Still Away With The Mermaids... but...

there are also new winds blowing. Yay!

I've been very busy all autumn, working, painting, teaching, and I have hardly touched a single piece of fabric, but now that the more active part of The Mermaid Circus workshop is over (has it been 8 weeks already?!), I suddenly felt a little craving for fabric. And there happens to be something fun going on chez Melanie Testa. She has started a Sew Along for her Gather Your Sew-Plies Project Bag, which is a nifty little purse that you can strap to your body, and that will hold the stuff that you need when you are sewing on-the-go, or wherever. I want one!

The pattern is available in the Quilting Arts Holiday 2014 magazine, which is downloadable at Interweave (link), and on Melanie's blog you can follow the sew-along. Just click the tag 'Sew Along', and you'll get all the blog posts that she's written on the subject. I just had a rummage through my stash and found the perfect fabrics. I've saved them for something else, but a girl can change her mind, right?

So stay tuned for Sew Along news, or even better: JOIN IN !

Here are more mermaids that I've created in the Mermaid Circus workshop. It's been so much fun, and I've learned so much. Having a theme to work with makes such a big difference to me, as it helps me to actually get started. And of course, with a such a fun theme as mermaids, it's impossible not to be inspired!

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Away With the Mermaid Circus

It's been quiet on the blog again, and the reason is, as it usually is, that 24 hours a day hasn't been nearly enough for everything that I need and want to do. So here's just a quick update on the highlights in September:

I went on a trip to Ruka (a bit south of the Arctic Circle) with my parents for a few days of hiking on the fells. And I wasn't disappointed: I saw lots of reindeer. This one is most certainly Rudolph.

I've also taught a couple of mini workshops on stamp and stencil making at the local adult education centre. I'm not teaching much this year, as I'm currently mainly working as a freelance translator,  but I will be teaching one more mini workshop on fabric dyeing in the spring term. I have some experimentation to to before that, so there will be more posts on fabric design later this autumn.

But at the moment my main creative focus is the Mermaid Circus (see the badge at the top on the right side of this page). It's an online workshop that is a collaboration between Jane Davenport and Teesha Moore, and it's jam-packed with techniques and inspiration for drawing, painting and collage. I'd love to be able to devote myself to the Mermaid Circus full time, but alas, my day job has been encroaching on my mermaid time lately. Hopefully October will be Mermaid Month. Here are some of the mermaids I've been working on in a mermaid shaped art book:

Collage in Teesha Moore style

The cover with Teesha More style lettering

Collage in Jane Davenport style

The face on the mermaid above is a printout of a scan made

of this portrait, which is done in alcohol markers

This workshop is so much fun that it's positively addictive. I'm learning so much and discovering things that I know will cross-fertilize my textile work. I highly recommend running away with the Mermaid Circus!

Thanks for stopping by!

Stencil Frenzy

Just over a year ago I discovered a new source of inspiration: the Australian artist and art teacher Jane 'Danger' Davenport. (Yes, she really is dangerous: addictively funny and inspirational.) You will hear her name again on this blog, as I have some really exciting things going on at the moment.

Today, however, I'm going to talk about stencils. The reason I mentioned Jane at the start is that earlier this year she released an Art Lesson with Cloth Paper Scissors magazine 'Stencil Auditions', which triggered a veritable stencil frenzy in my life. The Art Lesson is downloadable, very affordable, and very, very inspiring. So inspiring that I immediately went ahead and ordered a whole bunch of stencils online. Many of them were water-themed (corals, waves and ripples), for a reason that I will return to later. :-)

My new stencils had barely arrived before something wonderful happened. A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to borrow her Silhouette Cameo cutting machine and try it out for stencil cutting. Did I ever!! I did a bit of research, and got started cutting stencils from stencil plastic. I couldn't belive how well it worked. Each time I removed a freshly cut stencil from the machine I couldn't help laughing out loud from pure joy. The only cloud on my horizon was that I was just about to move, and really didn't have much time to spend on the Cameo, as I was supposed to go through my stuff and pack it into boxes.That's why my stencil-cutting was a bit frenzied.

Test-cutting my first stencil (a face)

I had time to design (the cutter comes with a software that you can use to design your own stencils) and cut about 12 stencils before it was time to return the Cameo, and I have to admit that I'm really tempted to buy one at some point. I'm all for hand-cutting your own stencils, but it's very time-consuming if you do it from quality stencil plastic, you'll end up with a sore hand, arm and neck, and you'll never achieve the precision of a computer. Some patterns are simply not possible with, or worth the time and effort of, hand-cutting. I guess it's all a balancing act where you need to ask yourself when you should hand-cut, or when to buy a commercial stencil or use a cutting machine. There's a time and place for all three of them.

Oh, and one thing that I love about the cutting machine is that all those perfect little bits that are cut out can be saved and used for masks:

If anyone has a Silhouette Cameo and would like to know what settings I used for my stencils, here's the information. But you might have to experiment to get the right settings, as materials and machines differ. So consider these settings a guide and a starting point:

Speed: 1
Thickness: 30
Blade: 5
Double cut
Brand of stencil plastic: Crea Pop

Here are more images of my favourite stencils:

So far I've only used them for work that I've created for Jane Davenport's Art Lessons (on gesso and stencils) and online workshop 'Supplies Me'.

If you're like me, and have a whole Museum of Art Supplies that you never use, I recommend Jane's Art Lessons and workshops. You cannot help being inspired to use everything you have!

Thanks for dropping by!