New swaps

Here are 2 swaps I made for my arty_international group.
First are the little houses. These were fun to make and decorate. I used some of my postage stamps that were from cardboard parcels so they had a thick backing. It added nice dimension. I also added some scented flower petals and used some of my old buttons. The Justice houses feature one of my carved stamps. The image is from an old photo of a school play in the 1960s. The guy looked very lawyerly, so I mirror-imaged it and tinted it blue to match the sequins.

Here are my ATCs for the Birds swap. I stamped the rooster on purple satin and free-motion stitched it to the cardstock. My first attempt at free-motion stitching, and I am quite pleased with the look. I added some more scented flower petals and affixed them with office brads that I tinted green using Stazon ink. I finished them off by stamping with scrapbooking acrylic daubers around the border. I love these roosters, they look so cheerful and fresh (must be the lime, heehee!).

It's a BLUE thing

A good day's shopping at the Dragon Mart. I found these flower bedecked hairclips for 5 dirhams each and bought all the blue ones. The fabric is gorgeous and I've taken them apart to use in my art.

The fabric is velvety and has purple mixed in with the blues - irresistable!

Of course, I just HAD to put them all in my hair to see what it looked like. It reminds me of the swimcaps from the 1960s that were full of flowerpetals too, lol.

Beauty and the Beast

Here is a little canvas I did. The photo came from a bundle my sister bought at a second-hand shop on the south coast in South Africa. After the lady died, her niece dumped the photos at the shop. This lady had some amazing adventures: she travelled around Africa in her little caravan, she went to Spain, Greece and all during the 1940s and 1950s.

Here she is posing on a tree trunk in her little bikini. There are pencil marks on the photo where she tried to make her thighs look thinner! I immediately thought of the song "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" and coloured the bikini yellow. The gold flourishes are beads I embroidered by hand. The photo is surrounded by yellow letter beads: Z or N (depending on orientation) and O. Together they make Zero or No, another little commentary on social issues for women.

I find it fascinating that this lady was brave enough to be seen in public in her bikini, but privately she tried to alter the proof thereof. Each woman has to deal with her inner beast.

This piece is currently on display at Paperlane scrapbook shop in Dubai, where I am going to be teaching classes part-time from September.

Tickled Pink

I prefer doing the dishes with pink rubber kitchen gloves. That is actually how this whole piece started. Every time my right glove got a hole in it, I threw it away and opened a new packet. The left glove went in the cupboard "in case". One day I checked and found 3 left gloves. I tried using one on my right hand, but it was too darn uncomfortable (try having your thumb pulled back the whole time!). Then I thought of using it for art and voila, Tickled Pink: It is a quilt/applique on canvas with real teaspoons filled with celebrity female faces. A commentary on the popular media and the unhealthy "food" they are feeding our souls. I also used bits of text from a cheap romance novel, satin, beading, lace, Barbie Doll clothes hangers and two bizarre pink potato peelers (I removed their blades and replaced it with beads from a hairband). There is not one single straight line, I wanted to emphasise CURVES - real women have CURVES and are round, soft and embracing. Here is a picture of myself at the DUCTAC Teachers' Exhibition held on 23 October 2007. One of the guests asked the hostess if they could meet the artist. In typical Hollywood comedy fashion, I was chewing on a dry little puff pastry when they approached me, lol. The lady wanted to talk about Tickled Pink and said it was a really striking piece of work, and that she wished she had space in her suitcase to take it back to the UK with her. All in all, it was a lovely evening and I received many compliments on my work.

Gorgeous chandeliers

Welcome to my blog! I hope you can keep up with my convoluted meanderings. I don't always ramble on about strange and unrelated stuff, but mostly I do, lol. I love my new chandeliers my husband put up this weekend. There are 2 of them in the living room. First picture, light switched on, but it was too bright for my camera. Second picture, light switched off, with flash. They make the most beautiful shadows on the ceiling, lots of flourishes and crystal rainbow sparkles everywhere. We removed some of the little lights so that it isn't so bright, and now there are even more amazing shadows on the ceiling. Did I mention that I love my chandeliers?