Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Ruby Regina - beaded art doll  Years ago, I loved beading and bead embroidery.... then for no particular reason, I stopped beading. I maintained my membership with the Beaded Art Doll group on Facebook, and this year, I decided to participate in one of the Round Robin events - Birthstone. As there were only two Australians doing the challenge, we decided just to swap dolls, rather than send them on and have four or  five people working on the dolls in other countries ( postage is expensive!)  My swap partner, Marj, worked on my doll, Ruby Regina. As you can see the dolls are sent naked and are returned fully beaded Ruby Regina - before beading  Ruby Regina - close up  I beaded Marj's Topaz Traveller.... This was a bigger doll, and the mass of pale topaz looked rather pale and insignificant. Marj had already given her red lipstick, so I thought she needed to "out there" a little more....and so the addition of copper seemed to be appropriate...

Have you ever thought how strange a creature the octopus is?  This week's fascination started when I asked the question, "What colour is an octopus when it's underwater?"  The answer is  "any colour it wants to be " -  An octopus' coloration depends upon its surroundings.  An octopus possesses the ability to alter its coloration depending on its immediate environment. This defensive technique protects the animal from predators and entices prey to come close to the animal . ((from  https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/color-octopus-be94f74fcdc74ebe)    . Why did I want to know the colour of an octopus? Because I wanted to draw octopus tentacles as mermaid hair for my art journal! Then, I began to think it might be considered a little too weird and even perverse to give a mermaid octopus hair.... Facebook friends assured me that this was not so, citing Medusa and her snake hair as a precedent, and even one friend said that she thought it was l...

Having a long time obsession with making art with tea bags ( see previous posts September 2014 including exhibition invitation ) and with new inspiration from tea bag artist Ruby Silvious  , I started a very humble tea bag drawing project while on a break last month in Townsville, North Queensland, "Humble" is an apt description - I had a black felt tipped marker and five coloured paint markers and six dried used tea bags as my materials - all one needs for an 11 day holiday. As this wasn't really a sightseeing holiday to somewhere exotic, and more of a family visit, I recorded the minutiae - some of the trivialities which create memories.  These funny little drawings  were a few minutes each day of quiet reflection and single focus - no pressure, no deep meaning, no attempt at  artistry. Even now, a month after, just leafing through the little tea bag pages has a calming effect - just appreciating the little things in life. top row l-r : drinks at the airpor...

I often wonder if perhaps I am  becoming a little more eccentric. When the last fortnight's Tag Tuesday themes were announced - Masculine and Feminine - my mind wandered all over the themes until I settled on using some cardboard templates I  already had and with scissors, glue, a couple of abandoned book pages and some magazine and stock images, I came up with these "Quirky Characters". I need to mention that the book page backgrounds were from a book of literary criticism, with the masculine ( apologies to Salvador Dali) about  Shakespeare's Richard III and the feminine background came from a page about the work of Jane Austen. Quirky, but fun!

On a recent visit to my home town, Townsville in North Queensland, I was really happy and super impressed to discover an arty place I hadn't heard of before...Renegade Handmade.  I visited this delightful  "handmade"  gift shop on a Saturday morning. It was  23 July 2016 - a warm day for Winter. The arcade was abuzz with people indulging in coffee and snacks, shopping at the fresh food market  and browsing and  enjoying  the various trendy and bespoke shops in the arcade. This scene was hardly the Townsville of my childhood and I am embarrassed to admit  that it surprised me that the atmosphere was so cosmopolitan , contemporary and "with-it". I applaud Renegade Handmade for its vision for both the shop and the markets - to offer "opportunities for makers to mix with shoppers in an environment that is supportive and nurturing of handmade."   That nurturing support was obvious - the art was well displayed, presented with style and ...

This week, Tag Tuesday happened while I was in transit to my sister's. I caught up today, albeit with limited art resources - newspaper, a blue art marker, black pen, grey and white pencils, and a scrap of cotton. This is another little newspaper sketch of some cups and spoons. My interpretation of the " Cups and Cutlery" theme. 

Here is a video of Artist Sylvia Watt announcing the winners of the  handmade brooch, "Brooching the Subject"competition. Sylvia had the very difficult job of judging the competition.  Before the announcement, I chose Olivia Parsonage's  wall brooch, "how do you get, how do you get to Parry Street?" as my favourite amongst the 120+ brooches in the exhibition, and purchased it. Now I am so happy I will be the owner of the first prize winning brooch, especially as there were many at the exhibition opening vying for Olivia's work. Olivia has long been one of my favourite artists and you can read other articles I have written about her here and here.  Thank you also  to Sylvia for the generous mention of both my entries, "Silver Lines" and "Bees" amongst the commended. This exhibition is only open at Timeless Textiles until Sunday 2pm, so hope you  are able to see these beautiful small works of art.