Creating depth

Creating the illusion of a three dimensional quality on a quilt top can be achieved in many ways. Here, dark brown and blue Shiva stick were crushed onto baking paper and worked together with a stippling brush. The bristles are short and very stiff - making it fairly easy to work the Shiva onto the quilt top. The bristles can be used to "stipple" or pinched between the fingers to create a well controlled line of paint.

First, some leaves on a remnant of the lime fabric were put onto vliesofix, then applied over the intersecting seams.

The Shiva was applied to create a "rolled edge" on the upper leaf and create a "shadow" over the darker, lower leaf. A few strokes were added to the "valleys" of some of the other leaves, giving them the appearance of floating over that part of the quilt.

My Father's Shed - journal cover

 Some serious fun with fabrics left over from the larger My Father's Shed pieces - an A3 sized Journal cover  that wraps around many of the drawings and ideas for MFS. The fabrics have been variously stamped, monoprinted, painted, printed, Shiva'd and burnished. The free motion machine quilting is a memory of all the rocks and stones he gathered from the paddocks to preserve the blades of the ride-on mower.



They all start with "S"

Sundial, George Washington Uni.

 Sundial. Sunshine. Scenic. Special. Shiva rubbing. Silky Oak leaf. Shadow printing. Stitched. Sewn. Sircles. Shiva shimmer. So much fun. Saturday.





GWU, Foggy Bottom, Washington DC



Shadow printed with Silky oak leaves

 

Stitched in sircles



Shape and size

Shiva shimmer

 

Saturday afternoon

 

Where you wheelie bin?

Am enjoying creating rubbings and thanks to Kraftkolour my new sticks arrived yesterday - worth the wait as I was scrounging around in the bottom of an old take-away container looking for scraps of gold and charcoal last weekend. There's a feeling of being caught naked if I don't have sticks and fabric at the ready. while it's true they spend a lot of time in my knapsack in the back of the car, when required they are as indispensable as the camera.  These are the other two rubbings I made on the 1986 wheelie bin on Coochie - they've now been heat set and are ready to become quilts. There's nothing like an overcast muddle headed Saturday for making quilts and chocolate crackles - feeling rather blessed!

Unpacking treasures

While in Philadelphia I participated in a workshop by Lorraine Glessner was about mark-making. I learnt so much and took techniques and processes I'd used previously to new levels. Rusting was one such part - and here's a piece that has spent the past three weeks developing itself ... it was still wet when it arrived home with me yesterday. This is an "exchange piece" from one of the other students in the group - we all brought along bits of metal and found objects ... there will be many more pieces to emerge and accompany the rubbings I made on already rusted fabrics (using iron sulphate and tannins with Ankie before heading off to Philly) that also made it home. The first, with the backdrop of part of the USA side of Niagara and the second on a rather large pot of emerging tulips - made me think of Ankie and Linda. Shiva sticks perform quite differently in freezing temperatures - at times it felt like grating frozen butter - not to mention the absence of feeling in the fingers - however it was superb fun.

Rubbing in New York

An old gate, just down from the apartment - in need of a good rub. Beautiful textures and shapes - on a gate in front of an "empty"block that no one seems to notice.  A tree, some grids and grates ... all "ordinary objects" and easy to overlook, but special mementos of this trip ... can't wait to iron them out tomorrow!

Undara inspiration

Undara provided many surprises including a range of fungi we'd never seen before. The size of the "mushroom" was larger than  a dinner plate - and WMBM let me borrow his foot for a bit of perspective. 

Also loved the bark on the gums - which is thick and "woolly" around the base of the trees to afford protection from fires, but disappears to reveal smooth, creamy trunks above the flame line. The layered pieces of bark made me think of ways to give texture and depth to an art quilt. The trees of the Savannah woodland are evidence of adaptation at its best - and the possibilities for  Shiva rubbings are endless.

The small pink capped mushrooms (below) were found by accident - peering into the cavity of a felled tree stump. Luscious pink on a pastel stalk lying in the wood dirt. The Collins family, who created Undura from part of their large cattle station (ranch), have really gifted something exquisite that is accessible to everyone. 

The dining area at Undara is framed by old railway carriages and provides a lovely quiet spot for sketching and quiet times.  Kane and the staff are wonderful - great home style meals, cold beer and they provide a restful place where nothing is a problem. The kookaburras and currawong are experts at stealing food from the end of a fork, or plate  - they are persisitent and patient!

Guided tours from experienced professionals, self-guided bush walks or simply resting quietly on the verandah listening to the bush - there's everything, and nothing, to do at Undara.

