Wallowing in Self Pity

This year I was determined to enter a few competitions and worked very hard to get it done. I was especially keen on entering the C.Q.A. Show as one of the prizes was $10,000 worth of Wonderfil Threads. I love these threads and use them extensively in my work especially in bobbin work. They are beautiful threads and lay down nicely on the fabric.

I got everything ready, sent off my CD and waited only to find out that they were all rejected.Normally I enter and take my chances. But this time I could not understand what had happened. Ten years ago my work was accepted and now !!!!! I just don't understand.

"Water Brings Life" was rejected because the design is too weak.I was so frustrated that I almost cut this up for book covers.
This Madonna was rejected because I placed it in the wrong category.
Doreen's Daisies was also rejected because it was in the wrong category.

Thanks for listening, I just needed to vent.

Oh the life of an artist.No money and no glory. I guess I've been humbled.

Working on a Series

Working in a series is a really fun process. I took a size, 12 in.x 12 in. and designed four pieces, the four seasons. Choosing fabrics and embellishments was the fun part, choices were made to represent the time of year and the temperature. When finished all were framed on the wooden frames and I took the pics. Now they are ready to go places.

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

Try it , you will like it.

More sheep stuff

I continue to work on the sheep piece. Now you see all of the pieces ironed together onto a heavy weight pellon ready for thread play. Threads , here I come. The stitching is my favourite part.This is the colour palette for the back ground, aren't they luscious? All fabrics that were hand dyed by Elaine Quehl.

Work on a Sunday

I have made some new goals for myself and one has been to get more work out there so I have entered an online challenge organized by Three Creative Studios. Once every two months we have a theme to develop. The theme for the end of February is "PUZZLE". It gives me a chance to move in another directions and play with some new ideas.

This is how far I have gotten. Can't show you the whole thing until the end of Feb. Stay tuned.

Now for the second piece. Quite some time ago I interpreted this picture taken by Peggy Dewitt a photographer for her Tampered With Show. Other artists were invited to interpret her work, which I did. Much to my surprise this piece sold so it didn't live in my house for long. It was the first time that I made an animal from a photo. Now a friend, Janie Hickman of Janey's Knits has asked me to make one for her seeing that she has a massive sheep collection.
I painted the fabric yesterday, so now I am putting her together. I am also planning to paint on some more detail for the curly hair.
The starting point and more to come. Wish me luck.

Another one Bites the dust!

Sometimes when you make a piece, it does not sit with you well. Although my friends told me that they liked this, it always bothered me, it just didn't seem to belong with the rest of my work. It was a response to a challenge and I left it way to late to do the original picture justice.

Mike's Flower

Detail

When I am not happy with something I am working on , I used to throw it in a box and forget about it. Now I turn it into book covers and it's amazing how great it looks when finished. These books go on blank, acid free books from Wallack's and the cover can be used over and over again. Who doesn't like a pretty book to write in?

This is the back. I take a chance and cut the whole piece to get the most number of books out of it and they always look great.

I managed to get four out of this piece. Look for a tutorial on how to make the covers. Next time I make a batch, I will take pics and show you how to make them. They are great gifts as well.

Photographing Fibre Art

When it comes time to gather a submission for a show or competition I always agonize over the pics and putting them on a CD. I'm never quite sure how to do it and usually some time has elapsed since the last time , that it's like starting all over again. Heaven forbid that I bought a new camera and the software is now unfamiliar.

My good friend Helga has a husband/photographer, lucky her. She lent him to me to see if I could learn how to take great pics in my house. He came over, we found a good spot and he patiently took me through the steps. Usually the techies ( my brothers) lose me after the first few sentences.

1. First , I have a Canon EOS Rebel Xsi.

2. You need a tripod.

3. Then we have to find the best possible setting on my camera.

4. We set it to AV and David told me to leave it there all of the time.

5. The F setting is F8.0. This is the sweet spot for my camera.

6. Leave the camera at WB ( cloudy) all the time.

7.Check these settings before each shoot.

8.Make sure that your battery is charged. have a second one ready to go.

9. Put your camera on the tripod and center it onto your piece so that that the center of the camera is looking at the dead center of your piece, horizontally and vertically.

10. Use your timer and let it go. Don't touch anything and don't move.

The next day I got some pieces ready using these instructions and it all worked out very well.

Thanks to David.

You can check out his work which is fabulous at

www.davidzimmery.com

Options revisited

In the last while I have been playing with the whole idea of options again. This started a few years ago in a class by Marilyn Stewart-Stothers at a C.Q.A. Conference out west. She mounted her work on wooden frames and made several pieces that worked together as a unit. Taking it a step farther, I wanted to be able to change the pieces around ,thus the name "Options". I am such a fickle girl and do get tired of the" same old same old".

Here are the four pieces arranged in one way. I have called it OPTIONS:SKY

Another way.
Another way.

I love this one.

The original design.
Some details.

Now to make this work you have to repeat some of the elements in the pieces. You need one fabric or colour that has a presence in each piece. For me this time it was the cloud fabric.

Then other shapes or colours had to be repeated in at least two other pieces . The black really grounds it and you can play off that. If you have any questions, please ask. I am happy to share what I learn.