Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Background : Today is Tuesday -  Tag day. I belong to a very talented group of artists who weekly produce a small work of art as a tag. We post photos of our tags  on the Tag Tuesday blog .  Currently our theme is alphabet, and we each could decide on our own sub-theme. I chose Australian plants and each of my tags is an experiment with a textile art technique. Here are February's tags and a brief  descriptions of the techniques used.  Technique 1 :  Heliographic Art (Sun Painting)  as in the photo above - close up of Tag E . When special sun/light sensitive paints are applied to wet fabric where objects have been placed on top, the outlines and shapes of the objects are transferred to the fabric. In this example I placed dried Eucalypt (gum tree) leaves on top  a piece of originally white cotton painted with yellow and orange" Setacolor" transparent paints and left it in the sun for about an hour. I then cut one of the leaves out and appliqued it to a piece o

 Happy Chinese New Year - the first day of the lunar year was last week, but with celebrations continuing  for at least two weeks, we had our family get together last night. We all look forward to the celebrations because they all mean something special to each of us Chinese New Year = colourful Lion dances  Chinese New Year = loud music and fun  Chinese New Year = lucky red packets of money  Chinese New Year = a special event and dressing up Chinese New Year = yummy food and lots of it Chinese New Year = family and friends celebrating together All the best to my family and friends all over the world during  the Year of the Snake.

Tumbuna Bottles  Here are a few pieces which are no longer on my work table - yay,  they are finished! Tumbuna collage Tumbuna Bottles: Tumbuna means 'ancestor' in pidgin. I have been wanting to make some dolls inspired by my experiences in Papua New Guinea , so finally finished some last month.  These art dolls are 'guardians of memories' . I have put inside the bottles little trinkets and bits and pieces I brought home from various trips to Papua New Guinea , and  created a personality for each bottle, shaped from my remembered images of respected ancestors in PNG villages.  My plan, of course is to make a series of these bottle art dolls inspired by other travels ... looking forward to creating the Chinese, English, German, Finnish, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laotian versions and including little souvenirs from those places in the bottles. little Tumbuna bottle  Tags: This year the first 26 weeks of Tag Tuesday are following the alphabet ... I decided t