29 Faces - February 2017

Here I am again taking up the 29 Faces Challenge in February . If you remember last year, I created 29 faces on used tea bags and celebrated the achievements of women too. Here is a link to my 29 Faces of Worldy Women. 29 Gaces is an art challenge set by Martha, Ayala Art and for more information go to the 29 Faces blog.

There are many paint artists who take up this challenge, but I am not a portraitist and work mostly with textiles, so it is all fun for me to use paint, pencils and ink. This month, I m going to make small series of tags celebrating the seasons and the natural elements. I am going to use all my scraps of painted or dyed paper I have in storage... left over bits of art paper I have used to roll off excess paint from brayers, or test out colours - there is plenty to make 29 small tags!

#29 Faces #1 /Summer : Wilma Simmons

#29 Faces #2/Summer :Wilma Simmons

Keep following my progress with this challenge - I will try to post every couple of days .

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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...

Too Precious to Waste

Stitched tea bags/ old doily "tea lights" - Wilma Simmons More than a year ago, a decision was made. The annual exhibition of NCEATA ( Newcastle Creative Embroiderers and Textile Artists) 2015-2016 will have the theme "Mottainai". Mottainai in Japanese refers to more than just physical waste (resources). It is even used to refer to thought patterns that give rise to wasteful action. Grammatically, it can be used in Japanese as an exclamation ("mottainai!") or as an adjective phrase ("it feels mottainai"). There is no plural form. The collection of mottainai things could be called mottainai koto ( もったいない事 ? ). As an exclamation ("mottainai!") it means roughly "what a waste!" or "Don't waste." [2] A simple English equivalent is the saying "waste not, want not." A more elaborate meaning conveys a sense of value and worthiness and may be translated as "do not destroy (or lay waste to) that ...

Fragments

Some days are just your lucky days - today I was very fortunate and privileged to open the first ever Australian exhibition "Fragments" by UK Fibre Artist Sue Hotchkis . Here is a little about the techniques of this amazing textile artist from her own website ... Working intuitively with print and stitch, marks, textures and colours are exaggerated, intensified to reveal the detail and complexity within the images. Materials are deconstructed using modern methods, ripped, burnt and dyed. Time is invested in their reconstruction; pieces can take from a week to several months to create. Whilst being aesthetically pleasing the work can also act as a metaphor for deterioration and ruin, associated with urban decay and ultimately death and loss. They evolve organically, built up with layers of print, cloth, paper, and stitch into three-dimensional abstract forms that hover between object and image; to create a unique, visual and tactile lan...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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