Under My Umbrella 1

I have painted this for someone as a Feng Shui symbol to attract partnership into their life.  I have used acrylic paint and applied it to the framed canvas using a small decorators roller and artist paint brushes.  It is based on a painting I found in Google Images and was originally painted by an artist featured on: http://5magazine.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/is-gay-art-more-than-a-microtrend/

Lost and Found Exhibition

The lost hat was picked up and carefully placed on the railings of the terraced house, patiently waiting to be found.

The rains came and drenched the poor grey thing and it was sad.  A bit of sun shone and began to dry the soggy mess. 

A passer-by caught sight and plucked it from its rest.

Poor thing; it was all wet and grubby, so in a bag it went to be taken to a nice warm place and given a hot bath.

Now clean and fresh ready to begin a new life.

Stuffed and stitched with a smiling face and aqua blue eyes the hat transformation in full motion.

Knitted legs…. four…. with paws and a tail to-boot. 

Pointed ears and a few whiskers here.

One hat became one cat a ‘Lucky Cat’.

Once keeping someone’s head warm.

Now ready to warm someone’s heart…….

Courtesy of D Gothy

Victoria Mill Art Centre

Congleton

RAW - Exhibition Post 2

My two pieces of artwork have been getting some good comments.  I went for a viewing of the whole RAW exhibition last Sunday and was very impressed with many of the displays.  Some of them were strange enough to almost make my hair curl!

The knitting piece was named Knitting Ninja and placed near to some other artwork of a Japanese style.  I was asked to price my two pieces, but did not have a clue what to set them at.  I was given some advice and eventually settled on £55.00 each.

I was about the studio yesterday and a young man and his mother came to have lunch in the cafe.  They popped into the exhibition and he decided he wanted to buy my dyslexia picture.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  Anyway, with some support from another exhibiting artist I negotiated an agreeable price and shook on £45.00.  He had no cash so went off to get some.  It was a great feeling to know that someone appreciates my work enough to buy it.  When he came back to pay I wrapped it up and handed it over.  What a thrill.  It has boosted my self esteme and spurred me on to do more.

The next exhibition will be 'Enigma', so my creative juices are now in full flow.

RAW Exhibition Post 1

I was persuaded to display a couple of pieces of artwork in an exhibition.  I did not have any which fitted the theme of the exhibition so I produced two expecially for showing. 

The idea for this first one came from surfing the net and looking for something strange, extreme or risque!  I found a photo of this guy on a website called FreakinNews.  I though it was strange, risque and funny.  I drew it using charcoal and a single continuous line.  It was really quick to do, but I have to say my practice piece using a pencil on a bit of paper was better. 

This next piece came to me one night when I was thinking about the crafting days ahead of me.  I thought about how sometimes knitting can be quite frustrating and you can get tied up in knots.  When I connected the knitting to the exhibition I came up with a scared face trapped inside a ball of wool and the start of some knitting with the wool begining to scramble.  It took me a couple of hours to do this one and it was in-deed a bit frustrating itself. 

I drew the eyes on some card and cut it out into an oval shape.  My idea was to wrap wool around to make it look like a ball.  I stumbled into some problems.  I painted the area where the wool would cover, to stop the white showing through.  Then, how to prevent the wool just slipping off the sides?  I tried nicking the edges so the wool could get a grip.  This still proved difficult to get the top and bottom of my ball to stay put.  I unwound the piece and then stitched through the card to cover the top and bottom so I could wind the rest.  It worked OK, but there were still a few niggles to contend with.  When I was relativley happy I then set about knitting a few rows and making a scrambled mess of wool and atached it, so it looked like it was coming from the ball.  Sewing the work to a canvas finished it off.

The exhibition takes place next week end and I will see how it goes.

I think you will agree ..... It's definatley STRANGE!

Update Feb 2012:  Unfortunately I got really fed-up with this piece looking down at me from my studio wall.  It wasn't very pleasant.  I mentioned to one or two people that I didn't really like it and they told me to kee hold of it as it might grow.  Anyway.....  I dismantled it and threw away the bits.  Yes, Yes.....  I now wish I had kep it, as looking at it on this blog, it's not that bad after all.  Ah well, maybe this is a lesson learned.

How does that song go?.....  #Regrets....  I've had a few.

Studio RS - Post 2

I've been moving more stuff in to my studio.  Maintaining the black and white theme to my blog, the studio is actually very colourful.  I have put away the knitting machine as I was getting nowhere and it was stopping me from getting on.  I have put up some artwork on the walls and organised my small space into specific areas.  Wool, Fabric, Drawing & Painting. 

So far it all fits in!