IPad 2 artwork

I haven't really experimented with digital art other than a short-lived attempt to learn Illustrator. However I wanted to try using my IPad to draw. I was recommended the drawing app Procreate by Adam, the PGSE student who is currently teaching us photography . He showed us some of his artwork, done on his IPhone and I decided I had to give it a try.
Procreate is a really powerful app, with a big choice of brushes and the ability to work in layers. I used that to advantage by importing a photo then drawing on another layer and colouring on yet another. The layers also helped in creating the background.
So what was my first image? This is it!

Christmas Decorations

Having looked around our very crowded lounge I just couldn't see where I was going to put a tree this year. (only our second Christmas in this house and I can't remember where I put it last year!)
As this is our first Christmas without my father in law we have decided to do things differently, ring the changes. So here's the result of my first radical decision - no tree!
I have lots and lots of decorations so I picked a colour theme - we had red and blue lights so red, blue and silver it was. I then tied tree hooks onto fishing line, hung it from the net curtain rod and added the decorations. Blue lights added in the window, red ones on the bookcase and white ones with silver tinsel on the wall.
Last year we started collecting Lemax illuminated houses so there is a village on the windowsill.
I feel the need for some greenery so I'm going to raid the garden a bit nearer to Christmas and challenge my flower arranging skills too!

Quilted Piece finished at last.

I made several images recently using heat transfer printing and have been working on adding to some of them. I used leaves as a masque on this print, and combined 2 colours, a sage green and a dull brown. I then quilted round using 1 strand of stranded cotton. I added beads and a border and backing of curtain fabric. I also added 2 leaves that I made using water soluble fabric and machine embroidery.
It reminds me a little of a 1950's bedspread because of the quilting and fabric. I really like the colours too .

Playing with my new IPad

I am a very lucky girl! My wonderful and supportive husband bought me an IPad yesterday and I've been trying out a photo editing app. I'm also trying out the Blogger app to see how that works.

So here's my first editing attempt. It's a rather uninteresting photo of my landing! I cropped it in the camera then I edited it in Photostudio HD. I added masks using various effects, and then added a neon effect over the whole image. I definitely will try and do some more work with this!

Magpies, tie dyes and where my heart really lies.

Work has begun on the Opposites project, with a minor hiatus for some health issues which are very frustrating although do not prevent sitting on the sofa stitching! Before I started this project I had an idea in mind for a magpie wall hanging, with a magpie sitting on a nest full of glittery things. So here's what I tried. I wanted a reddish background and found this great burgundy material. But I didn't want a plain background so I tried to tie bleach it in a variety of ways. I'd done some research on Japanese shibori fabric and felt inspired!

In a spiral

Just scrunched up in a ball

To create a regular circular pattern

To create concentric circles - I pulled up the centre of the fabric and went from there

I hand pleated this to create stripes

Me? A messy worker?

 After leaving these scraps in diluted bleach for a while I took them out, and was pleased with the shapes but not the colour! The bleach had turned the fabric a revolting colour, and not at all what I wanted. I realised I hadn't even photographed it I disliked it so much. So I abandoned the tie bleach background and just used the burgundy fabric as it was.

First step was to create the tree so I used a technique where you iron on some bondaweb and cut fabric on the bias so it stretches. I then stretched the fabric into branch shapes as I ironed it. Unfortunately it began to lift, so I then hand stitched a bark effect, which actually looks good. The nest is made out of brown fleece, to mimic the mud used by the magpie to line the nest. I then couched some 'sticks' on to the nest. I made the nest so it could be stuffed full of shiny things!

The bottom photo is probably more realistic  in terms of colour! The magpie was made by using black felt and then needle felting white and blue roving to create the magpie pattern. I used a bead for the eye. The glittery things in the nest are from my work box, jewellery box and my mother-in-law's jewellery box. As I never got to meet her it was nice to include something of hers in a piece of work that I've done.

Doing this piece really made me think about magpies. I consider myself a bit of a magpie, easily distracted by shiny objects. It challenged me and reminded me of the bible verse about where your treasure is, there is your heart. The magpie just collects shiny stuff, some of it is 'valuable' but some of it is just rubbish, like the ring pull I included. How mush time to I spend on silly things that look valuable but aren't, even the stuff that the world does consider valuable? I don't want to be like a hoarding magpie, chasing after the wrong things. I want God at the centre of my life.

Back with a vengence!

Term started last week, and already I'm exhusted, I certainly know that the new term has started and it's the second year! New theme - Opposites, which had me agonising for most of the summer. I've finally settled on light and dark, which has already moved from magpies to tie dye, to African fabric to zebras. I'm sure it will move onto something else! Zebras are the current obsession though, I love their patterns, the contrast of the black and white, how they are all unique and yet look completely fantastic when gathered together. I've been painting, drawing and collaging, ready to start some embroidery and want to do some printing. I've also finally caved in and signed up to Twitter, you can find me @JoChorlton

Just a quick taster of work so far, a very simple image put together in Publisher of a clip art zebra on a background of African fabric. Love the contrasts!

Something old, something new

Final project of the first year, and I can't believe where the time has gone! This project was to take the 8 weeks of the summer term and was a two-part project - textiles and then our chosen pathway.
Old and New is a big area, but when we got the brief I was already thinking about aprons. A friend had been wearing a lovely apron from Sicily when we went to her house for a meal. I rarely wear aprons - for cooking, cleaning or painting - which explains why all my clothes have stains of some kind or other on them! So I wanted to explore aprons.
Did you know there is a whole world of people out there who are obsessed with aprons? Neither did I, but I found blogs and websites dedicated just to aprons. One idea that really caught my attention was making aprons from other things - jeans and pillow cases. I then thought about how to add the decorations I wanted. At first I wanted to make floral fabrics but I got more interested in conversational fabrics - those which depict objects like tractors, bottles or in my case cleaning supplies! I also wanted to look at the different shapes and styles of aprons.

