3 things... ICE, Lyttle Stitches and PULP!

3 Fabulous Things! ICE 2011, Lyttle Stitches and some Pulp progress! Wahoo!

Thing 1 is ICE 2011. I am so happy with the way this series has come along. I really love the collection and it's exciting to know they are now on the way to Dale and the exhibition is only a week away!  The only thing I am not happy about is my photography. I really need to master the white balance function of my camera...or stop giving my collages white backgrounds! That aside, this years collection has been a fantastic opportunity to explore my head a little more, play with naturally dyed papers and adopt some new colours. I hope you also enjoyed the ICE journey!

ICE 2011 # 12

Title: Try again.

Fragile Series. Society is a Nest II

Inspired by graffiti and a game of snakes and ladders. Sometimes in life you find a ladder, other times a snake. You can't control what happens to you, only how you respond. It can make you strong or fragile. Sometimes all you can do is is try again.

Eucalyptus dyed paper, pencil, thread, recycled papers.

ICE 2011 #13

Title: Sequence

Fragile series, Society is a Nest II

The rhythm of life, the repeating pattern of each heart beat and season. Life. Death. All things part of a delicate sequence.

Eucalyptus dyes paper,Walnut dyed paper, thread, pencil, recycled paper scrap.

More on ICE to come...

Thing 2 is Lyttle Stitches. Lyttle Stitches is the name fantastic projects spreading love and hope around Lyttleton and Christchurch. Following the devastating earthquake this project was set up to offer hope, respite and of course LOVE. It's a simple project in it's essence. Stitched hearts are handed out to rescue workers and residents alike. Even Prince William received one of these hearts on his visit to Christchurch. Children who are having to cope with so much are offered the chance to sit and stitch and workers in need of respite also find there way to the table. Talking, thinking, stitching hearts.  Simple yet so powerful. 

Top two photos courtesy of Jacinda at Watching Kereru and project founder.

Another thing that this project has done is give people like me and my kids a chance to help too. A gift to Lyttleton that isn't money but hearts made with lyttle stitches and a lot of love.

Our hearts. If you want to take part in the Lyttle Stitches project either by stitching or donating fabric, thread, buttons, lace etc then please visit Jacinda's blog.



Thing 3 is PULP REDUX!! It's been a while but were still ticking away quietly. Here's a peak of what I've been up too.

Fabric dyed with Eucalyptus bark, lace, doily remnants...just a peak! We're planning an exhibition of our completed books and I don't want to spoil the surprise!

Nature Dyes

I'm loving this! It reminds me of leaf spots in Autumn.

It's the result of indian ink being dripped onto wet paper to cause a reaction, the paper was dried and then over-dyed with a wash of walnut dye. The pic below shows my son making one of his indian ink/water papers which we did  a few weeks ago. I saw the potential for good collage fodder so made myself a few too!  He graciously donated me his papers as well:)

My walnut dye. It's pretty dark so I was surprised it gave such an rust/orange shade to my paper. I made it by mixing and matching recipes I found on the net but the basic brew went like this...

Soak green walnuts in water in a stainless steel bowl 

(Until they ferment/smell bad and your family threaten to throw it out if you don't do something with it!! lol)

Boil the brew 20mins and then add 1 part white vinegar to help prevent mold.

So far this method worked but I think I should have boiled them longer to get the darker shade of brown I thought I was making! The dye is now in a jar out of direct sunlight, I will be interested to see if ageing it makes any difference to the dye colour. No doubt I could water it down to get a lighter shade of rust if I wanted too.

These too pics are the resulting papers from my Eucalyptus dye experiments. I like the shade of brown I got with  these.I added my own designs to the paper as you can see! Most of the "line" paper has already been used in my collage work so I will have to get another brew boiling! Good thing I collected a lot of bark!

ICE #12 is nearly finished. It was inspired by a game of snakes and ladders and uses a large piece of my lined eucalyptus paper so watch this space!

ICE storm!

ICE 2011 #8

Society is a Nest II

Fragile Series

Title: Respite 

Eucalyptus and fennel dyed paper, recycled paper and paper scrap, thread

We all need a little respite now and then to make us stronger, more capable, less fragile...

ICE 2011 #9

Society is a Nest II

Fragile Series

Title: Responsible.

Eucalyptus dyed paper, recycled paper scrap, thread.

