Walk Gently in the Neighbourhood

Artists have always found inspiration in their every day activities. The very early cave paintings are records of daily life - hunting expeditions for food and responses to the elements. From the 1800s, Van Gogh's artworks about the daily work of peasants have charmed art lovers and even in the Pop Art movement, the colourful art of everyday edible items like ice cream cones, cakes and hot dogs by Wayne Thiebaud have become collectable. It is no wonder that during a pandemic lockdown when walking in the neighbourhood is the only exercise allowed that these walks take on a new fascination.

Last week, I recorded my walk on a strip of paper.... I joined a variety of drawing and found papers and added /scraped gesso to the surface. As I walked, I drew with pencil shapes I saw on the way and then came home and added ink and pencil marks to fill in some detail. As you can see from the photo above, I cut the long strips into smaller squares to share the walk in segments.

With the tiny bits of the original strip, I made some small collages with additional fabric, dried bottlebrush leaves and stitching.

Thank you for walking with me...

We often forget that we are nature. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say we have lost connection to nature, we have lost connection to ourselves.

From https://www.theartstory.org/

Comments

In the Pink

At Tag Tuesday . Pinky O' Hagan is hosting a tag challenge which asks for 'a bit of pink".... not so difficult if you like pink. I don't use a lot of pink in my work, so it was quite a bit of a challenge when I thought only of pink - my thoughts went to pink roses, pink hearts, pink confectionery !!! Then I referred to this week's colour prompts, #coloricombo by artists Este MacLeod.... pink with sap green, dark tea, and sea green. I'm not sure I got the colours in this palette exactly, but here is my tag, a stylised landscape - The collaged background of the tag has torn pieces of watercolour art rejects, painted magazine pages and a little bit of gift paper. The tree silhouette is decorated with paper dots, cut with a hole puncher.

The Sea - for Tag Tuesday

For the current challenge "The Sea" at Tag Tuesday, I made a couple of painted/ hand drawn tags . These were created from a piece of watercolour paper which had been sprayed with acrylic paint - blue, yellow and quinacridone gold. I then sketched over the top , trying to follow some pattern created by the splatter and then add some felt tip pen lines watercolour pencil to highlight the shapes. The tags represent the fantasies of the hidden city of Atlantis and a mermaid. With this theme in mind, I also add a free motion stitched tag I made earlier this year for 29 Faces -

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...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Search This Blog