Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

A pairing of pistachio and dark chocolate sounds like a delicious and indulgent late night snack, but when your add donkey grey and taupe , the first impression of the four colour combination  appears rather lacklustre.  I've always thought of taupe as dull and bland. Some  research suggests that taupe is now a very popular colour in interior design and is considered to be associated with luxury and sophistication! I can see that it fits rather well between the donkey grey and dark chocolate as an intermediate shade.  If you haven't been following, I am currently attempting the global #the100dayproject, which means I spend a short amount of time on a daily art practice of my choice. I have chosen to interpret the colour prompts published each week by Este Macleod. I admit this one did not really excite me at the beginning , so I did a quick collage from paper torn from magazine pages. This helped me to see the different values of the colours and how they looked toget...

  4/#the100dayproject  What a great colour combination - some favourite greens with a touch of mustard!  Add in Payne's grey and then in my head, there was a forest.... trees, grasses, plants  After the first day  blending  some water colours, and matching  my threads. I wasn't exactly sure I might do over the next week - some leaf studies? some collages based on the bush? ....  Luckily, I have a great stash of unfinished projects. A piece of abandoned canvas with splotches of green seemed to jump out of the drawer to be used. And then there was the piece of calico which had blank ink marks - Once it was torn into strips, brightened up with a bit of water colour, the small strips, ended up making perfect tree trunks,  5/#the100dayproject  Above moss and grass, Nature marked towering tree trunks Forest colours sing.   The next few days were a bit like a Mr Squiggle challenge - making something of the  pre-made marks and splotche...

I t's that time of the year again when I participate in the global art challenge #the100dayproject .... I have done this for the last five years and I love doing it. Sometimes, the idea of creating something for 100 consecutive days just seems ridiculous, but I've learnt over the years not to do something too ambitious, and to have an idea or theme which is entirely achievable. Today it all seems easy - it is only Day 3.  This year, 2024, I have decided to follow colour prompts curated by artist, EsteMacLeod. - Este publishes these colour palettes each week, and I thought  using these means that half the work is already done. My 100 day project will be then to make responses to these prompts and work on each palette for a week for the duration.    1/ #100daysofcolourcombo - Bubblegum Cat  Day 1 Bubblegum Cat .... a Laurel Burch print , overstitched in bubblegum coloured thread. This particular technique follows these steps:  - stitch around the shape ( two ...

  Kung hei fat choi! 恭喜發財 Happy Lunar New  Year!  … Let the Dragon’s flight inspire, A year where your dreams soar higher. Peace, joy, and harmony near, As we celebrate the Dragon year. 让龙的飞行启发， 一个你的梦想更高飞翔的年。 和平、快乐和和谐近在咫尺， 当我们庆祝龙年。 The image is of detail of a man’s coat. It was purchased in Lijiang   China in 2000 - supposedly worn by scholars - interpreters of ‘scriptures’ , but that is an unverified story  accompanying it. It is vintage , if not antique. indigo dyed, hand embroidered cotton . Before the embroidery was done , the dye waa protected by painting in a layer of egg white .

 My best intentions of blogging about my Advent paperfolding last month went awry ... a little like a New year's resolution, I suspect. However, I decided today to revisit the Christmas Countdown and create a summary of all of the Christmas themed  paperfolding I completed in December 2023.  And here they are in no particular order...  Day 15 - an eight pointed star ( which I think if folded in a different colour, would have made a great poinsettia flower)  Day 14 - an owl ( perhaps Hedwig  from the Harry Potter series?)  Day 12 - a  3D Christmas ornament  Day 11 - a Christmas tree  Day 10 - a swan  ( 7 swans a-swimming - the other 6 didn't materialise)  Day 19 - an 8 point pin wheel ( I made this twice as a present decoration, instead of a ribbon)  Day 18 - a Christmas wreath  Day 17 - lots of folded hearts  so many that they were made into a   Christmas garland  Day 13 - 4 calling birds ( the lea...

  Over the last few years, I have created an "advent" regime of creating something with a Christmas theme in the month of December - sometimes, it's been drawing, tags, cards or sharing photos . The themes have been Christmas Tags,   Christmas Firsts , Christmas \postage stamps, Christmas cake, and crazy Christmas trees from the past.  You can search this blog with the tag #christmas countdown and see what you can find ?  My mother used to love the #Christmas Countdown series  and it is now almost a year since she passed away. The "lead -in" to Christmas and origami were a couple of her favourite things, so this year, 2023, my December goal is to make a paper folded Christmas tree ornament each day n her memory.  1 December, 2023 : To start with, I chose the simplest little pinwheel and added a button and a star.  2 December, 2023 :  This folded shape starts with a pinwheel, so it seemed the logical follow on. And I also stitched on a button and s...

  Connecting and Interpreting : Story #2 from the ATASDA Collaborative Golden Cape The  Golden Cape  is a new collaborative project for ATASDA members. 50 present day members will each receive an image of one of 50 yesteryear members artworks, to use as a muse, to create new artwork based on the past. Inspiration can come from textures, colours, style, design, subject, culture or history of the original artwork.  (from   https://atasda.org.au/50-years-of-atasda)  The second story in this series highlighting the narratives behind the creative stitching on the contributions to the ATASDA  Collaborative Golden  Cape is a topical and poignant social commentary.  As I contemplate what happens after the disappointing defeat of "The Voice " referendum, I think of the word   ‘Makarrata’, a multi-layered Yolŋu word understood as the coming together after a struggle. It involves truth telling. A beautiful response by Karen Rivers, ...