The text says 'I don't want to be responsible for a broken heart and fractured beat" which is similar to a line in a song by Alanis Morrisette.

ICE 2011 # 10

Society is a Nest II

Fragile Series.

Title: Freedom

Eucalyptus and fennel dyed paper, recycled paper scrap, thread, pencil

Even freedom is fragile.

The text says "Song of Freedom" inspired by Bob Marely (of course!)

ICE 2011 #11

Society is a Nest II

Fragile Series

Title: Wedding Vows

Marriage, it can be so fragile yet it should be so strong, if only we could always remember that we promised.. good times and bad. True acceptance of each others imperfections. It doesn't need to be perfect to be beautiful.

And Strong.

WAHOO! That's 11 done and 2 more fabulous collages to go! I actually haven't touched my art supplies in 2 weeks thanks to the kids going back to school and while that means more free time for some, it means busier days for me. I've got 2 of my children doing correspondence at home this year and it's taken a bit of getting used too, this new time commitment! It's o.k though and I'm sure it will be worth it, I just need to find some sort of new balance again! These collages were made between my last ICE post and the start of Feb, I was hoping to have the last 2 done by now but life's like that! You may have noticed I did do some dyeing with some delicious eucalyptus dye (incorporated into most of these collages) and I am pretty pleased with the results. Today I boiled up some walnuts and made ink and a post about this and the eucalyptus dye is on it's way...I hope!

Green/Greener, 2 new birds and a sand sculpture.

It's time for a green/greener post! This time my focus is on natural dying which I'm currently exploring (again!) So far my own personal experience is limited to Marigold, Tea, Coffee, red cabbage, onions skins and Fennel. I've also had 2 attempts at making Kowhai flower dye and a nest dye with poor results....this is definitely a learning process! I'm keen to learn though and as I said it my last post I think I stumbled upon a good way of setting the dye on paper- with an iron!

Moss and Lichen. Mclarens Falls.

The first artist I am going to put the spot light on is India Flint. Am I the last person on the eco-dying planet to discover India Flint's blog? lol. For anyone who hasn't visited her blog yet here it is. If your anything like me you will wish you had gotten there sooner! The first link will take you directly to a Eucalyptus dye recipe and this link will take you to her book and others of interest. My wishlist gets bigger!

Eucalyptus bark and feather. Some of the things that made it home with me after our camping trip!

I found a link to this fabulous article on India Flint's bundling/ printing /dying method on a site called Turkey Red Journal which is a publication dedicated to natural dying. Be prepared to want to run out and gather leaves after reading the article!

For John: Close up of a frond from a NZ Native Tree Fern, the Ponga.

Eco dye captures my attention because its in tune with my way of thinking. It's not perfect but it is 'greener.' The foot print of a fennel plant growing over my fence is a whole lot smaller than that of the coffee that has been shipped (and goodness knows what else!) from a million miles away. Right now I am trying to find a more natural alternative too coffee that will give me the same colour. I found this plant/colour guide on a site called Pioneer Thinking. Handy to have! As you can see there are plenty of alternatives to using coffee...and if you live in my part of the globe it's not long until Autumn...and that means walnuts! I know just the tree to harvest from too. If your interested in making your own walnut dye here's a page you might like.

I haven't tried it myself yet and I would be interested in reading about walnut dye experiences if anyone has a link to share! This link will take you to a site with the most gorgeous photography of this ladies natural dye projects. Some eye candy for the eco dyer's out there!

Last but not least, check out this collaborative project that Jasmine of Nature's Whispers is taking part in. How can you not want to go and see a project called Wrapt Trees?

Meet Dollar and Dime! (Dime is the bigger bird with his beak open.) We adopted these teeeeny, tiny sparrows today. I only took this one photo so I didn't disturb them or let them get cold. They're so very tiny and have hardly any feathers and their eyes arn't open yet. They are using a heat pack and polyprop to keep warm. Being small dosn't change the amount of noise they make when it's feed time, which at this stage is every 30mins...please wish us luck that we have a great result for this little foster babies too!

Speaking of birds, it IS feed time so I quickly post a rare pic of me and my kids at out local beach. It was published in a local newspaper last weekend.

We came third place equal in a local family sand scultpure competition! Ours was a giant "We HEART NZ"

Winning was a nice way to end a great day!