Silk surprise

As I was leaving paid employment this afternoon the courtyard area was emptied of intruders - just the blustery wind and me left to argue over a piece of red silk. I love the public art in and around the streets of Ipswich - so many ideas, and 40 more circuits of the sun left to do it all!  Thanks for your comments Sue - I still want to know how you get the little bits of shiva off the tiles in the motel rooms. WMBM and I spent quite some time on our knees in New Zealand scraping minuscule bits of gold, cooper and iridescent charcoal from the floor tiles.

Leafy surprises and cannon rubbings ...

My friend Kate released a book into the wild at our place some time ago. I read the book. The pages of the book then gifted me two beautiful leaves from Canberra - perfectly dried and exquisitely Canberra. I cut the leaf shape out of template stencil with a surgeon-like cutting knife (the book was The Surgeon of Crowthorne) then pressed some gold shiva onto baking paper. Dib. Dib. Dab. Dab. I used a small sponge to transfer shiva over the stencil and onto hand dyed pieces of silk and fabric. Thank you Kate.
Speaking of shivas ... WMBM has requested  a set of fabric pieces and shiva sticks so that he doesn't have to wait about for me if he sees something worth rubbing. While wandering Russell in New Zealand recently, we did our first "joint" rubbing -  a beautiful cannon (that fires cannon balls ... not of the religious kind). The effect was gorgeous and part of that fabric now graces the binding of my entry for World Quilt. There are still 5 days left to meet the deadline for submission ... see Sue Dennis' website for full details. Thank you WMBM.


The cannon @ Russell,  NZ



Aubergine and leaves .. Round 2

I waited for the glass walled coffee shop to close beside our Ipswich Office and headed out with the fabric and shivas for "Round 2" of the leaf rubbings. The coffee shop has a "fish bowl" view of the leaf panels and it's a much easier process to pop out after 3pm. Round 3 will be to rub some individual leaves and look at bonding them  to the front ... very much a work and idea in progress.

Aubergine leaves and shivas

Aubergine is one of my favourite procion dye colours - along with Moroccan red - but yesterday aubergine prevailed. This is the piece I rubbed from the leafy public art in Ipswich which I did not heat set.  The shiva has provided an interesting resist for the dye - and when I'm in Ipswich next week I'll do more rubbings with the shivas and see how much depth can be achieved with the layering. I'll remember to heat set after the next rubbings!


Leaf rubbings in shiva



Flower power in rust



Rust and stainless steel

From last Wednesday ....
Near the office where I work are some beautiful pieces of public art - leaf over leaf rusting away with one, polished, stainless steel specimen in the midst of each panel. I did a SooDee. A SooDee is really a "Sue Dennis" or a "Sue D". A SooDee kit  comprises a smallish zippable bag, plastic and see through containing 1 x camera, various pieces of cotton or other fabrics on which to play, and a variety of shiva sticks, packing tape, a sheet of baking paper for wrapping and protecting finished rubbing when it is done ... and baby wipes).
Took out a piece of fabric ... affixed it (rather awkwardly) to said piece of public art and started shiva-ing away. It got a bit tricky around the leaf edges ... and as soon as I finish unpacking from my trip to Warwick I might be able to get the iron onto it ... .

Shiva journal cover

chopped into 3" shiva squares

I had some fabric left over after the big "give it away" moment a few months ago - no regrets at all -but this plain piece of white-ish cream fabric wasn't going anywhere. It was a lovely piece of Quiltgate acquired from Hancocks of Paducah some time ago ... and in the spirit of all things art quilty, I used it for some rubbings. An old tablecloth in copper, some pewter pot pourri bowl covers in charcoal ... and so it went.  Over a few days I rubbed, ironed, frowned, rubbed some more ... and finally had a piece of fabric that was "sort of okay to look at". Yesterday I added some coffee pot pattern in gold. 



rejoined and reunited

Then a leaf from the pot pourri bowl in black.  Ironed and ironed ... then ironed some more. This morning it needed a lift so I added some Angelina fibres. Of course. Then I  fused it to some other fabric that no-one wanted - a lovely red, black and dragony piece that would have looked great in a Chinese Opera - then proceeded to chop the entire thing into 3" pieces. Wow squared.
Changed to a metallic thread and zig zagged the squares back together again. Now I had an interesting piece of fabric ... and a sister about to head overseas for the next 6 months ... so a journal cover was in order.


close up shiva'd and angelina'd

A vessel of sorts - for her art and her drawings.  I lined the journal outer with a beautiful piece of indigo dyed fabric from a day with Ankie King, and added a post card (that also used some old tea bag papers) for a pocket ... to hold pens of course!








Journal cover

I shall miss her very much - and in 24+ Saturdays, she'll be back. Woo hoo and a lot of art to share ... and yes I should have rotated the picture BEFORE posting it to the blog. But you get the picture ....