Mixed media backgrounds

Thought I would share with you some of the techniques I have been exploring. I have been playing with water colour paper and using gesso to cover the paper. Use an old store card to spread it.  While it is wet press some stencils into the gesso. I also used cotton reels, mesh, scribbled with an old pen outer, scrunched up glad wrap and anything you think makes a mark.  When it is dry, you can use a wash of colour in a light buff or similar. When it is nearly dry use another colour and on a scrap piece of paper and swipe random strips of paint and scribble or put in some finger marks and place onto your background and remove. Continue until there is no paint left.  Repeat. You can use the mesh again to make marks with paint.
I also use water solvable crayons to highlight the marks made previously. Scrape off any areas with your card or damp cloth. This will work well on canvas also. I continue then with college and use inks to enhance areas for shadow.

Ariadne

 
















Sent away my small art quilt "Ariadne" to Cincinnati show. It has been selected for the "celebrate spring" exhibition which will tour through until Houston at the end of the year.
When I'm not doing quilts I have been doing some college and mixed media. I will post some photos when I work how to upload from my ipad.

Quilters newsletter

I was pretty excited to see my copy arrive in the mail.  My quilt is on page 21 with fifteen other quilts from Houston.  I also received an email to say my spring quilt "Ariadne"has been selected for the Cincinnati show which is in June and it might travel with the other shows. I just got it posted today.

Quilters newsletter

Got really excited to hear that Quilters Newsletter are going to put my quilt into the February/March issue 2013. So I can't wait to see it.

51 Shades of Blue

I finished and entered this quilt into the victorian quilt guild for the small art quilt section but it didn't make it. I was really happy with the way it turned out and I like the order and chaos that I was wanting to create. Mum is in a rehab place where she is getting help with balance and motor skills. She is happy and looks forward to going out. She has a few more weeks in here.

I finally got the art quilt finished and Mum is still in hospital. She is slowly recovering. She seems happier and I am still amazed that this quilt was about my relationship with her and her depression and she got sick during the making of this quilt. More photos to come. I will wait to see if it has been accepted.

About Four weeks ago I started an art quilt for the Victorian Guild and I wanted to do something on my relationship with my mother.  My mum has had a long history with depression and my earliest memory is when I was about 9 years old and I came out for breakfast and my Dad was cooking.  My Dad never cooked and I thought this was so odd.  Years later I realized that mum had been admitted to hospital and Dad was in charge of feeding my sister, baby brother and I, till my grandmother came to look after us.
As I started into this quilt I was recalling some of the recent time with mum who is now 73 and has a complicated health history.  I was choosing colours and as it is my quilt I found it hard not to pick the ones that she likes and having to remind myself that this is for me.
This is the start of the quilt that I will need to finish in the next 4 to 5 weeks.  Last Thursday just by coincidence mum was admitted to hospital with a urinary tract infection and it has played havoc with her meds and she is in a bad way.  She has been transferred to the psy ward to help stabilize her.