Getting ready for Valentine's Day

These are some cards, paintings and mixed media collages I've made for a craft fair I'm doing in February. Its just before Valentine's Day, so I thought I might have some pieces and cards for the occasion. More details on the venue in my next post.

A walk in the park on a cold Sunday morning...

Here are some photos taken on my walk home this morning through my local park. It was a bitterly cold and cloudy morning. I wanted to take more photos but I forgot to bring both my hat and gloves.

I plan to use them as reference for future artwork. I hope you enjoy them.

Bye for now.

New Collages

Hello,

Here are three new collages I've done.

In this one- the two patterned papers at the top are decoupage paper and the purple, burgundy and yellow bands at the bottom are handmade papers. I like them because they are thin and I can layer them and they create nice effects when you tear the edges.

These two stripes also have handmade paper as their background. I also used skeleton leaves and combined cut-out shapes of flowers and leaves using craft punches. I then painted over the large skeleton leaves to make them stand out more.

Happy Chinese New Year

The Lotus Flower
I came across this today on a site which had various meanings of flowers-
"In Buddhism, the lotus flower is the symbol of purity, faithfulness and
spiritual awakening. The flower lifts itself from the dirt and mud of its
surroundings, which represents the act of rising above the water of desire and
attachment, which is the key for achieving spiritual enlightenment.
Though the flower has its root in the mud, it grows upward in the direction of light,
which represents the aspiration to rise above and move towards the light. In
other words, the flower stands for the journey from the darkness, represented
by the muddy pond, to the light of knowledge or wisdom”.

I love lotus flowers.

My Sketchbook

I often create some of my best work in my sketchbook. Here I can be free and spontaneous, nothing is precious and its a time to play with ideas.

Here are some entries.

Unfinished business...

In organizing my studio I came across some digital prints of old textile designs which I created but were never printed.

I decided to play around with some of them by adding magazine imagery and some craft punches. I started with the blue floral design. I glued two different images from a magazine which had interesting patterns in them.

I wanted to add some texture to the design, to give it more depth. A few months back I stared using craft punches in my card making. I really liked these two:

This is the finished piece.

These are some sections of it up close.

“It’s my birthday,so I’ll clean if I want to...clean if I want to...”

Christmas and NewYear’s Day are over; time to put the tree and decorations away. November and December were very busy months for me preparing for craft fairs and my art exhibition at Intel Corporation in Swindon. My 4½ year old son was off two weeks from school for the Christmas Holidays, so that for

me meant-little to no studio time. Plus, I had a nasty cold/flu right after Christmas which didn't help.

He’s back at school now, so what better way to celebrate my birthday then to clean my studio.

After a few deep breaths...a cup of tea...and Adele’s new CD blaring on the stereo I began the major task of cleaning my studio. The goal was to get it to some stage of order where I felt more in control. 

Where I could sit in and feel creative again.

Ahhh...That’s better.

Now I just have time for a quick cup of coffee and then I'm off to pick up my son from school.

Bye for now.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my blog-

I just wanted to say hello and thank you for visiting me.

I also would like to wish you all lots of good health, love, laughter and joy for 2012.

Here's a collage I started a few months back...enjoy.

Bye for now.