Christmas Countdown #25 Envelopes : Summer Christmas and Tree of Joy

 

Welcome December 2020 - I love to mark Advent with my own sort of calendar, counting down to Christmas. In the past, I have celebrated marvellous trees, Christmas firsts, an Advent alphabet and even much maligned fruit cake. In 2019, I completed #the100dayproject by creating collages on used envelopes. For this series, #25envelopes, I am revisiting that idea with of course, a Christmas theme. 

"Summer Christmas": 1/#25envelopes

1 December: 'Summer Christmas" ... Officially this is the first day of Summer here in Australia and thoughts of the beach and sunshine came to mind, especially when I found this 1977 Christmas stamp of Santa Claus riding a surfboard. The day here is Newcastle was an intense Summer day - very hot and humid and then a wild storm at night.... Christmas weather! The paper collage on this envelope tries to capture the colours of the beach with a threatening cloud forming, warning of a summer afternoon storm. 

"Tree of Joy ":  2/ #25envelopes  - Wilma Simmons 

 2 December : Tree of Joy ... For 47 years, the Rotary Club of Wallsend-Maryland has conducted its annual community service Christmas  project, " Tree of Joy ' and during that time, it has grown from distributing a few gifts to a  major community fundraising with food hampers, children's and adults' gifts being distributed to those in need. Last year, over 1,000 families were supported at Christmas , with the total value of donations estimated at approximately $50,000 . This envelope was created using a "Rotary Down Under" used envelope, with gel plate printed paper and a very appropriate  Christmas stamp, entitles "Joy" 

Both of these envelopes, for the first two days , were fun to create, and I have the materials, so I hope I will be able to continue and complete this series -  #25envelopes . Watch this space daily for updates. 

#pinpoems - Wearable Textile Art

 A small selection of pin poems from the collection #the100dayproject have been released for sale on ETSY.... 

Link to my Etsy shop : https://www.etsy.com/shop/empresswu

Link to #the100day project: https://www.flickr.com/photos/empresswu/albums/72157713803669781

Art Dolls Only "A Dark Christmas"

This weekend I participated in the inaugural Art Dolls Only online show and sale "A Dark Christmas". 

The dolls I submitted show a diversity of doll making techniques. 

Party Girl  - Empress Wu Designs 

Party Girl ...  This is Lulu's story - she is in a dilemma . The office Christmas party this year has a theme " A Dark Christmas" - what should she wear? She loves pants suits to show off her long legs, but how can she make a pants suit more glamourous and fit the theme?  Perhaps a version of the little black dress?  Maybe  a few sparkles? And with new hair dye - yes! She is happy with this - looking festive and sophisticated! 

Party Girl

Party Girl is a cloth art doll , with jointed arms and legs and hand beaded accessories. Her face and hands are needle sculpted. and hand coloured with pen and pencil.  
Size : length 51cm (20inches): width 12cm (5inches)

Party Girl

Quite a different approach was taken with Dark Angel ... 

Dark Angel - Empress Wu Designs 

Dark Angel is a creation inspired by statues  I have seen in old churches  in England and in Europe - many  of these statues have  either been damaged or  show signs of their medieval beginnings. I also  like the challenge of working with found objects, and letting the shape determine the outcome, so this dark angel just seemed to create itself from a piece of driftwood found on Stockton Beach, NSW, Australia.  For the Art Dolls Only theme, "A Dark Christmas", this angel is a little melancholy but still serene with aged green-blue tones. This art doll is a hanging doll.

Dark Angel - Empress Wu Designs  

From the past to the future.... Home for Christmas is an art doll with a definite futuristic look. 

Home for Christmas  - Empress Wu Designs 

After many dark holiday seasons, searching for the home galaxy, the Intergalactic Traveller , now on the right course, looks forward to being home for Christmas.

Home for Christmas  - Empress Wu Designs 

Intergalactic Traveller is a sculpted art doll, with leather and felt clothing.Size , including stand: length 33cm ( 13 inches) , width 10cm ( 4 inches)

Confused fairy - Empress Wu Designs 

The fourth doll in my section of the show as a bit of a mistake.... I started off with the wings, intending this doll to depict "A Dark Christmas" but somehow turned out pink, so here is her  confused story. 

Confused Fairy - Empress Wu Designs

She so wanted to be a a Christmas sugar plum fairy, but she was confused  about this seasonal theme and became a sugar 'gum" fairy. Her holiday outfit features a eucalypt flower print bodice, but she was successful in keeping everything else 'pink". It might have been a dark Christmas except for this! 

Confused fairy - Empress Wu Designs

Confused Fairy is a cloth doll with a simple 'pancake' face, hand coloured with pen and pencil. She has a dyed mohair hairstyle and a pair of digitally printed vilene wings with a touch of sparkle magic.

Size: length 34cm ( 13 inches) width - wingspan- 15cm ( 6 inches)

Please check out all the artists in this show ... 

Art Dolls Only 

Echidna

 A first attempt at splicing and editing stills and a video into an iMovie.... 

Covid Man and Book Print

 

This is my tag for the current theme at Tag Tuesday - Book Print. I like using text as a background for tags and today, I reduced one of my recent  line drawings and printed it on a small book page .... as you can see,  the book's chapter is entitled "Of Holy Living and Dying ( from The Book of Books) .  I thought this was appropriate as this 'Covid man' drawing depicts Nature happily thriving while man appears to be "unravelling " at the edges of body and mind... 

Original drawing - Wilma Simmons 

 Silk screen print on fabric  : Wilma Simmons 

Silk screen print on paper : Wilma Simmons 

And here are some other tags on book print backgrounds - these are free motion stitched "Nature" portraits done earlier in the year. 

Farm Fervour

 

"Down on the Farm " is the current theme at Tag Tuesday - an art tag fortnightly challenge . With lots of other projects 'on the go', I quickly  made these farm inspired tags probably with more fever than fervour.  The technique is simple - tear up a magazine page and randomly and quickly paste all the  torn pieces down onto a sheet of paper. Cut out the required size for the tag and complete by choosing an image(s) as a focus . With these I also added some hand stitching and a button as embellishment. The vintage images are from a purchased collage sheet by Eleven Nine Design. 

And here is another "farm"tag which I free motion stitched  in February, for another challenge, 29 Faces .