Beautiful finished canvas

Mel shared her gorgeous finished canvas on Saturday. She had made her base fabric from felt and added stitching and embellishments to great effect. I love the way she has presented the canvas, I love the stitching around the edge it adds such a dimension to her work. The colours are gorgeous too!
Take a look at the amazing details.

So beautiful, thank you Mel

If anyone has any work they would like me to add tot the blog please let me know! 

Making books

We also had a great time playing with paper and dyes to make a paper book. Thank you so much Pauline for a wonderful demonstration and the materials for us to play!

I loved the books that Pauline had made and she showed us how she achieved the colour effects on her paper book. I was surprised to see it was made from wallpaper lining too.

The Koh-I-noor watercolour dye sets were wonderful. They gave such wonderful vibrant colours. We all made our parcels (of paper and colour!). How did your books turn out??? Please let me know or send me photos as I'd love to see what colours and patterns were created.

I made a brown and a blue book. The dye was great at running into sections and creating lines and patterns as well as diffusing into the paper and making lovely grades of colour.

I have decided to combine the book cover experiments from Mel with my paper book and have made some hard covers (my gesso wasn't stiff enough) and am planning to make hard covers for my little books.

Here are some photos from the day. Please bring your books if you have finished or sewn them to the next meeting as I would love to see how they developed.

Would also be great to think about creating the pages

ordinary lining paper ! what a wonderful idea! 

Pauline's amazing books- I wonder what we could create for the inside.....?

These were how mine turned out after I had "unwrapped" them. I was really pleased with the colours they are so vibrant. 

The dye even took hold on the baking paper. I am sure that we can do something with this.

We also made some paper fabric using different papers, fixing them to the fabric with PVA. This forms quite a durable "paper" fabric that can be cut and stitched and applied to other surfaces. 

Angela added some tissue paper and the dye from the paper created a wonderful design on the opposite side! Lush! 

Using tissue and other "additions" to create a beautiful surface from Mel. How did this dry?? Is it soft enough to take stitching?

What an amazing day! 

We did so much and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am so pleased with my little books and am busy trying to think of what theme I can have to develop the pages.

Making book covers!

Thank you so much Mel for a great morning making very squidgy and texture-tastic book covers. I am looking forward to seeing how they have dried and if anyone has added anything further to their covers. I was amazed at how hard the cover was when dry (when made with the PVA). My gesso covers aren't that strong, they are still quite pliable and can be bent and manipulated a little more. I decided to paint some with black gesso and will add some metallic paints onto them with a dry brush or maybe mix mica powders with acrylic gel medium. This always works well with picking up textures. I am not sure what I will do with the other gesso pieces I made as I think they could work well as a background for something. I think I might need to make holes in the fabric first as I think hand sewing might be tough on the fingers!

But I was intrigued by the different things that everyone mixed their PVA flour mix with. Would love to have some "after" pictures to go with the following!

These were made with gesso and flour. The pieces were added later and pushed into the wet gesso mix.

This is the flour and PVA mix, not sure what has been added looks like some seeds and sawdust. The flour/ PVA created some lovely sections of smooth lumps and bumps!

Angela used some fabrics to create her page, I love the mix of colours and designs. Did you add PVA to this??

You can also draw into the wet flour/ PVA mix. This will look amazing when it's painted. Would love to see it! 

The above had different ingredients mixed in and on top of the wet flour/PVA mix. The poppy seeds and lentils were particularly good. I think the sawdust will prove interesting when it's painted too.

Drying takes some time! 

I thoroughly enjoyed this investigation into different textures and using a variety of materials to create different effects. I think it was great fun to have the time and space to just experiment and see what happens! 

Mel did use acrylic paints to colour her covers, the paint goes onto the PVA surface really well.

Never underestimate the power of PLAY !

Thank you Mel for this great activity! 

Make a paper book!

Just to let everyone know, if you would like to make a paper book that is totally gorgeous and inspiring then Pauline has volunteered to show us how to make them! The book can be used in any way, you can add pictures to it -drawings, paintings, collage- and you could also add stitch or applique.
Pauline has generously said that she will bring all we need - thank you so much! - but if you have any bin liners or hairdryers then that would be useful. Also if anyone has any large paper clips (I think I have some!) could they bring them.

So lots to think about and do on Saturday! An amendment to the book covers that Mel is doing is to bring something that you could use to add texture to your gesso and flour. She suggests sawdust, sand, old beads, pieces of fabric, tiny pebbles whatever you think will add more texture or dimension to the book.
Mel has also asked if anyone has a paper making screen she could borrow...????

Sounds brilliant, hope to see everyone there on Saturday! I'll leave you with the penguin of positivity~! I just love him!

interesting link for paper and stitch

Have just found this on Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog.....
I like the basic idea, she uses stencils but you can create your own designs.
Just a few ideas for a week Saturday, there's plenty of room to spread out paint, stamp and stencil. Might be worth a go just to see how paper works with the machine, you could also use different papers bonded to fabric and then stamped and painted....

Have a look at the blog post

http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/2012/02/paint-paper-stitching-valentines-day-cards.html

Inspiration Wednesday

I have been noticing that we are including much more mixed media in our work of late and I signed up for a course this year which has been quite interesting. I joined Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday course earlier this year but have only just got going on it. It consists of a new video every two weeks which is basically about playing with different materials and layouts for a journal. Some of the ideas probably won't translate to fabrics but most will. I have only just got going on this year's classes as well time is always a challenge isn't it! 

But I've signed up for next year as I think the different techniques that she demonstrates are quite fun and worth a look.

It isn't that expensive I only paid £29 for next year (it's in dollars so you have to pay attention to the exchange rate). 

Here's a link to her web if you want to see what she's offering. I do like Donna, her stencils are fab and her outlook and way of working are really down to earth and inspiring. If you want to do something on mixed media that isn't so intense but much more about playing and fun then have a look.

http://donnadowney.typepad.com/

She also does a find out Friday feature which features different artists creating pictures using limited materials and the Artist's Gang is also worth a look. Both of these features are free. 

Just thought that I'd pass on the info, if you know of any good courses or exhibitions then let us know and I'll post them for you ! 

November meet - idea to try!

Further info on the meeting

Mel has a very intriguing idea about making a book cover. It looks very interesting and lots of fun. I sense a messy session or is that just me! I like messy sessions!

Here is a list of what we will need if we wish to have a go...

 you will need: piece of fabric the size you want to make, can be anything but cotton or calico is a good standby – it will be a good way of using up stained fabric.  Flour (Mel will bring some) PVA glue or gesso, hairdryer, table cover, newspaper to work on, bowl / container to make mix in, something to spread the mix with a credit card or flat knife that sort of thing.  Rubber gloves if you don’t like getting gooey hands, apron and paints.  Paper to decorate to make inside cover.  

That should be everything but apologies if anything has been forgotten- you can add your own bits and bobs I am sure! 

Sounds good. I'll definitely have a go! 
If anyone else has any project ideas then let me know!