Shirley Anne Sherris

Well, here we are three days into the new year and already it is flying – sloooow down time please!!! How I wish!!

I didn’t make any New Year resolutions but I did make one commitment and that was to create an image journal of at least one image a day. I say ‘at least one’ as opposed to ‘one’ because when I start to take photos I always take quite a number and then find it hard to decide which one I like best so there may be days when there are several images although they will be on the same subject. I have just taken my third day image of the mahonia in flower and with lovely sunshine on it too. Not sure if I will be posting them yet. It depends on what else I have to post. They will probably appear as a weekly block or something along those lines. WTS

Back to the creativity which is what my blogs are usually about. During the ‘festive’ season I have managed to create quite a number of pieces (about 9 I think- I was on a roll and that cannot be suppressed for anything.)

One thing I was wanting to do was to use some of my serendipity samples which have accumulated over the year while painting other things. They were piling up - numerous pieces of both silk and hand made paper just waiting to be used.

I will cover four of them in this post. They were created very quickly.

The first one used a piece of serendipity silk.

I had been browsing a book about Asian art and some of the Japanese flower paintings caught my eye and so influenced the subject for this piece. I decided to create some delicate poppies using appliqued sheer fabrics. The flowers and leaves were cut out using a soldering iron and using a sketch like free machining drew the flowers and leaves catching down the sheers. then I machined the stalks etc and finally quilted the piece following the shapes around the flowers and leaves. For the backing I used a piece of recycled dress fabric and when the quilting was finished I realised that the backing toned in quite well with the piece so I turned the edges of the backing over onto the front to make the border. Et voila!!! quick and easy.

The second one used a piece of serendipity hand made paper. I made this paper years ago and had sandwiched a piece of net inside which gave the paper not only reinforcement but a textured pattern. It too was painted enough to use.

This time I rummaged through my left over bits box and found some mohair which I had dyed and made into a fabric. It was left over from making the lid of a box. I also had a length of the same mohair which I had dyed for a workshop I gave last October. It had the same range of colours so I wiggled it over the surface of the paper and held that down with some black nylon sheer. Next I free machined over the surface to hold the fibres in place, then zapped with a heat gun to remove some of the sheer. I placed the left over piece in the centre - well actually, I moved it around for a while first until I decided where I preferred it. I cut some red metallic mesh and put that underneath then decided it was all too red so I painted the left over piece with a gold leafing krylon pen. I found a large wooden bead bought many years back which I also brushed slightly with the gold and placed in the middle. It was couched in place and some red beads stitched into the holes/spaces. I also stitched more beads around the other couched red mohair to accentuate the curves. They were brushed with gold too. the next job was to decide on a background for it. Eventually the one which appealed to me most was a piece of pearlised metallic purple card. I attached it to one side of the card and voila, another quick and easy piece.

The next piece used up another piece of serendipity silk.

This one was not as easy to decide what to do as it had with the previous two. The colours were mainly green with some copper in there. Lateral thinking - green colour - green leaves, so that was going to be the subject. I had collected some samples of embossed papers from the local DIY store to use a stamps (picked that one up from Sharon). I chose two of them to stamp onto the silk which I ironed first - (can claim some domestic work can't I????)

Leaves need flowers so I used a wooden carved block and rubbed the design onto the silk with a copper oil stick. Then I quilted it using metallic threads to pick out the features. It still needed something so I decided to free machine an offset repeat of each leaf design over the top. A few copper sequins for the flower centres completed the piece. I mounted it on a kebab stick painted copper and hung copper sequins down some copper fingering for tassels. I also used the last of my sheet copper leaves which I had made for some of my jewellery ( which you can see in my book in September - plug, plug) and hung them along the bottom. Et voila, another piece.

The final piece used another piece of serendipity hand made paper.

Looking to do something different I decided to cut it into strips and weave them to create a chequerboard effect. Another rummage discovered some paper casts of the wooden block used in the previous piece. I painted the flowers red and the leaves a bright metallic green. I used just the flower of the block to stamp the daisies in the centre of each of the squares. Beads and stitching created the flower centres and I used some puff paint along the edges of the squares and after heating painted them gold. This piece too was turned into a hanging again painting a kebab stick for the hanger and painting four large beads which matched the daisies. Another completed serendipity piece.

I think that is enough or you will be suffering from overload.

I am ready for a cup of coffee now. My OH is at mt daughters trying to fix her oven door which won't close properly. If it is fixed we will be invited for a meal so an incentive there although he would fix it for her anyway.

While I have been writing this I have been thinking about the next piece I propose to do so while it is still in my head I will go and start or I may forget.

Cheers everyone.