Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Unseasonal Spring Flowers #1 - tea stains and stitching : Wilma Simmons  I am sure this is not what Tag Tuesday followers will be expecting for the theme of Spring Flowers. My tags this week aren't the popular beautiful interpretations of favourite Spring garden flowers - they are monochrome tea stained canvas tags, with hand stitching. I think it is amazing when you put wet tea bags onto canvas, the shapes of the tea stains are so like flowers and  when the tea stain from the string makes a line,  it looks just like a stem. Unseasonal Spring Flowers #2 - tea stains and stitching : Wilma Simmons  While those in the northern hemisphere are really looking forward to Spring and a burst of floral colour, we in the southern hemisphere are experiencing the end of summer and depending on where you live,  perhaps a little Autumn breeze and a slight drop in temperature. So, my tags represent Spring flowers-  out of season. Unseasonal Spring Flowers #...

Today is the first day of Spring in Australia and somehow, psychologically, it has put me in a better mood. I've opened the windows to let the sunshine in the house and declared that we will no longer be sick ( having had a couple of weeks of colds and flu).  I've been out in the garden this morning, celebrating the new season.  Spring euphoria is not an illusion — it can be scientifically explained.  Three German researchers in different disciplines were asked to describe the relationship between good weather and  happy moods. ( from    World Crunch  )  The psychologist . Human beings are programmed to rest when it’s dark, and to be active and in high spirits when it’s light, says Peter Walschburger, professor emeritus of biopsychology at the Freie Universität Berlin. “We react massively to light,” so conscious experience and human behavior change radically on fine spring days.  Scents and bird song also influence u...

Tag Tuesday's theme is "Spring Flowers", so with the help of a couple of layers of paper serviettes, three paper flowers and some ink and pencil face drawings, voila - Spring flowers which also fulfil today's  commitment to the 29 Faces Art Challenge!  Spring flowers have also appeared on my tags in 29 Faces for the last week, so here they are for Tag Tuesday too. ...  all are ink, pencil and watercolour over the top of scrap painted or collaged paper.

Day 19 - 29 Faces Art Challenge ... I am surprising myself that I am still keeping up... Today's is a quick drawing on the remainder of  yesterday's paper serviette.

Day 19  of the 29 Faces Art Challenge.... quite a challenge today, drawing over the top of a painted background covered with a paper serviette.

Day 17 - 29 Faces Art Challenge  - a facea day for February 2017. More red splotches and more flowers.

Day 16 29 Faces Art Challenge - I am staying with the Seasons theme, and here is no. 2 for Spring.

Day 15 - Such a beautiful warm day - just a bit like Spring!

Eco Print art tags # Wilma Simmons  “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”  ―  Rachel Carson ,  Silent Spring Can you hear the songs of spring ?   ( Click here to see more eco prints) Eco Prints  stitched -#Wilma Simmons  Eco print tag -#Wilma Simmons

eco print - marigold, grevillea leaf on khadi paper  Today is the first day of Autumn in the southern hemisphere  Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness  Close bosom friend of the maturing sun....   And still more, Later flowers for the bees,  Until they think the warm days will never cease...  Where are the songs of Spring ? Yellow in all the earth and in the skies  The world would seem  Faint as a widow mourning with soft eyes  And falling into dream . ...  The woods are lovely, dark and deep  But I have  promises to keep And miles to go   Before I sleep .....   Words by John Keats, John Shaw Neilson, Robert Frost Images by me -  (Wilma Simmons, Empress Wu Designs) from my handmade book, Where are the songs of Spring? gum leaf captured between tea bag paper , dipped in beeswax  eco dyed wool with handstitching  tea bag and hand stitching  eco dyed wool, f...

First day of Spring in our garden .... all photos taken on 1 September, 2013 with a Canon Ixus. 

Finally on Friday, my project "Seasons" for the Hello Dollies challenge was ready for presentation on Saturday... as usual, last minute touches were needed. I decided on a "flat doll" project, for this challenge which was to "create your own fabric" to make a doll from a basic pattern provided. I thought the stump doll pattern lent itself easily to the flat doll idea. I had been working on the idea for a long time, making all sorts of different fabric, most of which was rejected and has since found other uses. I finally settled on four bits of  machine embellished  and embroidered fabric to complement a piece of space dyed commercial fabric on which I had stamped face images.  Trying not to use anything other than what was in my stash, I chose a neutral coloured fabric for the background and gave it a bit of depth by going over the surface with a black fabric pastel with a textured mat  underneath. My original idea was to have these dolls appearing to ...