circles and Craft

I had fun in my reinvented room yesterday, printing and painting with acrylics. I set out to make a background for a piece I’m doing for the Embroiderers’ Guild Members’ Forum Summer Challenge – which is to make a small piece without fabric – anything else goes. Along with it we’re swapping ATCs along the same lines – I made mine already – my first(!) – but I can’t post a pic till after the swap next week. I love circles and using these sponge brushes from Art Van Go, so I got a bit carried away!

sponge brushes
printed, painted papers

The first piece is for the Summer Challenge.

sponge print

Then I discovered I could make some interesting swirly effects by twisting the sponge with different amounts of pressure, so I played around with that for a while. I don’t know yet if I can get this kind of effect on fabric.

sponge prints
sponge prints
sponge prints

Craft magazineLast week I was pleased to find a copy of Craft magazine in WH Smith in Kendal – I’ve been interested in this since the first issue came out but it’s quite expensive (£7.99) and I didn’t want to subscribe without seeing it. It’s full of articles about makers (I loved David Mach‘s Myslexic), and off-the-wall projects (some of these might adapt for my youth club craft session, where fast and funky always go down well). There’s a special feature on dressing up, a look at open source patterns and a whole lot about recycling and refashioning. At 176 pages with minimal advertising, it’s like a small book. I love it – I hope it’s come to the UK to stay.

space to work

The room I use for art was my daughter’s bedroom (and still is when she visits), as well as being our spare bedroom and a useful storage area. Until yesterday it was full of my stuff, her stuff, and various other sorts of stuff, including several piles of (full) removal boxes, which are useful because they stack up neatly, but very large, brown and overwhelming. I could fit in a table for working on, but I could only just squeeze round it, the floor was invisible, and most of the supplies I use were stored downstairs, or piled up on the bed in ever-growing layers as I moved from one thing to another. I’m pretty messy when I work anyway, and I was wasting so much time looking for things I lost under the piles that yesterday I decided enough was enough. Many hours and aching muscles later, I’d managed to get everything not related to art and craft (except the bed and the laundry hamper) put away into the loft or shut away in the big cupboard in the corner. I carried all my boxes of creative stuff upstairs and found a place for nearly all of them – a few had to go back, but everything I use regularly is up there now. And I commandeered a computer desk no one was using any more for the sewing machine – not perfect, but much much better than before. I can still move it to the table for big things but what a pleasure just to be able to sit down at it whenever I want. I’d love to do lots more to the room, but for now I’m just happy with the transformation. And now I’m actually looking forward to getting in there to work this afternoon…

(these link to photos on my Flickr site)

art room art room
sewing table art supplies