advice yesterday, much appreciated :)

AEDM days 17 and 18 - more of the seahorses!

I've moved onto the next step with my felted seahorses, mounting them on a background.  I used my dumfing machine (that's an embellisher for those unfamiliar with this wipso and twiglet term ;) ) to add merino wool and some other bits n pieces to a piece of cotton fabric.

I then moved over to my sewing machine and added some bubbles and texture lines.  I started adding some french knots and tiny beads the other night, then realised I'd struggle to sew it onto the background with them there so stopped!

I've placed a second seahorse behind a rectangular mount.  This actually took longer to do as I felted and sewed this piece without an embroidery hoop.  Now to work out how to attach it to the mount!  Any tips gratefully received :)

I'm not selling them framed, just thought I'd try one in a frame to see how it looked.   I can't decide which type people will prefer though, the funkiness of the embroidery frame or the safety of being able to put the image behind glass.  What do you reckon?

AEDM day 13 - Grayson Perry at the British Museum

We watched a fabulous documentary on Grayson Perry's "tribute to craftmanship at the British Museum" this evening.  It was shown last week, but the wonders of digital tv meant we saw it on i-player after Harry Hill mentioned it on his show!  I just LoVe that Perry's teddy is called 'Alan Measles' :)

What a real, honest, fun guy Grayson Perry comes across.  Mad yes, but why not?  And he made some great points about what real art is.  And he's amazingly talented.

I've been sewing little owls today from felt for a craft fair I'm doing in a couple of weeks.  After blogging daily for a couple of weeks now it was starting to bother me that I flit about so much between media.  Would I accomplish more if I focused on one thing?  

No, I think is the short answer lol.  I am who I am for a start, and moving around different things keeps my attention better.  Then there's the opportunity for combining them.  I'm sure my work room would be tidier though, there'd be less in it for a start!!!

So today's 'art' has been mainly study and thinking :)  Like a proper student ;) !!!

Thanks for all the comments.  I spent this morning working through yesterday's entries over on Creative Every  Day.  I can't do it every day, I don't have time, but I can highly recommend it, I've come across so many blogs I otherwise wouldn't have done :)

AEDM days 8 and 9 - a fantastic evening playing with clay ...

Yesterday was a bit manic (I spent the day teaching, went straight from school to another one to run a Numicon workshop and went straight from there to a two hour evening class) but culminated in leisure!  Our local grammar school runs adult classes every November and I signed up for the ceramics one.  It's just for three evenings in total.

After rolling out a piece of clay, we pressed lace, dried orange slices and other bits n pieces into the clay to create texture.  We then wrapped it around a tube and created a cylindrical pot.

I then had a bit of a play, layering snippets of clay, and created a book cover.  I'd like to incorporate my textile work into my clay pieces so made three buttons and saved the piece I cut these from to layer over a stitched and needle-felted piece.

AEDM day 9 started early as I woke in the night with chest pain (I've got a cold!...Again!!!)  I need some ideas for next week's clay class ... well, I need to refine my ideas as I only have two weeks to do the work!  After a bit of a hunt on the internet I found this fabulous work by Elizabeth Howe...

... GoRGeouS!  I also found a blog stocked full of great inspiration - I love so much of the artists' work that Sara features.  I now have plans for next week in my notebook :)

AEDM day 4 - a page in my work journal

An idea I'd like to have a go with at work (Bean and Brush Art Cafe) is scratching back paint to the bisque, or layer of paint below.  The photos on the left are of work I liked that I found on the internet.  The bottom picture made me think of the work of Miro.

I have a lovely little book entitled 'V&A Pattern    The Fifties' which, unsurprisingly, is full of wonderful mid-century patterns.  I copied out some of the patterns into my journal.

I just love anything designed by Lucienne Day!!!