Skip to main content

No longer on my work table...


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 to follow my own theme of Australian plants/trees and January's tags are Acacia, Banksia, Callistemon and Dryandra. I have used various techniques including applique, digital print on fabric, machine and hand embroidery and organza fused with a soldering iron.  ( Tag Tuesday is a blog group challenge - a tag each Tuesday)

Stamped Dolls : I purchased a new stamp set from www. impressmenow.com and here are  three of the little dolls I made using the stamp and some of my scraps of hand dyed cotton.

 It's hard to believe that it is already February, but I'm happy to have completed some work already this year. I' m hoping this momentum will last all year...


Labels:

Comments

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 Anonymous comments will not be published.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

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks ....  The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and  message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or  my husband or from off cuts gifted to us  from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks.   Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt  or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...
3 comments
Read more

#the100dayproject : Inspiring Women Days 1 - 4

#The100DayProject is a *free* global art project that takes place online 🎨 E very year, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of creating. Anyone can participate . ​The idea is simple: choose a creative project, do it every single day for 100 days, and document and share the process online. 2026 is my 8th year of participating. I have stitched daily observations, painted my egg cup collection, collaged postcards and envelopes, written poems, explored colour palettes .... this year I am researching, sketching and stitching 100 inspiring women. Fortunately I purchased a piece of beautiful linen, with preprinted outlines of 100 women ... just one issue - the figures are tiny (height 6cm /2.5 ins) My first week started tentatively ... I thought I would start with Empress Wu, after whom I named my creative activity. This is when I discovered how difficult it is to applique and stitch on these very small figures - I used tweezers to put pieces of fabric down, tried t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Countdown to Christmas 15 - Diamonds Forever!

How much would you pay for a Christmas  fruitcake?  The world's most expensive fruit cake has been estimated at $1.65 million. Yesterday, I wrote about the less than positive term "Christmas cake as it is applied to unmarried women, so again it amazed me that  in Tokyo, this most exquisite and expensive Christmas cake was created. It took six months to design and another full month to construct. The beautiful cake is fully edible ... that is except for the 223  real diamonds  used as decoration. This cake was part of an exhibition called Diamonds: Nature's Miracle  and was one of 16 exhibits showcasing creative ways with diamonds . Apparently, the cake was auctioned, fetching $1.65 million US. While there have been other very expensive diamond encrusted cakes since this one in 2005 with estimated values of up to $75 million, this Japanese designed cake was the forerunner of the extravagant diamond studded wedding cakes in the higher price r...
Post a Comment
Read more