Altered Canvas, One World One Heart Event

This is my piece for our Altered Canvas Challenge at http://bigartadventure.blogspot.com/

I'm going to give it away as part of the One World One Heart event.

This is a great event organised every year by the talented Lisa. Its a way of connecting bloggers from all over the world through giving away pieces of art.

All you need to do is leave a comment on this post (up until midnight on February 11) and I will select a winner on February 12.

(You need to be an active blogger to take part in this give away.)

The canvas is small and chunky, 4"x6". All the images are from Artchix collage sheets. I used acrylic paint, torn papers, gesso, stencils, lace, a metal charm and gold ink.

I hope you'll take part in the event...the winner will also receive a surprise package !! I recommend you go and take a look at all the other blogs taking part.

Good luck

Love Linda x

Iconic Interpretations

I attended another class run by Alysn Midgelow-Marsden on Sunday. This time we transferred images onto metal and fabric (organza and lutrador) ...... more of this in a day or two, but for now here's a little snippet of my (unfinished) piece of work

Art and Soul Journal - "My Personal Lexicon"

These pages are inspired by a prompt from Kathryn Antyr.........."for our personal lexicons we will be collecting and recording our own visual and symbolic language"...... I made a list of my favourite images and materials which I aim to use in the coming year. I collected pictures, drew examples and stamped some onto pages which had previously been gessoed and painted with acrylics. My pages ended up rather similar to Kathryns.....I must admit I got rather carried away with her instructions!! (Don't think she'll mind though.)

Another Journal Cover

I've spent the afternoon sneezing, coughing and spluttering........ but I've managed to make another journal cover! I used the Sarah Whitmire technique again of pressing gesso through a stencil. For some reason it ended up with the same colour scheme as my pomegranate one - but it wasn't intentional.

Hand Needle-Felting

Just over a week ago I attended a Living Threads workshop run by Alysn Midgelow-Marsden. We learnt how to needle felt by hand using a single needle - its like magic! This is one of the pieces I made (I think its a seed-head). You can use an assortment of fibres; I used wool top, silk, linen, angelina and bamboo fibres.

First we laid a piece of velvet on a dense sponge (you can use felt instead of velvet)

then spread fibres on top.

The needles are not smooth, they have tiny ridges cut into them - this is what matts the fibres.

Just stab the fibres repeatedly (through into the sponge) until they bond with the velvet and each other. Keep adding fibres until you're happy with the effect. Like magic - they all become as one!!

Finally I couched thin strips of angelina film and added seed beads, accent beads and a few french knots.
If you click on the link to Alysn it will take you to her gallery/workshop/art shop/coffee shop/ gift shop (where everything is handmade)...... and I have just got a job there! I'll only be doing Sundays plus occasional weekdays - which is just enough for me. Can't wait - I'll just have to try not to spend all my wages on art materials ;-)

PS If anyone wants to have a go and can't get hold of a needle...email me.

Bottletop Challenge

I thought I'd have a go at doing some bottletop ATCs (and a twinchie) today for our challenge on http://bigartadventure.blogspot.com

I also wanted to use some of my Artchix collage sheets.

The colour schemes ended up a bit wierd for me...but I was challenging myself!

Word Challenge and Soul Journal

On our Big Art Adventure blog Rosie challenged us to think of a defining word for 2009. I chose ........

Smile (remember my rock?)

The colours on these photos are not good, sorry. The light has been so bad over the past few days I've had problems photographing this. The girl in the middle?........Thats a school photo of me. The photographer was probably saying smile.

SOUL JOURNAL
For the Soul Journal prompt (no:16) Kathryn asked us to find our defining words, stick them onto a journal page and doodle around them. "Pull out those magazines and quickly flip through. Don't look at the images, focus rather on the words. Don't think about what you are picking out just tear or cut out words that resonate with you".
I've decided I need to let go of certain things this year so I'm also choosing the word release .
And my shoulders will be a good place to start - they've kept my ears warm for too long!!

Anyway, here's my journal page ......... thank you Kathryn for the inspiration.

I decided to do zentangle-style doodling, mainly using a black PITT artist pen.

Journal Cover

At the end of last year I subscribed to Sarah Whitmire's online Joggles class to do a journal cover. I downloaded the pdfs and decided to have a go today.
The first step was to tear pictures and papers and glue them onto the cover with a central focus. I chose the gorgeous pomegranate napkin (another gift from Jacky!), some scrapbooking paper, plus some script tissue paper which my daughter gave me (I think it was wrapped around her All Saints purchases). Next, I scraped gesso through a plastic flourish stencil from http://craftynotions.com/ and some sequin waste. This had to dry overnight.

I then applied lots of layers of paints and messed around wiping it on and off and adding LuminArte powders until I was reasonably happy with the effect.

Lastly I added some words and a metal corner decoration.

Now I'm ready to start journalling again.

I'm Back....

I wasn't sure whether to post anything today, as I haven't really got much to show you, but then I thought it might do me good.........

The past few weeks have been tough for me and my family. My dad's mental and physical health deteriorated and mum became quite poorly. She's almost 80 and has struggled to look after dad for the past 18 months - I helped as much as I could, but she's had to cope with his disabilities 24 hours a day. There have been many occasions when we've tried to persuade her to give in.

Anyway, by New Years Eve even she knew 'the time had come'.... something she had been dreading. After a visit from the doctor, Dad's social worker fetched him at 5pm and took him to a dementia care home. Maybe you can imagine how devastating this was for my mum, having to quickly put some things in a bag for him and say goodbye.

The last few days have been difficult and upsetting - especially when we went to visit him on Sunday. I can't even begin tell you what that was like......too awful.

So, I've found it difficult to concentrate on making anything but here are a few things I can show.....

On a lighter note - this is the card DH gave me for Christmas. Its so brilliant - she even looks like me!! I even wore a similar dress on Christmas day! DH wanted to know when I found the time to go and model for Quentin Blake.

Have you ever tried these gorgeous 'Mozart Chocolates' that you can buy from Aldi? They have a lovely marzipan and truffle filling. I've kept all the wrappers and used one on the charm that I made for our challenge on http://bigartadventure.blogspot.com/

I've managed to make an arch for the Gothic Arch Challenge - the theme this month is New Year. At the bottom it says ..... have the courage to make a difference.

This is a collage project I've just started - its not finished yet. You may have spotted the tree making another appearance! Its from one of the napkins sent to me by my friend Jacky in Australia.

And finally.... some of my blogging friends have been discussing having a 'meaningful word' for 2009. Well I have decided to have two.....

My first is RELEASE. There are many reasons why I need to keep this word in mind but I won't bore you with all the details.

My second word is SMILE. I haven't had a lot to smile about just recently but I'm going to do it a lot more often from now on! Smiling not only makes me feel better inside - I know it makes me look better as well - I have that kind of face.

Two years ago I found this rock on a beach in Corfu .... this is exactly how I found it, it has not been altered in any way. I think its trying to tell me something .........

Its going to sit on the shelf facing me in my craft room this year. Just in case I need reminding.

Happy New Year everyone. Hope its a good one......