This is a shot of the Christchurch Cathedral (Image by Don Scott/The Press) For people not in NZ, here are some photos from Day 2 - I keep going to Stuff.co.nz during the day to see what is happening, and of course it is constantly on our TV screens. I woke up really early this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. My mind keeps coming back to the terrible losses there - of the rising toll of people dead and missing, of destroyed infrastructure and the enormous task of rebuilding, of people dislocated and frightened...
our family was flooded out of our home in the terrible events of February 2004 and this current disaster reminds me of that sick-to-the-stomach feeling of leaving our home not knowing when we would be back, seeing all that we had worked for lying under water, not knowing what would be recovered or when, and then the sense of unreality as days passed and we saw the magnitude of the disaster for everyone else at the time.
The thoughts of NZ are with the people of Christchurch, and for anyone reading this blog who is personally touched by this disaster and/or knows people/family who are, know that we are all thinking of you with love and compassion.
Have had a bit of play with our next 
This is held up to a white wall - it is pretty cool, though nowhere near finished yet.
A variety of solid and sheer papers and fabrics collaged down first - the mixture included scrim, decorative paper serviettes, special papers, net, sheet music, dictionary pages, ribbons, coffee filter (used first and then dried), organza, and some neutral cotton fabrics.
This is still very much in progress because there are bits I'm not happy with. I love the overall colour balance/blends, and some of the effects of the colours with the textures showing behind are awesome.
However, some of the fabrics didn't completely stick down - I wish I had used a brayer as a final step. It also turns out that the fabrics that didn't completely stick/bubbled are the least interesting in texture....so next step is to think about it, and consider what else is to be added to fix the bad bits. Obviously stitching will occur - but I also need to think about adding more layers of fabric and/or embellishments of some kind. Not sure what yet but I will keep you posted on progress. Advice like this is what I am doing a class for after all.
It has a lot of lovely work in it which makes me just want to run off and try the techniques. Included is 
also a goodie to have, and featuring some of my favourite artists. Go 
this time a photocopy (not a newly made one either) onto a painted page :
Amazing what an image and some stitching and tags can do :-) 
Machine-stitched down each side - left hand fancy programmed machine stitch - right hand is my fav free-motion swirly stitch. . 
"Create" stamped onto fabric and then stitched to hanging and free-motioned around the words and up to the heart. 
Some of the tags were dyed with walnut ink - then stamped, or drawn on, some dried flowers applied, and others with punched flowers. 
And here it is hanging in situ on my arty room door - and now I love it.
fairy shoes. 
I have been wanting to make some for a while. 
Although they look quite big in the photo, they only measure 9cm from toe to heel. I hope she can use them to wander down memory lane... 
This lesson was about playing with our limited colour palette, and then adding interference or iridescent paints to see the different effects. It was fun to just play and I tried a few things I haven't tried before or haven't done in a while. Am posting the pages with just acrylic paint first, and then with the addition of the interference or iridescent paint.
Fun with bubble wrap on this one, and nice to use foam stamps again - I overstamped with the iridescent green. 
My first time using interference violet paint. The effect is just like the colours you get when you blow bubbles in the sunshine. 
I think the gold highlights work well on this one. 
Not my fav, but I now have a liking for that silver iridescent paint.
Now we're in my preferred colour palette :-) 
Love the interference paint on this one - through sequin waste.
I haven't worked out how to load pictures in blogger that you can click on to enlarge, so here are a couple of close-ups of the base pages and the finished. 
They look quite different now they are embellished and covered in writing. 
I wonder what February will hold 
This month I went with paper. We have a calendar of art work by Alphonse Mucha in our kitchen so I was inspired to use one of his paintings as my inspiration - this one is called "Summer". I will title it February when inspiration hits!