Collaborative Art Journal - Brights

This is the last of the Collaborative Art Journals, which is Brights, belonging to Barbara Pritchard. I received this in July and have been procrastinating about the last pages for over a month :-(
The first page is a branch of wattle - they are the brightest flowers out in winter and there are so many down our street. The flowers are actually tiny pom poms and I made the leaves by using the pinking shears to cut out the shape then snipped the edges.

My next page is just playing around with lots of pieces of bright fabric and threads, starting with roosters Rise and Shine. It is covered with gauze, which I am not too happy with - too dense for this piece.

The next page was fun to make as I had bought some beads because they looked like licorice allsorts, the others I had in my stash. The jelly beans are painted wooden beads. Here is the sweet shop:

Now the piece of procrastination: the parrot! My friend Ray Clifton is a keen photographer and I told him about my idea of doing a bright bird - perhaps a rooster. He found this photo and I have played around with ideas for it. In the end some of the pieces are glued on. I used stitching to make feathers, the background is upholstery fabric. This page is not as bright as the photo, so I included it as well and made a frame for it.

We have all had a great journey working on these journals and will present the finished articles to Rose City Quilters on the October Club meeting.
I think that next year some of the group are wanting to try a similar thing but with a different approach. Perhaps making our own journals using different techniques and with a theme each month - that may be harder to keep on track - we'll see!!

Collaborative Art Journal - Burgundy

I have finished my work in Sue's Burgundy/Wine Art journal.
The first page has a little poem by William Morris about autumn, which I thought was relevant to the time I received it. In the center I painted some gesso and stuck some muslim on top, then with watered down pva glue, glued the liquid amber leaves which I had pressed. The pva gives it a varnished look which I hope will keep the leaves in tact.

This page has a selection of my chrysanthemums which have been organised with fdtoys into a mosaic and you can add the writing.It has been finished off with buttons tied on- can you see the ladybug one?

The little runner has been painted using pebeo Setacolor transparent paint. This allows you to paint the whole piece of fabric then lay a design on top (reverse resist). Leave out in the sun to dry, take off the design and viola!

My piece de resistance is a velvet vignette. The corks have been cut into 3 lengthwise and stitched on with the machine like a button and the wee bottles are findings which just had to be used with this theme!

Collaborative Art Journal - Phase 4

Rhonda's journal colour is green, unfortunately this reminded me of my school uniform until I thought about the greens that surround me in spring, and my Mother-in-Law (Phyllis) who had a green thumb!
Rhonda had included pages of lutradur for us to use. This was a new one for me, but I've had fun painting, using the soldering iron and the heat gun. This is my 1st page:

I dried the Kowhai leaves and attached it to the lutradur by ironing a document protector over it (same with the butterfly). I did try using the heat gun (hence the holes) but the iron was much more successful.



The second page is Phyllis, she had a real green thumb and no matter where we were, there would always be a snip of a plant in her handbag.





Next is a lovely selection of green ribbons - a reminder of a collection that was always used to decorate my hair as a child - and the sequin waste is pure fantasy, perhaps harking back to making our Christmas decorations.


The following page is a small quilt for spring which is always full of surprises - check inside the box!





Ta-daaa! A bird's nest made from needle-felted wool with some cloisonne bead 'eggs'.
The last page has a store of seeds for the garden and seed beads for crafts. Plus some jandals to wear when getting out to explore the garden with the warmer weather.

Collaborative Art Journal - Phase 3

I have just finished working on Faye's Collaborative Art Journal. Her choice of colour is Orange - such a vibrant colour and I decided to go all out and do 4 pages.
Page 1 is a gate, made from disposable bamboo chopsticks, that opens into a mysterious world of orange. - fabric, feathers, paint and embossing powder - see this photo:



I decided to make like a 36 patch and put 'findings' into each of the squares, so there are beads, Fanta can teartabs, an inchie (from the Rose City Quilter's swap), marigold seeds, buttons, seashells and ribbons.

Pages 3 & 4 are part of the orange garden - Faye won't have to water, weed or care for this one! I made a daisy from the Fanta can, stitching around the outside petals with the sewing machine, then hand stitching the center piece. The poppies I had wanted to try out after reading a book with the flowers cut out and just center stitched.



The 4th page has a terracotta paving pathway with lots of different flowers - some made from ribbon, others are French Knots and others are Suffolk Puffs. I hadn't done very much work like this so it is all a relatively new experience.




So much fun!
Now onto some other quilting that needs to be finished!