Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

  From a recent  Fibre Arts Take Two online course - Processes and Possibilities - Cordula Kagelmann  Photos :. Reflection #1 Materials - gelli plate prints and postage stamp image transfer, cotton thread As I reflect on 2021 and as Christmas approaches, I think of the unsettled and disturbed times Covid 19 has brought to us personally, nationally and globally. The Christmas stamp as a feature in this collage, suggests the feeling of protection and peaceful calm the support of loved ones provides. It symbolises hope and its possibility while the torn gelli plate prints remind me of the surrounding chaos. 2. Reflection #2 Materials - magazine pages, threads In this collage, the restrictions and lockdown experienced during the Covid crisis of this year are experiences that have complex layers of self discovery and emotion - fear, anger, happiness, peace, anxiety , sadness and gratitude … While there were harsher social restrictions in 2021 , there were so many stories of h...

Have you heard of non-committal collage?   I hadn't until one of the other participants of the 100 Day Project started doing this each day and showing the results....  Here are  Peggy's  rules :  1. S elect 9 scraps of paper from  collage  box/stash  2. Make three  different compositions using each scrap at least once.  (some pieces can be used more than once)  3. Do not alter the scraps of paper in any way.  4.Do not use glue.  5.Take photo, disassemble and return scraps to box.   I thought this would be a fun and quick exercise to do for Tag Tuesday's theme , Anything Goes... so here are my "non-committal collage" tags....  Did you spot the nine pieces? Would  you like to suggest some titles?   And I repeated the exercise before putting back the 9 scraps of paper, so these are different items.  Hope you will try this exercise -  it is lots of...

It is not a secret that I like making art with recycled materials, especially paper - newspaper, brown paper and tea bags especially. The Winter Book is a project that started when I  made the cover a few years ago - flowers past their prime , made of  torn newspaper and tea bags. I really enjoyed the approach - in a workshop we were given a piece of newspaper and were told to create something 3D out of it. I liked the spontaneity of this exercise and the "imperfect" results which seemed to have a beauty all of their own. And then, after deciding to make a Winter book , I lost interest in the concept after a few pages .... it sat in the unfinished pile for a long time, but I still liked the cover and the few pages I'd started. Every now and then, I added something to the book. Last week, I filled in two last remaining pages and here it is.. ..   " Winter plays a tune of isolation and darkness,  and curls up inside you only to challenge you...

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...

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.