Fennel Dye Experiment

Fennel flower heads.

Fennel stalks, chopped and ready.

The resulting fennel dye.

The left of the photo shows paper dyed with fennel. Both are green although that didn't photograph too well! The fabric in the middle is the original colour and the brown is the dye results. There is a lot I don't know about fennel dye! Why does paper come out green and fabric brown? I researched fennel dye on the Internet and came up with several variations of the same things so I 'mixed and matched' to suit myself.

If you're interested here's what I did...

Chop the fennel into small pieces

Boil for 20 Min's until nice and mushy

Strain the chunky bits and measure the resulting fluid (that beautiful purple stuff!)

Using a ration of 1 part white vinegar to 4 parts fennel liquid I added vinegar and then a tablespoon of table salt. I think the salt helps to 'fix' the colour and the vinegar to ward off mould growth. Correct me if I'm wrong!

For the fabric I used an old cotton napkin that I had pre-soaked cold tap water. I boiled it in the fennel dye water for 20 Min's and then allowed it to dry. I am not sure how purple plus white resulted in brown but I like it!

For the paper I did a straight wash and resulted in...nothing! Hmmmm. It dried clear like my nest and kowhai dyes did. I figured I did something wrong and found nothing on the Internet that was helpful for dying paper. (Plenty for colouring paper pulp and fabric but not for using the dye as a wash.)

Anyway... I came to the conclusion that salt alone wasn't enough to fix the colour and that heat was required to set it. All the material dyes I read used heat in some way so I got out my trusty old iron and tried again. Wa-lah! Green paper. Lime green at that! I am not too fond of lime/pastel green and thought that if I dyed, dried, dyed again, dried again...I would achieve a darker green but I just ended up with an even 'limer' shade of lime!  At least I figured out how to set the colour on paper without having to boil paper, I am sure that information will be useful for the next experiment...

PS: I used a stainless steel pot.

Coming soon:

Green/Greener post. Some link love for some of the great sites I discovered while learning about natural dyes. Inspiration abounds!

ICE 2011. This avo work starts on ICE #6 and as soon as my collages are mounted properly I will post collages 3-6. Anyone else doing this years exchange?

Crop Circles, Lollie Pop's and Bull's Eyes.

I'm back home again after an FABULOUS camping trip to Mclarens Falls. It's 170 hectares of land just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed and we most definitely did that! Waterfalls, cricket, roasted marshmallows, photography and nature art...bliss!

So many lovely things to be gathered....

....sticks, berries, flowers, moss, leaves, pine needles, pine cones...

All found on the ground of course! No picking allowed!

There was some debate as too what I had created...was it a crop circle, a lollie pop or a bulls eye?  The kids originally thought I was making a nest and were quite unsatisfied with my answer that I was just making something to leave behind...but that's what it was, something to be found by someone else.  I just hope someone enjoys it before the lawn mower man gets to it! lol.

I also collected eeucalyptus/bluegum leaves and bark to make dye from. The bag of bark smells devine! I'm  all inspired again now and am looking forward to some time to play! If anyone can offer me advice on how to make the dye fix to paper as a wash I would be most appreciative. So far I am only finding recipes that require me to boil fabric with a moderant in order to 'fix' it and some how I don't think my paper will appreciate being boiled!

Green/Greener

Green art warms my heart. As you know, I am celebrating things that are greener so I want to mention some green artists whose art and lifestyles I admire before we head back to the hospital again tomorrow. Yes, you read that right.  My son's still unwell and going in to hospital for the 3rd time in 9 weeks. To say we're 'over this' would be a complete understatement but this time I am determined not to let it dampen my creativitiy! My family is my priority of course but I will be taking my sewing with me:)

No surprise to see another nest here! This one was spotted at the Muse Me event I went to last year. I love the eggs! This was part of a land art sculpture about life and death.

On with the celebrating! My first tribute is to Te Willans of Sowen Earth. I am loving what this artist does! Te Willans is an eco dyer, button maker, mixed media artist just across the ditch from me in Australia. Check out the cool studio shot below....

You can also see some other very cool buttons here as well as dfelteyed works and encaustic pieces.  It's awesome to see an artist making and selling so many lovely, nature friendly pieces so please go and check Sowen Earth out! You won't be dissapointed.