This is my sample board of apron shapes - all made in miniature!

Now on to the life sized aprons!

This was my first apron - made from the back of a pair of jeans and decorated with cleaning cloth applique and angelina fibres. I completed it with a floral fabric frill and ties.

If you're going to mdel an apron you might as well do it '50's housewife style!

I'd used the back of the jeans but I had two legs left to use, so I made two more denim aprons.

This apron features some of my own design of fabric, for the pockets. It's based on cleaning product bottles. I also used rick-rack braiding, gingham ribbon and lace trim.

 I used t-shirt transfer to add a picture of a cleaning lady that I'd drawn, with the words 'Mrs Mop waging war on dirt, grim and general household disorder.' I also used floral fabric for the frill and ties.

 I'd run out of jeans so decided to use pillow cases instead, as I'd seen a very easy apron pattern for this on the web.

This apron was printed on with a linocut, based on cleaning products and equipment.

Tea anyone?

This is my attempt at a repeating pattern, again based on cleaning products. I'm quite pleased with how it came out.

Armed and dangerous!

3d Project

To follow on from the 2d fine art element, we moved into 3d fine art, with the same theme of 'The Medium is the Message'. I felt very inspired by the artist Jospeh Cornell, who was interested in space and created these amazing little boxes of objects. He was also very influenced by the circus, feeling that the performers demonstrated laws of physics. This led to my Celestial Circus!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first celestial circus!

A Joseph Cornell inspired box, using the constellations - Ursa Major and Minor, Pisces and the sun.

The front of my Joseph Cornell box.

I then decided that I wanted to make a big circus using the constellations as the performers. I made a wooden board as a base, with six sections for my performers. I discovered that I really enjoy working with wire, so I made a wire big top with acrobats for the top of the circus.

Base board with six sections

Wire big top with some of my performers

Top view of my circus

Painted circus. I chose these colours because my family has connections with Pinders Circus and these are their colours.

Wire Pegasus and rider, inspired by my great-great aunt who was a bareback rider in the circus.

Ursa Major and Minor - this counts as a ready made, using ready made objects in your art work.

I wanted a traditional circus poster to advertise my celestial circus.

I tried making an automaton. It worked, just! I was inspired by Alexander Calder's circus.

Hercules and Leo the lion

Venus and her love potions

Wire big top complete with acrobats, I chose to name them after stars, and where there are two acrobats I called them after twin stars.

The nearly finished circus. I added some little battery powered fairy lights. Ideally I would love to have this on a rotating stand with appropriate circus music.

 

The Big Collage part 2

Having just reminded myself of where I'd got to in the last post, I'm going to explain the next steps I took in creating one of the biggest pieces of art work I've yet attempted. As a side note on that, the canvas I worked on was a present from Matt and Fran and it had been sitting in my cupboard, intimidating me forover a year. It looked HUGE! However, after being on the Foundation course for nearly three terms, and getting used to working on A1 (shock, horror!) size paper, the canvas almost (almost!) seemed to small! Anyway, here's the next step.

I had to work from the back forwards for the next part. These flowers are photographs taken by me and Adrian at different times. I didn't worry about scale, but did try to get a balance of colours. The shape was also important.

To make the tree trunk look textured I started with corregated card, but I didn't want straight lines. I used gardening string to create the bark including a knot hole!

Next step was to add the photographs that I wanted appearing from with the foliage. I also added another secret message, which I will not reveal even now.

I sketched out the extent of the leaves using white pastel as it could easily be removed from the painted surface.

The trunk of the tree was painted with acrylic paint.

I then started to add the leaves, which are made from screwed up tissue paper in two shades of green.

The finished leaf canopy. I left the gaps to make it seem a little more realistic and less like a lollipop.

The flower beds seemed odd. There was no demarcation between them and the lawn, so I decided to add some stones.

Keen to use what ever was to hand I used a cereal packet to create stones in a range of different sizes.

I then painted to stones with acrylic paint. I tried not to mix the colours too much, so I could get a stone effect.

The picnic table was created using fabric and wire that came from a wine bottle. I twisted three strands of the very thin wire and then made the legs. I tried to get a sense of perspective but realised I should have made the table top more rounded.

The table was positioned on the lawn.

The tree trunk looked too unifrom in colour so I used oil pastels over the paint. This helped create a real depth to the trunk.

My favourite of the ten abstract collages I had done at the beginning of this project included lots of little pockets. I wanted to use the same here, but it just looked like someone had dropped a load of litter in the garden. Time to think again.

I decided to use stones around the tree trunk.

I also decided that instead of packets I would make some evnvelopes. I found a net on the web and made green envelopes in 3 different sizes.

Although the envelopes originally had flaps I cut those off as they seemd to be intrusive. I wrote little nots to put in the envelopes which included the date of my marriage, the first paragraph from The Wind in the Willows, Bible verses and some thoughts of my own.

This is the nearly finished piece! It is awaiting photos of a teapot and our favourite cups to go on the table.

 I was so pleased with this collage. It is colourful, romantic, whimsical - things I have always longed to have in my art work. I love that there are hidden messages which can never be seen again, other than in photos. I love that there are messages which the viewer is invited to read, and which can be changed. It is a very personal piece and I feel that it has helped me develop greatly as an artist. I would definitely work in this way again.