Take Two Final Project for Lissa Hunter’s online Course

The Theme for this project was Let there be Light. This was originally a trial piece working with paper collage on a coiled place mat. I added teabags, some preserved leaves (preserved in a glycerine and water mix) and then used a white texture paste through a organic stencil. At that stage it looked terrible and I almost binned it. But then I decided to persevere and I painted it with some of my home made walnut ink. The change was dramatic. I continued to add the string with the copper twists and repainted with the ink. I was starting to get quite excited by this stage so I tidied up the edges by using pine needles around the perimeter. The black candle holder is part of an old belt that I coiled around and added beads in the middle. This was stitched on three quarter of the way round to that the battery operated candle could be inserted at the top.

The shield piece was then attached to an old vine from a Japanese honeysuckle that I had sprayed in my garden some time back. The birds bring these seeds in and they become quite rampant so I often have to look at getting rid of them. If I can use their vines in my art work, that is a bonus. To integrate the pieces I created a number of soft wire skeletons with a leaf shape at the end. The leaves are made from hand made paper using corn husks as the base.. These were then coiled onto the vine at the top.

The candle was collaged in a similar way to the placemat and bound in thin copper wire. For safety a battery operated candle was used.

Junk Artist Journal

With my diploma course complete and Rob still not well - in and out of hospital from coughing up blood post a chest infection - it has been difficult to focus on a new project, so I decided to have a go at an artist junk journal with collaged and textured pages. I will use this to print out and put the quotes on creativity that we put together as a group. I am not thinking too much about the placement of papers at this stage. Just getting the base sheet covered. The detail and embellishment will come later. At the moment it all looks a bit of a mess, but I am sure order will eventually come out of the chaos

It is taking a lot longer and making a bigger mess in my studio than I had anticipated but I finally think I have the pages don so I can concentrate on the covers and adding the bits and pieces of stencilling and stamping I want to add to the inside. I decided to make 3 signatures of 3 A4 pages each, folded in half that makes 6 ages per signature. That means both sides of the papers need to be collaged so 8 A4 pages in total. I thought it would free up my artistic style and would be something I could stop and start at will. I have been working on the pages for that last 4 days on and off. My studio looks more like a bomb site at the moment as I have so many bits and pieces saved over the years toward having a go at something like this. I found the paper towel iron blanket prints from eco dying are a wonderful addition to the collage materials. Now things are drying and maybe I will get to work on the covers etc on Monday. I have to work tomorrow so nothing much will get done then. Below are some progress photos and a shot of the mess in the studio

Collage and Composition with Cordula Kagemann

This was another Fibre Arts Take 2 course tutored by German artist Cordula Kagemann. I have always found abstract composition difficult but in this course Cordula took standard art compositions and encouraged us to use them to make collage interpretations based on those compositions. We were encouraged to make our own tissue paper marks to use in this collage. I decided to limit myself to this teal and tan palette which is one of my favourites. I have documented my work below.

Fibre Arts Take 2 Eva Kalien on line Course

Eva is a German collage artist who uses poetry to enhance her works. This course was a challenge for me, moving away from anything representational and embracing the media of abstracted collage. I used a fabric - eco dyed- base and followed Eva’s excellent tutelage, working in a large format and then using a view finder to cut down my work to fit into these frames that I already had. The collage included the use of refining my process of making local earth pigments and printing on tissue and incorporating these along with dictionary pages, acrylic paint and dried leaves. I have called this series Fragment in the Forest

A Complex Compositions Collage

Before Rob got sick I had enrolled to do a Textures and Background - Complex Compositions course with Jane Dunnewold. This involved making a series of background printed papers/fabric using set techniques and then utilising them in collage. I still haven’t completed that first brief but I have tried to keep working. I chose to work in paper as a challenge and because I had plenty of large sheets of paper on hand, including some additional collage collected pieces.

I can’t believe it is over a month since my last post. On 6 June Rob was diagnosed with pneumonia and this developed into sepsis on his right hip replacement from 25 years ago. He was rushed to hospital in Hamilton and surgery and a long road back began. We have been told numerous times that he is very lucky to have survived. He was in hospital for 6 weeks during which time he contracted Covid and experienced blood pressure problems and heart arrhythmia. He is home now but still needing 24/7 care so being able to sneak out to the studio while he is having a nap has been a bit of a life saver for me.