Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

" Do you draw first?" - I am often asked this question about my works which are collaged and machine stitched, like these from #The100DayProject.  In the last post, I shared a drawing  and the resulting stitched work. (left below) The simple answer to the question is 'yes' ....but ... I can't claim that  these are drawings - they are more like 30 second sketches.  In the top photo, you can see that I have photographed  a scene from my front verandah and I also sketched it very quickly and not accurately , blocking in shapes with multi directional lines. Then the drawing has been scaled to fit my preferred size for a wearable art pin - I also took some artistic licence and omitted the house. Sometimes I work directly from the photo doing a similar thing - adding and subtracting elements for the sake of the design.  \   And here is the stitched interpretation of the sketch....  Day 21 #100pinpoems  "Morning mist softens...

7/ #100pinpoems  Today was Day 7 #The100DayProject ....  You may remember that I have undertaken to make 100 wearable pins with coloured safety pins and an accompanying haiku or at least a pseudo haiku with three lines and a 5-6-5 syllable structure.  No. 7 was "in the pink" . This one came about  because my granddaughter and I are having a daily challenge from afar... the challenge today was to wear something pink and do something with our hands or feet. We then swap photos of each other  ( see left) - a diversion from social isolation and school holidays.  No 7 : Materials : paper, fabric, buttons, threads,  safety pin.  Techniques: collage, stitching.   No. 6 was in response to the beautiful day we experienced on Sunday, yesterday - clear blue skies and warm sunshine. I took a photo in the morning as I was drinking tea on the verandah and the clear rays of the sun in the photo became stitch lines on the little wearab...

Each day for 100 days, I will try to create a small wearable pin, with a coloured safety pin, and add a haiku to reflect the day's feelings, observations or experiences. This project began with the idea of using supplies I already had at home and in the quantity to create something for 100 days... so I found 100 coloured safety pins and I have an even larger supply of the luggage tags as I could only purchase them years ago in lots of 500.  I wanted to make something that perhaps could be gifted to friends and family , so as "brooches" have also been on my mind, I thought of "wearable pins." The addition of  the little three lined poem, a haiku, was just an idea to fill the space on the tag! I decided on haiku because of the simplicity of its  three lines and 5-7-5 syllables formation and the recording of a "moment". Well, I did think it was simple until I tried the first, and found myself counting the syllables over and over again for each ...