6x4 lives!

 
And this is my first postcard for the "6x4 lives" challenge: Forest wetlands.

As I'm planning/hoping to "do" a monthly Journal quilt,I think I'll do both the A4 size and the 6x4 postcard formats,simultaneously;
and I'll endeavour to use the same theme and method for them in an effort to be more logical with my work.

That's the plan whether it works is another story!

By the way,this card was made using the same procedure as the quilt blogged earlier today. 

How I "did" it

Link
What can I say..........except it was trial and error.
I had an idea of what I wanted...........dead,dying red-gums in a wetland.

A piece of quilting fabric gave me the trunks .....with some fussy cutting;

I wanted a swampy,blue-green algae effect,so I shredded some dyed silk-tops,and added some (saved) thread and fibre off-cuts;

To keep the fibres and fabric in place,I placed black tulle over the fabric and fibres;
Added the other two layers of the quilt sandwich and using black embroidery threads machined the sandwich together.I tried to accent the tree shapes with some stitching shadowing the trunk and branch outlines,as well as just swirls of fog/mist.

So you could say the result was a mish-mash of shadow quilting and solvy type thread lace..without the solvy!

And if you can "see" what I've tried to portray............
I guess that I've succeeded.

It's not as easy as I thought...........

 
..trying to create an Art Journal quilt!

I committed to an Art quilt journal for 2006 with an online group,and this entails a minimum of 5 quilts in the year,but,hopefully,one a month.

As January is galloping to its conclusion I thought it was "time" to try some journalling.
My notes per se are sketchy,to say the least;so I thought I'd try the old cut & move method like the kids in pre-school....about my level too!

Comments in the press recently about releasing water from storage back into the Murray River is the theme I'm endeavouring to develop:
What the Murray wetlands are like now----dead trees,blue-green algae,the whole disaster.
Will LIFE wash back into this icon or will it improve,only in artworks?

This is my second attempt.....it's amazing what a difference a change of colour in the back ground makes.
The first time it was with an off-white background;maybe a streaky green might work. 

CQ Crazy: Post cards,ATCs and Journal quilts

CQ Crazy: Post cards,ATCs and Journal quilts

Post cards,ATCs and Journal quilts

">Link Have you ever noticed how Blogs tend to go in cycles?
Several groups I'm involved with are all venturing into
Art Quilts;
Journal quilts
Fibre ATCs(Artist Trading Cards for the uninitiated) and
Postcards (again fibre, or even mixed media)

and all of a sudden I find all these wonderful sites full of eye candy and stimulation for my creativity.
SharonB over on inaminuteago refers to a posting she did January last year on using fabric postcards http://inaminuteago.com/blog/index.php as a journal because they're small and an easily portable project.
Then another of my online friends suggested looking at Postmark'dArt
to view yet more;add to that Artistic Inspirations http://artisticinspirations.blogspot.com/
----
and you could spend your entire day trawling,admiring and doodling,and never put needle to fabric once!

You may have realised what I plan on doing the next couple of months........yes, mainly small stuff that hopefully I journal sufficiently to be able to refer back to at later dates

For Darilyn!

This post is for Darilyn and Tigger of Tropical Screamer &Tropical Dreamer
I always come away from my daily dose of TSTD feeling happy;but I'll never want cold pizza for breakfast D:Slices of paw-paw,mango, and stone fruit are more my style!

In the process of sorting through my (sane) quilting fabric stash yesterday,I was surprised at the number of Cat fabric FQs I've accumulated..........nearly enought to start a quilt!
And then today whilst checking out a couple of links I found a cat quilt where the cats bodies were pieced FANS.
For some reason I can't fathom mrFlickr doesn't want to communicate with MizBlog(read "me") so I include the link for you to enjoy

kurliskottage: Traffic alert!

kurliskottage: Traffic alert!