Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

  No new year’s resolutions , but I like the idea of words shaping a year …. I  did not choose JOY - I chose PLAY and CHALLENGE, which I think also fits the upcoming  Chinese Year of the  Horse…. “ The year 2026 signifies a fresh start, embodying the dynamic Year of the Fire Horse in the Chinese zodiac, representing energy, freedom, and innovation, coupled with a Universal Year 1 in numerology, signalling new beginnings and pioneering action “  How did JOY become the focus of this story?  Where better to start than with the weekly colour prompts  #coloricombo by EsteMacleod …these are published each Monday night ( Australian Eastern Summer Time) , so I’ve had  a week to work on these . Added to the colour prompts Este has also intensified the challenge by including a different shape or form each week.  This week, she chose the word/letters J O Y Between workshops, travelling and other projects, I spent a few hours cutting and   pa...

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! 

  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 gir...

A pairing of pistachio and dark chocolate sounds like a delicious and indulgent late night snack, but when your add donkey grey and taupe , the first impression of the four colour combination  appears rather lacklustre.  I've always thought of taupe as dull and bland. Some  research suggests that taupe is now a very popular colour in interior design and is considered to be associated with luxury and sophistication! I can see that it fits rather well between the donkey grey and dark chocolate as an intermediate shade.  If you haven't been following, I am currently attempting the global #the100dayproject, which means I spend a short amount of time on a daily art practice of my choice. I have chosen to interpret the colour prompts published each week by Este Macleod. I admit this one did not really excite me at the beginning , so I did a quick collage from paper torn from magazine pages. This helped me to see the different values of the colours and how they looked toget...

I t's that time of the year again when I participate in the global art challenge #the100dayproject .... I have done this for the last five years and I love doing it. Sometimes, the idea of creating something for 100 consecutive days just seems ridiculous, but I've learnt over the years not to do something too ambitious, and to have an idea or theme which is entirely achievable. Today it all seems easy - it is only Day 3.  This year, 2024, I have decided to follow colour prompts curated by artist, EsteMacLeod. - Este publishes these colour palettes each week, and I thought  using these means that half the work is already done. My 100 day project will be then to make responses to these prompts and work on each palette for a week for the duration.    1/ #100daysofcolourcombo - Bubblegum Cat  Day 1 Bubblegum Cat .... a Laurel Burch print , overstitched in bubblegum coloured thread. This particular technique follows these steps:  - stitch around the shape ( two ...