The other blogger I want to celebrate is Jasmine of Natures Whispers. Jasmine also uses natural dyes to create fantastic felted pieces. I had no idea you could actually use felt to depict an image let alone convey a message. I can only imagine how wonderful her dyed wools would be to actually feel and hold in my hands. I didn't ask for permission to use a photo so don't rely on your imagination to find out what Jasmine's work is like:) Please go and pay her a visit!

Last but not least is a NZ project I found today which is a happy coincidence! I listed some old foam on freecycle and the person whose just become the new owner wants to use it for this great project. Sew it Forward is a project that involves using recycled clothing and sewing goodies to make clothing for womans refuge. Great idea! There are collection points in Tauranga and Auckland for any one wishing to make a donation of buttons, zippers, fabric, cotton, gift basket goodies, ribbons....etc!

This is actually my first freecycle deal so it's a pretty good result to move on a piece of foam to a good home and not the rubbish pile AND support a project like this. That's a very cool shade of 'greener' if you ask me!

Misc.ICE # 10, Crazy Swap, Vegetable Dyes...

Misc. Miscellaneous. A word to describe a mixed bunch of things that don't neatly fit into one catergory. It's been a miscellaneous kind of week.This blog post certainly is. ICE, Natural Dying, Paper swaps, Paper -making. A miscellaneous collection of things that describe my art. I ramble.It's been a rambling kind of week.So many things have happened here lately that have really sucked my creative time up, my time when I connect with myself and with nature.How did that happen?Well, I know how..but why? I don't know. It just did. Now I feel all dried up, ideas without motivation to carry them out. The TO DO list getting longer and time just tick, tick, ticking away. I finally realise that my art is connected to my emotions and that one does not thrive without the other being totally in tune...I realise that by allowing situtations to affect my emotions I also allow them to affect my art. I said in my last post that 'quietly in the chaos' I had made progress with an ICE collage and that there'd been some exciting Pulpy happenings.The latter is still in progress, I am expecting Alicia's book to arrive any day now and I've just posted on Lisa J's to Debrina. Round 2! I can't wait.

ICE 2010 collage # 9

Series: Chain Reaction

Title: Urban Suburban

Owl book image, handmade paper from Danit, handmade paper dyed with onion skins (mine) painted paper scrap, old bridge pad paper, thread.

Above is my 9th ICE collage.. it should've  taken 1 or 2 good days has taken me about 10! It's been completed in small steps and stolen moments! They're precious moments arn't they? The difference between progress and standing still, the difference perhaps between being alive and simply living? Sounds dramatic I know, but as I said- it's been one of those weeks!

I don't quite connect with this piece the way I did with some of the other collages, I think it's because the main image is not mine. It does express what I wanted it too though, the crossing over of urban and suburban. Wild birds in well populated areas, still free but modified to suit their new environment. This is the chain reaction created by human's moving in and taken over their habitat. We either force them to move out or force them to move in.  Ever noticed how many sea gulls live a long way inland? How many predator bird species dwell in cities? How fuzzy the line between urban and suburban has become. A bird can build a nest without leaving a negative impact on the space in which it has chosen, why too don't most of us?

I think my vege dye experiments are a result of this awareness. An effort to keep my own footprint on this earth down. I'm also curious about the cause and effect created by different plant sources. Red cabbage makes a beautiful, deep violet colour until you add fabric to it. The fabric is much paler. I would have thought that the violet would overpower the white but they seem to have met each other in the middle. It's completely different to mixing paint when one teaspoon of violet would have a big impact on 4 or 5 times that amount of white.

The paper is of course, hand made. I saw the resulting colour from the cabbage and cloth experiment and didn't want the same shade of paper so I decided to add a really strong brew of tea (about 7 tea bags to 250 ml of hot water) and tip it in. The resulting dye was black with a slight hint of purple. The colour when the pulp was added was a really exciting shade of stone grey. The result when dry? Light grey! My hands while mixing the pulp? A strangely coloured tea and cabbage smelling mess! haha. Good thing I was outside. The cabbage smell took a while to go...

Below: Crazy Swap items from Carla in Canada...

Isn't it amazing how 2 artists who've never met could send each other such similar things?

My partner also sent me some lovely, lovely vintage postcards (1926) and a vintage valentines card...they have real messgages on them and deserve their own post...so their own post they will get!

