Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

  The current challenge at  Tag Tuesday   is NUMBERS ...  Here is the brief ... I would like to see Numbers on your tags, as in the title, I mean more than one number, I don't mind how many numbers you use, but you must have more than 3. They can be all the same or all different... On my desk, I happened to have a box of old postage stamps ... and there were numbers of course, as each stamp displays its value.  Here are my tags for the Numbers challenge.  The first is  a collage of the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, standing on a podium with a random set of numbers  . The second features  a lovely set of stamps from New Zealand , again with the three numbers prominently displayed , complemented by a cut out from an old greeting card.  Thanks, Sandie from tag Tuesday - a different and challenging theme. 

  Connecting and Interpreting : Story #6 from the ATASDA Collaborative Golden Cape  Background : The Golden Cape is a collaborative project for ATASDA members and it celebrates the 50th Anniversary of ATASDA in 2024. 50 present day members have  received  an image of one of 50 yesteryear members artworks, to use as a muse, to create new artwork based on the past. Inspiration can come from textures, colours, style, design, subject, culture or history of the original artwork.  The new artworks have become panels stitched together to create a Golden Cape - an anniversary art wearable .  The Golden Cape will be displayed at various venues around Australia from May 2024.  Angela Liddy drew inspiration from Maz Beetson's 2007 work "Fire Regrowth"  for her contribution to the Golden Cape.  Angela used  a traditional Korean technique "joomchi ' in her work.  Joomchi is a 500-year-old paper-making technique that  uses water to seal several layers of thin, handmade mulberr

  Connecting and Interpreting : Story #5 from the ATASDA Collaborative Golden Cape  Background : The Golden Cape is a collaborative project for ATASDA members and it celebrates the 50th Anniversary of ATASDA in 2024. 50 present day members have  received  an image of one of 50 yesteryear members artworks, to use as a muse, to create new artwork based on the past. Inspiration can come from textures, colours, style, design, subject, culture or history of the original artwork.  The new artworks have become panels stitched together to create a Golden Cape - an anniversary art wearable .  The Golden Cape will be displayed at various venues around Australia from May 2024.  ATASDA  member Susan Pepper chose an original work from the 2014 exhibition as her inspiration for her Golden cape contribution.  Elizabeth Robert's Ferris Wheel featured a play of circular light and movement within a subdued colour palette.  Susan Pepper's new work referred to these original elements to create &qu

Don't knit close to the edge of a cliff , or if you must, know when to stop!   https://fb.watch/sRTHMDMhAv/

At Tag Tuesday the current theme is cats ... my first thought was the famous riddle.  While on my way to St. Ives, I saw a man with 7 wives. Each wife had 7 sacks. Each sack had 7 cats. Each cat had 7 kittens. Kitten, cats, sacks, wives, How many were going to St. Ives? Was that 49 cats total ?  Anyway I decided to make a Mr and Mrs  Cat tag  for the  Tag  Tuesday challenge using the colour combinations for this week in my #the100dayproject. - forest green, saffron, dusty pink  and sea foam. These are  weekly colour prompts #coloricombo, curated be artist Este MacLeod ... I think I got most of the colours into the background with a predominance of the forest green and saffron in the cats.  In case you were wondering what is the real answer to the riddle  "how many were going to St Ives?"   Answer : one , only me! 

 When 'anything goes", does it follow that "nothing matters" ? .... I think not.  When I interpret "anything goes", I think it means taking a few risks and experiment, but also care about what you are doing and finding a purpose in the process.  Currently, the Tag Tuesday theme is "Anything Goes" ... This describes my daily art practice at the moment. I am doing #the100dayproject and each day I am responding to weekly published colour prompts #coloricombo, curated by  artist, Este McLeod.  During the last week, the suggested colours were jade green, primrose, vermillion and  purple grey.  Each day, I've been trying to experiment with colour and technique with the goal of developing and learning.  Here are some of the tags I created using these colours, or at least as close as I could manage with stuff from my stash...  I have titled these "Fragments from Afar" as all of them feature an image or a postage stamp from somewhere far from

