Bookmaking in August

Thank you to Kerrie for a fantastic display and tutorial of her handmade books at the August meeting.

Following our ‘Messy Day’ on the 5th Saturday in July Kerrie constructed a concertina spine book and led us through the process step by step.

Pauline went home and made a book:

Gillian shared some of her books:

I also went straight home to make a book out of my papers and finished it on the weekend. My pages were a little loose so I made the holding tabs a little larger than the spine folds to keep them snug. The linen paper I used for the cover was perfect, I just folded it to size so it has a double up along the bottom and one end which has made it stronger:

And here are some teasers of books in process for our GeeTAG exhibition in March 2018 to celebrate 50 years of EGV Geelong Branch and ? years of GeeTAG (we are working out that one).

 

 

Endless Possibilities with paper

The 5th Saturday messy day at the Shearer’s Arms studio was a fantastic play day with Lyn Dixon exploring endless possible variations on her paper altering techniques. Lyn displayed a wonderful array of papers and a variety of books and 3D elements constructed with her beautiful papers.

Lyn Dixon paper based books and art

And everyone enjoyed the many different techniques and experimentation that eventuated:

Rubbings

Experiments

Texture and colour

Thank you Lyn and fellow experimenters for a great day.

Encaustic Demo’s

The meeting for June was investigating the effects of encaustic and beeswax and how this could be used in textiles. Carol showed an interesting way to transfer a colourful pattern of wax onto calico, Gillian set up a beeswax melting station for us to dip our various papers and Kerrie will add her wonderful thoughts and tips shortly. It will be interesting to see what turns up in future projects and book pages.

And Pauline’s experimentation:

And some lovely watercolours and stitching on paper:

Have fun experimenting with mark making on fabric for show & tell at our July meeting.

 

May is Stitching on Paper

Thank you to Gillian, Laurene and Jenny for sharing some inspiring samples of stitching on paper. Many members enjoyed making some fabric paper with a fabric base overlaid and layered with tissue papers and watered PVA. It will be interesting to see how they are stitched and utilised in future Textile art works.

A few photos from today:

Messy Saturday

Each 5th Saturday of the month our group rents a large studio space at Shearer’s Arms to do the messy work we cannot do in our normal meeting place. This month we had 5 mini workshops which kept us all extremely busy. Thank you to all those who brought along materials and demonstrated techniques this month-Gillian, Anne, Laurene, Carol and Jo.

First up we coated calico in flour paste and hung to dry, some dried in time to paint, others will have to be finished at home-they will make good show and tell for our May meeting.

Anne then demonstrated several printing techniques using lino cuts and carved meat trays. Many ways of printing were shared including Pauline’s 2 year old home-made gelli plate. We all had a go at carving a piece of polystyrene meat tray and experimented with various other printing methods.

Next up Laurene demonstrated a very cool technique with sharpies and methylated spirits on lace and fabric. On with more experimenting!

 

Carol brought her very large folder of wonderful stencils and demonstrated her technique with brusho powder paints and gelato pigment sticks over stencils. That technique kept everyone busy for a long time as well as borrowing some of her variety of stencil designs.

Last technique was traditional marbling using dyes on fabric. Most of the work here was in preparation of the fabric-washing, scouring and alum soak and the mixing of the carrageenan bath. The first couple of pulls were a little grainy but improved as everyone had a try (photos to come).

Hope to see everyone at our May meeting for stitching on paper.

 

Inventive Nuno felt

March was all about pushing the boundaries of nuno felt and initial experiments display great success with this technique. Martina, Carol and Bronwyn led an informative and inspiring tutorial with their fantastic samples and individual ‘on the spot’ tutoring. Thank you all.

Carol’s beautiful sample shawl

Samples including felting onto orange bag

Carol has used her own alpaca fibres in many of her samples, and displayed much creative variety in all her displayed nuno felt.

We were all impressed with Martina’s exploration of nuno felting roses:

Roses nuno felted onto fine white silk

And Pauline was on the ball as usual with a gorgeous finished sample:

We had a flock of birds joining us in preparation for our contribution to the Artisans of Geelong Exhibition in April. Kerrie presented some options for making 3D birds in our first meeting for 2017 in February and the members have responded with gusto- they are beautiful.

Some of the birds flocking together

And Gillian’s in progress:

Our next 2nd Saturday meeting will be a Stitch & Share, perhaps of any intentions for your yearly project leading to our solo GeeTAG exhibition in 2018. If there are any suggestions for the 5th Saturday at Shearer’s Arms in April please email. Ditto with any finished samples of nuno felt and they can be added to the blog.

Merry Christmas

The December meeting was all about the Christmas Party. This year we opted to have a shared lunch and a gift exchange. The theme for the exchange was the Twelve Days of Christmas. Each participant was to put together a parcel ready for the swap. The was a list to guide us in making our Twelve Days of Christmas Parcel. 12-days-of-textile-bits  To keep things fair each parcel was given a number and the participants a number with the proviso that if you somehow got your parcel it would be swapped. There was much fun and excitement as the gifts were distributed (Santa Kerrie) and opened.

There was some work shown but the general mood was to party, lovely food to eat and lighthearted banter as we got into the Christmas spirit.

I hope that members have had a happy start to the year and are thinking about if not already creating something with their parcel. It will be fun to see what has been created with the swap.