Skip to main content

Red Inspiration














I am inspired mostly by what I read . This week, I've been reading this book China Revealed. a Christmas gift from my friend, June. It is a book of powerful images and very informative accounts of the journey of a Hong Kong based Chinese photographer to every province in China. It captures China today - the new urban wealth and the rural poverty, the stark and the lyrically beautiful. The dust cover says, " Never before has such an ambitious journey - 'contemplating the orchids from a galloping horse ' as the old proverb has it - been undertaken . China Revealed is a profoundly important and visually stunning record. "


The photos also show one of the little boxes I made this week. It opens out flat and is meant to be gift box and greeting card in one. Clever? I learnt this in my card making class.















Mrs Chalumeau , my doll for the exhibition in a couple of weeks, is making good progress. I don't think she should be revealed yet , but here are some photos of her skirt being stitched with mother of pearl buttons. So far, I have used about 300 of the 500+ buttons I have collected from various sources. Most of the buttons are vintage mother of pearl, but I found some new small heart shaped buttons last week, and have incorporated them. I also found a mother of pearl small belt buckle in the shape of a butterfly, so Mrs C will also have a belt to her outfit. I am now sewing buttons to the cape, Only the hat to go, and her stand!
It's been a good week creatively:
- four ETSY sales in the last three days, (only downside is here I am in the middle of making Mrs C and no stock prepared for the shop)
- my White Knight ( the new version) this week was featured on the front page of the Beaded Art Dolls Forum.

Comments

  1. You have been busy, I absolutely love the gift box / card! Great colours and design. I've tagged you to play the 6th in the 6th, check my blog for details

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

A spider sandwich for lunch?

Close -up of the base of "witch with sticks' art doll   Did you know that if you were a witch, eating a spider sandwich could give you special powers? Rosemary Ellen Guiley says in her  Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft, and Wicca  that in some traditions of folk magic, a black spider “eaten between two slices of buttered bread” will imbue a witch with great power. If you’re not interested in eating spiders, some traditions say that catching a spider and carrying it in a silk pouch around your neck will help prevent illness... So, while creating my art doll witch, a spider was always there amongst the drawings and plans. rough drawing of an idea for the base of the doll    I rarely take photos during the process of making a doll, only because I get so engaged in the making I forget to take a photo at each step of the way . I am not entirely comfortable creating witches, so I took a few photos of my process....  when I remembered.... sc...

Stitched Faces

I   've always enjoyed that imperfect line of  "not quite in control' free motion machine stitching....  I think it really suits creating portraits , giving them some character and even a quirkiness that hints of personality plus.  These ones below are from my " Red Cheeks" series from a couple of years ago, and are amongst my favourite stitched portraits.  The current Stitch Club ( textileartist.org) workshop, by  Batool Showghi has inspired me to stitch more this week. Batool , of course, is in complete control of her machine stitching and her works are exquisite and they tell a moving story.  ... " Working with paper, print, paint and stitch, her textile art bears witness to displacement, silenced women and the damage that authoritarian regimes impose on ordinary lives. Batool’s mixed media wall pieces are incredibly striking, but her artist books truly set her apart. Printed imagery of family photographs, birth certificate documents and her o...

Lilly Pilly

Today is Australia Day. I chose a photo of some Lilly Pilly berries as a celebratory image for this national day. Lilly Pilly is  a common name for a plant, Syzygium smithii which grows mostly in Eastern Australia, from the northern  rain forests of Queensland, throughout NSW to the southern Wilson's Promontory in Victoria. In New Zealand it is called "monkey apple, but other names used in Australia, besides lilly pilly, are Eungella Gum and Coast Satinash. The largest Lilly Pilly recorded was found in Dingo Creek Flora Reserve, near Tenterfield where I once lived.  The tree now growing in my garden was once a small seedling which I was gifted when I left Woolgoolga, a small coastal town in northern NSW. Its name  is said to come from the Aboriginal word 'weelgoolga' describing the lilly pilly which grows in profusion there. It is probably no surprise that the lilly pilly berries are edible as bush tucker, and make a beautiful jam or jelly. I have even seen re...