  These were days of scarlet cheeks, candy pink and blush grey hair and mocha mushrooms!  This combination really stretched the imagination, and the first day I resorted to a pre-stamped embroidery which I think summed up the week - wandering from colour to colour, subject to subject .. ..  First came a couple of mushrooms - the background of these are machine stitched. Scraps of fabric are laid down on a base fabric and , using the decorative stitches on a sewing machine, rows and rows of stitching create the effect of a new background fabric. I often use this technique to create unique backgrounds for applique and feature stitching.  The mushrooms are raw edged appliqued onto these essentially pinky red backgrounds. Do these colours  make them fairytale like or just a bit sinister?  You might have noticed a theme of red polka dots in these little works .... that just reminded me of red cheeks, and so a series of quirky characters was born .... a party girl, a pair of nerdy teenagers

 Tag Tuesday' s theme is Spring Flowers. Of course, it's not Spring here in Australia, but that doesn't matter - anytime is a good time to celebrate flowers.  My tags  were little 'nature notes" I created for #the100dayproject, where I am responding to colour prompts, #coloricombo, curated by Este Macleod. The first is a collaged "tag" with a painted background (watercolour) and a blue flower ( fabric) appliqued and stitched. The tag itself is a scrap of inked paper with magazine text.   The second  tag is a another collaged "nature note" with postage stamp. Torn paper and fabric have been used on a background of  white washed print and my own  garden notes.  The third, strictly speaking does not depict flowers, but those little gum nuts were once  flowers and if you look carefully, the snippet of fabric in the right bottom corner is a floral print.  All of these are responses to the colour combination of soft blue, pea green, green gold and gua

  Connecting and Interpreting : Story #4 from the ATASDA Collaborative Golden Cape  Background : This year, 2024, ATASDA ( Australian Textile Arts and Surface Design Association) is celebrating its Golden Anniversary. The Collaborative Golden Cape is a celebratory garment representing 50 years of creativity in textile arts. Members of ATASDA have joined together to create a beautiful cape comprising of 50 art panels inspired by 50 past ATASDA artworks. Each contribution to the Cape is a personal response to its corresponding historic artwork and its story. The Golden Cape, embellished with these beautiful cameos of textile art and surface design, will travel and be displayed throughout Australia. Parrwang:  Jo-Anne Britt drew inspiration for her contribution to the cape from the 1987 work by Bobbie Winger . This was a dramatic wearable textile artwork, entitled , "Dancing Cloak for a Currawong". The limited colour palette and the "feathery" form of the cloak reall

  Connecting and Interpreting : Story #3 from the ATASDA Collaborative Golden Cape  Background : The Golden Cape is a collaborative project for ATASDA members and it celebrates the 50th Anniversary of ATASDA in 2024. 50 present day members have  received  an image of one of 50 yesteryear members artworks, to use as a muse, to create new artwork based on the past. Inspiration can come from textures, colours, style, design, subject, culture or history of the original artwork.  The new artworks have become panels stitched together to create a Golden Cape - an anniversary art wearable .   The Golden Cape will be displayed at various venues around Australia from May 2024.  Vine  (Exotica 2009 ATASDA exhibition ) : Norma Warnecke Meg Buchtmann chose Norma Warnecke's 2009 artwork shown in the ATASDA  exhibition "Exotica" as her inspiration for her contribution to the golden cape project .  Golden Cape panel 2023 : Meg Buchtmann Taken with the colour combinations and the 3D natur

 It has been such a long time since I participated in a Tag Tuesday  challenge … This fortnight the theme is ‘Gothic’  and  it really engaged me because I really couldn’t at first think of anything I could create as a tag. I recently have  been playing with photo manipulation and editing so here is one of the results - a double exposed image of the interior of a gothic cathedral and the head of a sculpture I made a few years ago . I also added a few touches of gold leaf and coloured a few areas of the image with Prisma pencil to add some depth. I was thinking the gothic arches created mitred headgear ?  Or is just a spectre of a saint interred in the cathedral crypt? … it’s gothic! 

from 2022 #the100dayproject- Wilma Simmons    When I see or use a bright yellow, it resonates energy, joy, and happiness.  It is no wonder that in the colour prompts, this yellow is called "sunshine" ... If you haven't been following, I am participating in #the100dayproject, an art challenge, where participants for 100 consecutive days make art for a short period of time daily, using  their own chosen techniques in their self designed project.  I've chosen to respond to the weekly colour prompts #coloricombo , curated by Este Macleod. This particular one  ( black, white and sunshine) is inspired by and is a tribute to the iconic Iris Apfel ( 1921 -2024) ,  who was an American businesswoman, interior designer, and  fashion designer , known for her flamboyant style, outspoken personality and oversized eyeglasses. In business with her husband, Carl, from 1950 to 1992, Apfel had a career in textiles, including a contract with the White House that spanned nine presidencie