LaWendula of Woven Letters organised a crazy paper swap. Participants had to be brave and sign up for the swap without knowing what we'd be swapping...a fun kinda crazy! The top 2 pics of the 4 below show what I sent my partner (who is dosn't have her own blog..sorry) and the bottom 2 show what I recieved. I am very happy and will make very good use of it all. Thanks Carla and LaWendula!

Shades of Brown

Mclaren's falls. The islands are a haven for all sorts of ducks, especially paradise ducks and a family of black swans.

It's the time of year for all of us in the Southern Hemisphere when things are turning various shades of brown. The grass on my lawn is most definately brown and only the strongest pieces of green remain.It's a pitiful sight and the hills and fields around as are all various shades of brown too. Quite a difference from the many of you who are seeing most things in various shades of white! Tomorrow is the official start of a fire ban in our area, the land is just to dry and with no decent rain forecast it looks as if it will be that way for a while! Lucky for me, I like brown!

Drying thistles. I thought of Debi in Texas when I took these shots!

Grass seeds of some sort and Dock (the red plant bucking the brown trend.) Dock is poisionus but pretty. I contemplated cooking some up to make dye but decided that I probably shouldn't play with the poisionus ones! The spiders don't seem to mind though.

 Just for the record, these photos arn't the hardy bits of green from my lawn!

I think this plant is commonly known as biddy-bids. The little seed heads attach themselves to anything that brushes them, making them unpopular with most people and that probably contributes to their weed status. All of the plants I photographed are weeds, no surprises there!

Last but not least, here are the initial results of the nature experiements I've been doing.

Left to Right: Nest paper #1 which had nesty bits sprinkled into the pulp

Nest paper #2 had the nesty bits mixed into the pulp(by putting it through the blender)

Handmade paper dyed with onion skin dye and a very strong tea brew.

Top Right to Bottom Right corner:

Onion dye on watercolour card, Nest dye on w/c card and a wash made from dried Autumn leaves on w/c card. The colour change is very subtle with the last two!

Fabric dyed with coffee, tea (middle sample) and onion skins.

As you can see I've been having a play around and I have learnt quite a lot in the process. I hope to be doing something useful with my new found knowledge soon!

Pulp Redux Update # 3 Lisa J's book.

I have been on a roll these last few days! Today's been especially great, not only did I get lots of time to work on Lisa Jurist's book I also got my nest paper made and attempted to turn my bark into some sort of useable pigment. I got it to dust stage but as with the nest dye and kowhai dye the resulting wash is very pale when dry even though the liquid is not! I need to do some further investigation and work out why this is, the colour will be fantastic if I can pull it off!
Thankfully the nest paper was quite successful, I havn't photographed it yet so that will have to be another post. I have however photographed the work I did on Lisa's book! Here it is below...

Above is the closse up of the embellishement below. I didn't make the embellishement today, it was made last week and was patiently waiting for me to work out where it was meant to go!

The embellishement is a bit like a small book. It has a pocket on the front which can hold a small item but dosn't just yet:)  I've used my own paper beads (the text one says 'see') as well as tea dyed fabric, a found roofing nail cap, ribbon and various bits of recycled fabric. I am really pleased with the difference the red makes to the page and have added it to the first page I did as well.I still need to trim the lace and fabric behind this piece but the embellishement is done. You can see the 'page' inside it below.

The fabric bundle the small book sits on is actually another fabric book! The book is able to be taken out of the spread completely. I love things that can move and be played with!

The cover of the book opens to reveal a lace pocket with a poetry quote..

...and the next page of the book reveals a fabric collage made from 'nest dye' fabric and cotton wool soaked in 'nest dye.' I baked the cotton wool in the oven .Sewn to the top layer are non-organic items found in the nest I took apart (technically known as rubbish to us humans!) to make the dye. It was sad to find this stuff inside the nest. There was actually a lot of it, including plastic and ciggerette butts. Poor bird! My inclusion of these items isn't meant to be a negative statement however, I have simply carried on the recycling process the bird started. He or she thought they were useful and pretty enough to put in their home so why not on the pages of a book? I didn't know it when I picked it up in the car park but finding this nest has resulted in a collaboration with a bird!

For anyone who missed it, Lisa's book theme is "Roots, beneath the Layers.' I wrote above that  I was carrying on a process but as it turns out I've quite literally followed that theme and I've only just realised!

Funny how things turn out!