Thursday 27 February 2014

Identity: What about my limp?

Today's title for the study of Identity was 'What about my limp?'  This was the final session of the study.

I started with answering the questions in my journal.


This page is the folded page for the middle of my art journal.  I stamped the word restored down the inside of the flap.

I put a strip of washi tape down the lefthandside of the page.   I stamped a large heart and used sticker letter to make the word relationship.  I used a stencil and a distress ink pad to put the swirly pattern.

I wrote Psalm 23 verse 5 around the inside of the page using The Voice version.

I coloured the word restore with a red Glaze pen.  I did 3 coats to make it look more like I had enamelled it.

Come back to see how I assembled my journal.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice





Wednesday 26 February 2014

Journal Quilts

With my return to textiles during 2014 I am doing an online Journal Quilts class with Ineke Berlyn.  I hadn't heard of Journal Quilts until I went to an exhibition at Ineke's studio.

Despite not having a clue what I was doing I survived January's quilt.  Ineke sends instructions to follow and I almost managed to stick with the brief.  I am a tutor's nightmare because I always want to do something different.   Here is my sketchbook.

And this is my unbound A4 sized finished piece.  I haven't bound it because I'm waiting to see what the other months look like and whether I bind them all to match.

As you can see from the finished January quilt I didn't use the building shape that I liked.  However the opportunity came with the instructions for the February quilt. I played about with the size of the building in my sketchbook and made a foam stamp.

 I painted my sketchbook page with watercolours and stamped my building shape.  I also 'stamped' the grasses with a piece of card and some acrylic paint.  I printed out my original photo in black and white and painted it with watercolours.

I used some bought fabric for the land and some painted cotton for the sky.  I used Markal paintsticks to make the tree shadow in the background.

I handstitched the shading.


I machined stitched the quilt.  It is still unbound but I cropped the photo.

The grasses are a bit out of proportion with the building! But hey, isn't that what artistic license is about?


Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice




Monday 24 February 2014

February Art Challenge

The very last challenge of February and of the twelve months we've spent together on 12 Months in View.   The Art Challenge is to make a mask inspired by the Venice Carnival.

I decided rather than make a mask that could be worn I would make a page in my journal.  When I was making my page at the beginning of the month I wiped the excess gesso off that page and spread it on this journal  page.

I painted over it with 3 colours of acrylic paint.

As soon as the acrylic paint was touch dry I used a baby wipe and a stencil to remove some of the paint.

I thought it was too bright so I scraped some grunge paste over it.  It would probably have worked with gesso as well but the grunge paste has a chalky texture to it and I thought it would be more reminiscent of the crumbling walls in Venice.

 For the mask I found this piece of paper which originally was watercolour with cling film.  When I was doing the February page I used this paper to dab of the excess ink.

I printed out a mask outline and traced it on the back of the paper.  This way I wasn't worrying about which bit of the painted side was best.

Then I went mad with stickles!

I stuck the mask down on the background and then drew round it with a black pen as it had disappeared into the background!

Thanks for stopping by
Bernice


Identity: Ambassadors

Today we find out how we are Ambassadors of Christ.

Here are my journal pages.




In my art journal I borrowed an idea from Valerie Sjodin.  She has done an amazing adoption certificate in her Identity journal and it inspired me to do a certificate as the 'papers' that Ambassadors present to the Head of State of the host nation.   I did mine on the computer, cut it out and glued it to a piece of patterned paper before gluing it into my journal.  I used some narrow Washi Tape as the border.

I didn't like how stark the white paper was so I inked over it with Distress ink.   I stamped the crown with gold ink.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice


Sunday 23 February 2014

Planner Update

This week I have been really pleased with how much I have got done.  You may have seen the book I finished during the week.

I also finished everything I needed to for the Identity blog and started planning the next thing!

In light of my One Little Word: Participate I decided to join in with a symbol swap with some ladies in the One Little Word Facebook group.  My symbol is a heart.

In addition I have kept up with my planner.   Recently I signed up for a Junelle Jacobsen class and yesterday she held an Open House.  Her creative idea was to be inspired by the designs from the Winter Olympics to make a set of blocks.  I decided I would use the idea for the inside of the flap for this week in my planner.   I took the Kraft card flap out to make it easier.  I used pieces of scrapbooking pages and glued them on with Ranger Multi Medium.  I stamped a Dylusions phrase on cards and cut it up.  I added some orange, green and white acrylic paint.

I put the flap back into the planner.


The other side of the flap had the Psalm 15 study.  I used this from Pinterest as inspiration for the page.

The Psalm images are from 52 Weeks of Psalms.

Now to get going on all the other things that need finishing - or starting in some cases.

Thanks for stopping by
Bernice




Friday 21 February 2014

Finished! Yeah!

I am thrilled that I have finished a project I started in November.  I went on a workshop with Steph Redfern called Thrift & Alchemy.   The idea was incorporate (recycle) bits and pieces you already had into a textile piece.

Health warning: this post has a lot of photographs in it.  And I mean a lot!

I decided that I wanted to make a fabric book based on the Fruit of the Spirit.  I had a book which was designed for scrapbooking which I cut up to use for the words in my book.  I started by painting and stencilling on different fabrics and papers.

Then I cut up some felt into 9 inch squares for the base of each page and tore strips of paper and fabric to create the backgrounds.


I bonded the papers and fabrics to the felt.



Then I machined and handstitched on each page.



Last Sunday I took all the pages to my local crop and tacked the pages together.  First assembling them in pairs and then putting the pairs back to back with a printed fabric 'spine'.










And then finally today, I machined the double pages together and stitched the whole thing together down the spine.

Inside front cover and page 1

Pages 2 & 3

Pages 4 & 5

Pages 6 & 7

Page 8 and inside back cover

Back cover and front cover

Congratulations if you've got to this point.  Thanks for stopping by and reading to the end.
Bernice