Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Signing in late for the fortnightly challenge "Gold and Silver" for Tag Tuesday.....  This tag is created from a cyanotype* print of a photograph I took a couple of years ago of winter trees in our neighbourhood, with a circular mask. The stitching - couching- is done in gold and silver threads. *Note:  Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings, referred to as blueprints. T

More than 100 fibre artists from across Australia and the world will compete for prizes and glory in the inaugural ‘Brooching the Subject’ exhibition at Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery in July. The artists have been busy creating the wild and wonderfully creative brooches, using many techniques – beading, stitching, embroidery (hand or machine), felting, painting, pinning and more. The contributing artists have all brought very individual approaches to creating these brooches – to be worn or hung on the wall –resulting in more than 100 unique works that will not only create a spectacular gallery display but also impress the ‘Brooching the Subject ' judge, Brisbane-based fibre artist Sylvia Watt. If you love brooches, don’t miss this playful ‘Brooching the Subject’ exhibition, showing for one week only between 12-17 July 2016. All brooches will be for sale and there will be a people's choice competition online.  My entries are one wearable brooch and one crazy...

Christmas Countdown ...7... Pudding Coins  We all love Christmas pudding, but have you ever wondered where the practice of putting coins in the pudding came from? Getting a silver coin with your serving of pudding is said to bring good luck. This came possibly from the 1300s in Britain when a “Twelfth Night Cake” was eaten during the festivities on the twelfth night of Christmas. A dried bean or pea was baked inside the cake and whoever got it was “king” or “queen” for the night. The bean was sometimes a silver ring. Then it turned into a farthing or a penny and then after World War 1, a silver threepence or sixpence.  There was also a practice of using tokens in a pudding, which held predictions for the finder – a bachelor or spinster for the following year, or the prospect of marriage. These days, silver coins are no longer currency, but many (like me) have kept a few silver coins just to put in the pudding on Christmas Day. 

While our holidays have provided me with many blog posts yet to come, this week's "arty place" is at home, literally. Yesterday, once again our family room was transformed into a workshop area  for a Precious Metal Clay workshop for beginners . The photo shows some of the work, beautiful pendants - really fantastic, I think for beginners! Recently most of the workshops here have been art dolls and this year many creations have been born here, during Wise Women workshops ....  and Message Stick art doll workshops ...  Even at family gatherings, there is always time for a workshop or two at Empress Wu Designs . Today we made polymer clay power rings and learnt to make swirl beads with scraps of polymer clay.  If you are interested in any of these workshops please check the workshop page or contact me directly. 

With the October long weekend holiday and daylight saving adjustment, I have been working in a mind "fog" today, and kept wondering what I would write about in this blog this week... it was so obvious. Last Friday I had the great privilege of attending a workshop conducted by visiting US master artist in Precious Metal Clay, Hadar Jacobson. Please see why I have been so excited about attending this workshop - please check out   Hadar's website . The workshop covered many new techniques for me and challenged the way I have previously thought about approaching, executing and finishing a silver project. I learnt new finishing techniques using a handheld rotary tool  and yesterday bought some new attachments for my dremel . My husband, Jim was really surprised when I got up early yesterday excited about going shopping at the local hardware store!  I made a small pair of hollow form earrings. In retrospect, I chose rather uninspiring shapes, ...