Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

#The100DayProject is a *free* global art project that takes place online 🎨 E very year, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of creating. Anyone can participate . ​The idea is simple: choose a creative project, do it every single day for 100 days, and document and share the process online. 2026 is my 8th year of participating. I have stitched daily observations, painted my egg cup collection, collaged postcards and envelopes, written poems, explored colour palettes .... this year I am researching, sketching and stitching 100 inspiring women. Fortunately I purchased a piece of beautiful linen, with preprinted outlines of 100 women ... just one issue - the figures are tiny (height 6cm /2.5 ins) My first week started tentatively ... I thought I would start with Empress Wu, after whom I named my creative activity. This is when I discovered how difficult it is to applique and stitch on these very small figures - I used tweezers to put pieces of fabric down, tried t...

  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...

 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...

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 spa...

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...

  4/#the100dayproject  What a great colour combination - some favourite greens with a touch of mustard!  Add in Payne's grey and then in my head, there was a forest.... trees, grasses, plants  After the first day  blending  some water colours, and matching  my threads. I wasn't exactly sure I might do over the next week - some leaf studies? some collages based on the bush? ....  Luckily, I have a great stash of unfinished projects. A piece of abandoned canvas with splotches of green seemed to jump out of the drawer to be used. And then there was the piece of calico which had blank ink marks - Once it was torn into strips, brightened up with a bit of water colour, the small strips, ended up making perfect tree trunks,  5/#the100dayproject  Above moss and grass, Nature marked towering tree trunks Forest colours sing.   The next few days were a bit like a Mr Squiggle challenge - making something of the  pre-made marks and splotche...