The theme for the March meeting was mark making in nature. Great fun was had by the group as we assembled with our pencils, inks, crayons, pastels and anything else that we could use to put a mark on our cloth. Nature turned on a glorious sunny day that perfect for a gentle stroll.
‘Rubbing’on the bark of the trees
A resting place to have a group conference and sharing the mark making of our walk.
Some of the work that was brought to the April meeting, all inspired by or referencing the walk along the river.
The theme for the GeeTAG group this year is earth. At a previous meeting members were shown how to create a simple flat doll shape and asked to bring them to the meeting ready to embellish or sculpt so as to create an Earth Goddess. As with many of our activities and projects there is often a bit of time between starting and finishing the project, however, hopefully there will finished dolls that appear throughout the year as show and tell.
These are simple dolls that started their life as flat ‘pancake or cookie cutter ‘ doll shapes. These dolls show a variety of ways to add limbs and sculpt to add further shape to the body.
Some simple sculpting to create a motherly pregnant shape for this earth mother, legs and arms made from wrapped wire.
In various stages of production
Meg hard at work
Hilary, a visitor, came along prepared with many dolls to work on.
This year we are having a year long activity that is focussed on collage, design and responding to a fortnightly prompt. The works can be glued into a book or made as postcards or maybe both for some.
This goddess didn’t get to the meeting.
And sometimes we get to see some spectacular work. Marina has been working on this during the Covid lockdown.
It was fitting that we were able to celebrate our last meeting for the you with the glamour of beads and buttons. Laurene brought along a selection of the the very textural pieces that were heavily encrusted with a fabulous selection of beads, buttons and deconstructed jewellery and then gave an explanation of how to construct the pieces.
The focus activity for the meeting was embossing into velvet. A little research showed a couple of different techniques that required minimal products and equipment and would be simple to do.
A simple process of using a rubber stamp, placing the velvet right side onto the stamp, misting the back of the fabric with water and then pressing with a hot iron.
The stamps, open designs worked the best.
The next technique was to use Lumiere paint and acrylic paint on the stamp
Not as successful but possibly due to poor technique, more investigation and experimentation required.
Embossed velvet made into a small pouch for an amulet or talisman.
Sneak peek of the group entry for the upcoming exhibition, responding to 2020 lockdown stimulus – Covid.
What a fabulous time we had in this mini workshop with Gillian. Using the concept of a garden as a starting point and restricting our palette to a range of black and white media we spent the afternoon creating a variety of marks on paper. The next step is to investigate how these methods could adapted to fabric and stitch.
Gillian beginning her demonstration
And then to work
More Wild Gardens
Some show and tell from Claire
Robyn sent in some photos of projects that she has been working on
Our first workshop together for nearly a year. The technique of making Faux Leather from brown paper bags.
Demonstrated by Jo and Carol.
Then the group was into it
The resulting ‘leather’ can be used in much the same way as fabric and for a variety of applications. The theme for the month was brooches, however, it is great for book covers and other jewellery.
For inspiration, show and tell. It is always good to see what the group has been working on.
A snap lockdown and the plans for our first meeting were in disarray. Jo, keen to get us started, organised an emergency meeting via Zoom. So there we were, zooming away, introducing ourselves to new members, planning a slightly revised program for the coming year and even some show and tell.
An album cover and Covid piece from Carol
Artists Trading Cards and swap from Sandra
Free machine embroidery, fabric collage and paper collage from Kerrie
Covid restrictions relaxed and the group could finally meet. A small group were able to catch up at short notice for a shared lunch and a mini workshop – Paper Stars.
Some show and tell to round out the afternoon. A fabulous collection of pieces from Rhonda and Carol
Recycled denim jeans make great bags
Bags and pouches
From Jenny T
Lampshades
Machine embroidery on Geo textile
On velour
Layered sheers
On paper and framed
More stitching on paper and ready for framing
A selection of artist’s book and hand embroidery on tea towels and a journal cover from Kerrie.
Here in Victoria we are still restricted in meeting due to Covid-19. Our April meeting was Easter Saturday and a complete shut down so wasn’t held at all. For May our program was a ‘making cords’ round robin. The three cord techniques we were going to demonstrate and try were a braided cord using a recycled cardboard circle, a twisted cord made on the sewing machine using the bobbin winder and Effie Mitrofanis’ lovely wrapped cords from her book Threadwork.
The details all went out tour members to try at home. Thank you to Robyn for sending through photos and descriptions of her bobbin twisted cords.
1. Three sewing threads 2. Hand dyed silk ribbons. 3. 12 strand variegated silk thread, silver metallic thread, cotton and metal thread. 4. Gold and bronze braids with string.
And these are some of my braided cords:
And one of my ‘Effie’ wrapped cords. I must do more of these as they are very therapeutic. Effie has lots of possible combos and examples in her book to try.
We are waiting to see if we can meet together rather than apart for our June meeting on the 13th.
Thank you to Gillian and Carol for inspiring us with their fabric paper examples for our March meeting. We had a wonderfully relaxing and productive afternoon chatting and collaging a variety of paper and other items onto fabric to create pieces of fabric paper for further embellishment. Hopefully we will see these made into a variety of possibilities including these wonderful hanging birds:
Paper cloth birds
The application of this one simple techniques resulted in great diversity. Meg’s piece showing a progression as more strips were added.
Jenny created two quite different pieces.
Laurene’s variety of different items -top and Rhonda’s retro pirates and mermaids -below:
Gillian in progress -top and completed -bottom with the dark shadowing giving great effect.
Carol displaying her great compositional skills
Gail – top and Gillian – bottom using bright colour combos
And my quite subtle combos using a variety of tissue papers, teabags and dyed silk rod (requiring some more embellishment -possibly printing.)
Our group will be participating in the group challenge for our Embroiderer’s Guild exhibition in September. The theme for the challenge is “Something in the air”. For this we are creating LP or EP record covers of songs that reflect the theme. Below are some of the interpretations: Carol’s Space Oddity and Laurene’s Somewhere over the rainbow.
Record covers
Last month wings were made and today they reappeared as winged creatures:
Winged creaturesWinged
Some of Laurene’s book pages from her wonderful textile books:
Bookmaking
We now have a break for Easter Saturday and will be back in May for a cord making round robin.
Geelong Creative Fibre Arts 