Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Today , Day 11 of #The100Day Project is International Haiku Poetry Day... What is haiku?  Haiku is a type of short poetry that is usually three sentences long. First popularized in Japan in the 17th century, Haiku as a poetry genre has been adopted by many languages around the world. In English, the genre first became mainstream in the early 20th century. In its Japanese avatar, haikus traditionally have three lines with 17 syllables. The first and last sentences have 5 syllables and the second line has 7 syllables. Haiku tend to give an interesting insight about something trivial, usually some aspect of nature or the seasons. from  https://www.timeanddate.com/ 11/#100pinpoems Materials : paper, fabric, thread, safety pin  Techniques: Collage, stitching, painting   Having decided to complete my 100 day Project by each day writing a haiku (or at least a pseudo haiku) and create an accompanying wearable pin , today  should be  a...

A Chronicle  is a record of things that happened — told in chronological order. ..  The word is  related to and  comes from the Greek ta khronika , which means “annals of time.”  .      While we today blog or instagram photos of our travels,  I imagine travellers of the past might have recorded, on rolled scrolls, their journeys and their discoveries each night after a full day of adventures. This was the inspirations for my table top installation, called " Travel Chronicles : Charting the Unexplored".  The work comprises three mixed media scrolls of varying size and length, created from mark making with ink on papers and fabric,  collage and stitching.  The addition of a flat art doll, in the style of a traveller of a previous era gives a context to these scrolls.  While I have not included text in these scrolls, the mark making suggests that the language is universal.... I have even imagined t...

  As fascinating as the subject of "black holes" is, it was never my intention to create this piece true to its astronomical details so I have called this art work 'Black Holes'- an abstraction of the phenomena of a stellar collapse.  ( A  stellar black hole  (or  stellar-mass black hole ) is a  black hole  formed by the  gravitational collapse  of a  sta r .  . from Wikipedia)   This art work started with mark making on various pieces of paper with ink, paint, and stitch.   I collaged those bits of paper together and then digitally transferred the drawing on to silk and free machine stitched the silk collage using dissolvable fabric and overlays of tulle, lace and sequinned fabric.  Some hand stitching was also done to add a bit more texture of the piece as well as trapunto quilting in some parts.  I always had the dilemma of whether to hang this piece vertically or hori...

Continuing  the series of collages for my October challenge... Collage #65 was taken from a photo taken in Kritipur in Nepal at a temple. I was immediately attracted by the splash of orange-red colour of the tikka on the statue in the image. I cropped the photo  to make that the focal point  and intensified the colour to give me some more defined shapes to abstract. Here is the result with torn paper and small scraps of cotton fabric which happened to be similar to the colour.  This is a short  ( 4 minutes) video of an artist  creating an abstract design from realistic drawing . I think it shows a great way of creating lines in an abstract design. 

I love a monthly challenge which requires a daily art practice for a few weeks. Recently, I completed #The 100 Day Project. I enjoyed it but I'm not ready to tackle such a long distance activity again yet. Last month, I attempted #29 Faces, and am still completing them (only a few more to go). There are lots of really great challenges for October advertised on social media , but I thought, "Why not set my own challenge and then I own it completely!"  Thinking of the most relaxing creative activity, I have set myself at least 20 torn paper and fabric collages for October.  I am also trying to make "abstract" interpretations of things I see while walking in my neighbourhood or as in some of these,  something experienced whilst on a recent trip to Nepal. I must emphasise that these are very loose interpretations and are not meant to look in the least like the photos of the real scene.  Inspired by a gymea lily .... I really love this plant, and enjoy photo...

I am very happy to be included in the 2019 workshop program at Studio CC. There are still places available for this creative workshop -   Now only  one day : 22 June 2019.   Please go to the  Studio CC website   for registration information . 

If you sent me a letter (or a bill) by post recently, then one of these envelopes could be yours.... for #The100DayProject, I started on 2 April to create a collage on a used envelope each day. The theme for the collage is inspired by a daily walk , so the project is a double challenge for me - to take a walk and to create a small piece of art every day until 10 July. Here are the results of Days 13-20...

For #The100Day Project,  for 100 days, I am creating stitched fabric and paper collages on used envelopes. The theme relates to what I see or what I gather on my daily walks for 100 days.

This year, I decided to participate in The 100 Day Project - I signed up before my life suddenly got a bit busy, but I am determined to continue with it. It is an online art project which attracts thousands of people worldwide every year to create art of some sort every day for 100 days. This started on 2 April  so it's early days... Each participant can decide what he/she would like to create. I had a pile of used envelopes which I saved for an unknown project, so thought this was the perfect opportunity to use them and all the little bits of torn paper, fabric scraps and ephemera I have been keeping. My 100 day project is to create collages on used envelopes.  Did you send me a letter? You may find your envelope as one of the 100 collages. These stitched collages will be inspired by my daily walks in my neighbourhood, so it is also a 100 day challenge to walk each day, even if it only for 15-20 minutes.   Here are the first five days...  ...