Blue newspaper cups

This week, Tag Tuesday happened while I was in transit to my sister's. I caught up today, albeit with limited art resources - newspaper, a blue art marker, black pen, grey and white pencils, and a scrap of cotton. This is another little newspaper sketch of some cups and spoons. My interpretation of the " Cups and Cutlery" theme. 

Winners : Brooching the Subject Competition

Here is a video of Artist Sylvia Watt announcing the winners of the  handmade brooch, "Brooching the Subject"competition. Sylvia had the very difficult job of judging the competition.
 Before the announcement, I chose Olivia Parsonage's  wall brooch, "how do you get, how do you get to Parry Street?" as my favourite amongst the 120+ brooches in the exhibition, and purchased it. Now I am so happy I will be the owner of the first prize winning brooch, especially as there were many at the exhibition opening vying for Olivia's work. Olivia has long been one of my favourite artists and you can read other articles I have written about her here and here. 
Thank you also  to Sylvia for the generous mention of both my entries, "Silver Lines" and "Bees" amongst the commended.
This exhibition is only open at Timeless Textiles until Sunday 2pm, so hope you  are able to see these beautiful small works of art.

Newspaper Houses

Having recently attended a workshop with Ines Seidel, at Timeless Textiles, I am enjoying creating with paper and especially newsprint. Here is  this week's tag for Tag Tuesday, my online art tag challenge group. The theme was "Down the street ... A row of houses".  It was inspired by a black line drawing I saw, but cannot find it again or the source. So if anyone recognises it, I would be happy to acknowledge the original.

However, I have used a completely different technique and the style of houses  and the "moon" are also different. I cut out some columns from the travel section of the Sunday paper - some of the words relate to housing and buildings  and pasted them down on a magazine page. I then used black felt tipped pen to draw in rooftops and  houses. The section of  visible street is also a newspaper photo from the same section of the newspaper. I like the idea of lights shining through windows, so made this a "night" scene with a very large full moon. The moon is a piece of dyed absorbent paper, which just happened to be lying around on my desk - left over from the 'bees" project. 
I haven't been able to find time to do these weekly challenges with Tag Tuesday for a couple of months, but have thoroughly enjoyed the last two I completed. There are artists who never miss a week, so hope you might visit the blog and check them out. 

Brooching the Subject - Viewers' Choice Competition

Brooching the Subject Competition at Timeless Textiles Gallery - Viewers' Choice.... online. 

Would you like to be in the running to win this beautiful brooch created especially by Ines Seidel (German fibre artist) ...make your choice from over 100 brooches  here . 

Brooching the Subject

More than 100 fibre artists from across Australia and the world will compete for prizes and glory in the inaugural ‘Brooching the Subject’ exhibition at Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery in July.

The artists have been busy creating the wild and wonderfully creative brooches, using many techniques – beading, stitching, embroidery (hand or machine), felting, painting, pinning and more.

The contributing artists have all brought very individual approaches to creating these brooches – to be worn or hung on the wall –resulting in more than 100 unique works that will not only create a spectacular gallery display but also impress the ‘Brooching the Subject ' judge, Brisbane-based fibre artist Sylvia Watt.

If you love brooches, don’t miss this playful ‘Brooching the Subject’ exhibition, showing for one week only between 12-17 July 2016. All brooches will be for sale and there will be a people's choice competition online. 
My entries are one wearable brooch and one crazy whimsical fun piece for the wall. 

The wearable brooch is a piece of my embossed silver, handmade 99.9% silver stitched onto handmade felt with a background of ecodyed silk. I hadn't worked silver for a few years, so it was a lovely return to one of the techniques and media I enjoy. 

This was such fun - a brooch for the wall. Inspired by a workshop I did with Ines Seidel, I started making a hexagon patch worked paper "quilt". The paper is old species cards my husband no longer uses - these were records of species of trees growing in state owned forests some years ago. The other paper I used are pieces of dyed kitchen  absorbent paper and eco dyed silk paper. I also crocheted some little hexagons with crochet cotton . The bees are made from scrunched painted newspaper with some wire and as a hanger I used a honey "twirler". This is a  hand turned wooden tool used to serve honey from a jar without spillages ( in theory at least!) Not a serious contender in this competition, but I enjoyed making this ( with my tongue firmly in my cheek, so to speak!)

After 12 July, remember to visit Timeless Textiles' website to see all the brooches and vote for your favourite.

Summer Thoughts in Winter

Art tag: Seaside Dreaming 

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.  (John Steinbeck)

Art tag - Frozen Fish 

The Birth of the Textile Towers #3 - Prudence

"Prudence is a virtue that has two eyes, one that foresees what one has to do, the other examines afterwards what one has done."  ... Telemachus, the son of Odysseus displays the characteristics of caution yet good judgement in the classical tale, and this textile tower is a validation of discretion and sensible reasoning in decision making. Recalling the above quotation, it is ironic that I created a figurative depiction of Telemachus, with both eyes closed yet the symbolic 'armour" is covered with a pattern of eyes.  Telemachus appears as a smaller figure than the sculptures of Penelope and Odysseus, his mother and father as if his development is incomplete. The tower has three vertical poles and is the least complex of the three in construction and detailed work.  The tower  "walls" feature images of  maps and stitched directional aids to assist "careful planning" and the avoidance of unnecessary risks. Ancient hand drawn maps were copied onto organza, layered  and stitched over hand dyed and waxed cotton.    I also chose green  and earthy tones  to indicate balanced efficiency and secure harmony. Some of the features of this tower are a piece of hand embroidered linen, which was then manipulated and layered and restitched by machine to create "land contours"  and a motif made by pooling hot glue and then stamping into the shape while it is still warm.  Like the other figures, Telemachus is a essentially a cloth "stump"  doll with a clay head, created from paper clay and them covered with  butter muslin (cheesecloth)  and coloured with acrylic paint.   The three towers, Perseverance, Patience and Prudence  are by far the largest works in a series I have completed, and together display many different textile and mixed media art techniques. They are great resource material for any textile art student, and I hope that my explanation h=of how the towers were born has been useful. ... Please scroll down the blog posts for explanations of the other two towers. To acquire these art works either as a series or as a stand alone art work, please contact Timeless Textiles Gallery,  via the website or at 90 Hunter Street, Newcastle NSW Australia.