Phew, and it's only Thursday!

Hello my dear fellow Bloggers.
Thank you for all the lovely comments. I do love to get them.  I now do a lot of my communicating on Facebook, but blogging does give the opportunity for a more considered post. A month or so back, you may remember that I was bemoaning my lack of motivation and get up and go after finishing my C&G Creative Quilting in June.  Well I have to say I'm certainly back up to speed and I will try to pass on what is happening.
I decided to treat myself to a set of lights and a light cube to picture my work for me Etsy shop which is still sadly empty. On eBay I saw a seller who had a set up for auction twice a week.  After chickening out on three auctions, a went for it and bought this set, for considerable cheaper than anywhere else I could see.

 I am impressed with the quality, but it did take me twenty minutes of trying to refold the light cube. I had almost given up, but resorted to youTube where I found a useful video and had it folded in moments! I'm not taking it out again until I'm ready to use it!

The other thing I decided to do was to have my three poppy paintings, which are now hanging in the Red Dot gallery, printed onto cotton poplin. I had them blown up to 45cm square by Laura Kemshall at Fingerprint   Think I will have a go at quilting them and may be making cushion covers. Here they are hanging up sideways on the back of my door.

I have also started a couple more small paintings of another favourite subject of mine.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I spent a couple of wonderful days at Art Van Go with Angie Hughes Exploring Velvet.  Everyone produced the most magical pieces of work.

Here they are (above) at the end of the first day ready for a layer or organza and machine embroidery.

And here they are at the end of day two.

 Here is mine, I have started snipping away at the organza.

So today I could have worked on my velvet, set up a photography session, started quilting poppies or finishing off a painting.

But instead Mr T and I have just prepared our second batch of apple and plum chutney.  Might manage a bit of something creative this afternoon, but I should really cut the grass as the sun is shining.

Catch up again soon, hope you're having a great week too.

Jill

Catch up

I've just spent ages updating my Artist Network Bedfordshire page and getting things ready for the Red Dot Exhibition.

We are really hard pushed for gallery space in Luton. The Red Dot is a great spot, but it is rather hidden away at a local High School, so no passing trade. If anyone can make the PV please contact me first, but I know not many of you are local.

Meanwhile this is what I have been doing:

I have started my 5th September in my journal.

 These totes were created from plain bags from Hobbycraft decorated with transfers painted on to  Transfer Artist Paper. 

Unlike T-shirt transfer paper you can colour the TAP with all sorts of media. Here I drew on it with a Sharpie pen and coloured it with watercolour paint. I then cut the shapes out and ironed them on. I have some T-shirt transfer paper so I may experiment with painting on that too. Of course you can put both through your ink jet printer. You can use the TAP on all sorts of surfaces too. I bought it on-line.

These papers were created with wax resist, paints and foils.

One I have used to make a felt box topped with a purple poppy and one I've used to make cards.

Finally last weekend I just had to get out of the house so I went and sat on a fallen log on Sharpenhoe Clappers, the local high spot of the Chilterns.  There is a beautiful stand of beech trees on the top and I sat undisturbed and did a bit of sketching. The breeze in the leaves is nearly as soothing as listening to waves gently breaking.  I left feeling thoroughly restored and added some colour to my sketch at home.

Wouldn't want to sit up there today, it is cold and damp. However I am sure summer isn't done with us yet.

Whatever you're up to, enjoy yourself,

Jill