playing with paper & paste

... a happy afternoon :-)

sketch club

finally got back to sketch club after missing it for a couple of months - only to find out that there is a two week recess starting next week! This time round I abandoned charcoal and used a graphite stick on quality paper . This week I seemed to get awkward poses so I concentrated on different aspects like elbows and hands. My best sketch was this portrait of the model as she held a 20 minutes pose.

Been knitting slippers (well it is cold and they are needed) and working on my cnavas piece 'party girls' and will try and post a pic of progress at the weekend. Haven't got to doing the faces yet but the background is falling into place.

Today I have spent time creating a page on facebook to promote my framing business worth a thousand words. Please have a look.

Cheers

embroidery in film and literature

WE recently watched South Solitary on DVD. I really enjoyed this gentle film set in post WWI for both its costume and the rough coast. The characters in the film wore some lovely knitted jumpers (which we would pay a fortune for these days) and the female lead played by Miranda Otto passed some of her time knitting socks. The film was sort of dull (in terms of colour I mean) and at one point towards the end it was revealed that the character Fleet, a light house keeper, embroidered to pass his time when in duty. The embroidery provided a rare splash of colour. At the end of the film there was another splash of colour which mirrored the embroidery - it was delightful.

I was curious about the embroidery and, with the aid of my friend Google I found that the person who actually embroidered the piece was Ferri Bond (who is a costumer based in Victoria) and the embroidery coach was Mary Brown.

You will have to hire the DVD to see the embroidery!

Cook Islands

Back from a holiday in Rarotonga - the largest island in the Cook Islands group. This is a picture taken at the market which is held every Saturday. The lady in the stall makes and sells tivaivais. She also designs and cuts them ready for sewing... I purchased the small tivaivai hanging at the front of her shop - the one with two orange flowers on the right of the booth.

I also came home with some of the fabric that is traditionally used to make tivaivai - it is call Azlan and has a slightly looser weave than homespun.

There is was some pretty amazing fabric works at the market. There were lots of pareu - (like a sarong) Many were commercially printed fabric but there were hand dyed and individually printed ones which I would be inclined to mount or back and hang - glorious colours and bold design

I found a fantastic book called "Tiviavai The Social Fabric of the Cook Islands ' (Susanne Kuchler & Andrea Eimke) It is not a project book but contains a short history of patchwork in the South Pacific, many wonderful photos and interviews.

I was very fortunate to meet Mrs Vereara Mavea (President of the Cook Islands Tivaivai Association) who talked to me about tivaivai and showed me some of her work. If you click here you will find some examples of her work.

on the travials of markets and exploration of tivaivai

Photo from Atui Fibre Arts Studio - Polynesian Patterns

I spent yesterday with a small stall at a local market - not one bite - even though the next day was Mothers' Day. I spoke to other stall holders and they said it was sometimes like that and markets could be capricious. This was the third time I've had a stall with a nil result and I have decided not to lose another Saturday at this at this particular market again and will review my thoughts about another stall closer to Christmas.

In the interim I have been researching tivaivai- quilts made by ladies of the Cook Islands. I came across this site of the studio of contemporary quilt maker and artist Andrea Eimke - I think the work is really interesting and exciting and I appreciated how Andrea shared her thoughts aspects of her life and exploration of her medium - more about Andrea here. I have taken the liberty of posting a photo which is also linked to the studio from the website as well just to tease you a bit. Wish I had had this to share with Stitches Plus when we played with shape last time we met.

an apple a day

party girls

Finally started my canvas piece 'party girls'. Been held up thinking rather than doing and have finally got the background started. My delay has been a fine example of over thinking - I looked back on my blog to see what I had posted when I had the idea - I posted my initial thoughts and had drafted the cartoon of faces to be embroidered in 2009!

When in doubt I have sampled stitches on the work and ripped them if I haven't been happy. Some which looked OK done on the horizontal plane looked so much better when vertical and vice versa.