Busy But not Going Anywhere

 I have been working on new on-line classes, and I hope we will be able to make the videos sooner rather than later- things have already been delayed because of the continuing lockdown. Restrictions will ease tomorrow in regional Victoria- but that is not much help when your videographer lives in Melbourne and is still subject to stage 4 restrictions . The expanding deadline means that  I have slackened off the pace of work a little until I remembered I had an upcoming exhibition with other artists at Cardamome Gallery in St Prest ( near Chartres) and that I needed to have things in the post at least a month before the exhibition even though I am sending it by Express International parcel post. I do hope it gets there in time as this group of artists have exhibited together several times.

I  kept to the sea theme for the pieces I made as it meant I could use the new linocuts I had been making and I also made a  folded book to accompany the two pieces I made.The pieces I made were not large, and in any case the gallery is not large.

The piece above is tie dyed silk, that has been printed with linocuts in a multi layered print in different colours ( this will also be a technique I will be teaching at Grampians Textures next year). The bordered piece is hand dyed cotton- and  used one of the multi layered prints on cotton which I have had for sale. All of the work was inspired by the beach walks on Atauro Island when I did my residency with Boneca de Atauro and a visit to the Aquarium at La Rochelle last year. I am having a lot of fun with  the wonderfully shaped creatures  and plants and colours.

The book incorporates the trial prints I did on newspaper and which I hand coloured with inktense Pencils and water colour paints.

I had not intended to make a booklet to accompany the quilts but got a bit carried away and then made another one after I had sent my parcel off to France.

I have also made a seahorse linocut inspired by the little seahorses at the Aquarium in La Rochelle. I am waiting on more white fabric to arrive so I can do some dyeing and print them up for sale. The ones below have been printed on newspaper and hand coloured.

I have also been working on new designs using the tifaifai technique which will become an on-line class offering several completely new patterns, but also giving you tips on how to create your own designs and of course how to dye your fabric for these projects as well as how to stitch and free motion quilt the pieces. In fact i am revisiting the book I wrote in 2001 , Tifaifai Renaissance, but  improving it with all the things I have learnt teaching this technique since then plus offering more variations and also some simpler designs so that it is a suitable technique for a beginner . The beauty of the technique is that if you cut your design very carefully you end up with a positive cutout and a negative cutout- so you end up with two pieces, and whilst they are the same subject matter, visually they are different and this perception can be changed even more by adding different borders. I am also including table runners and small wall quilts. if you are interested in doing this course  and want more information please email me.

I am thinking it will be broken up into three lessons, and will include my work books and initial drawings to help you in your own design process.

I love hares and wanted to make a tifaifai which was quite different to ones I had previously made. I have yet to stitch these ( have run out of my favourite batting, Matilda's Own ). I also  like the fact that there are many folk tales associated with hares in many different cultures. I have yet to think of a border for the one on the bottom. I almost like it the way it is.