My bag tag

Wow. Took me 5 goes to get this to load onto the site...

 

After my workshop on the weekend I wanted to do something with some of the samples I made. Most of them are going into my sketchbook, but I really wanted to make myself a name tag! I finished my name tag yesterday so now when I go to textile groups people can finally start to learn my name. I also made a bag tag which I sandwiched between plastic. This is a technique that I haven't played with a lot yet, but which really appeals to me. A little hard to scan into the computer, however, because of the beads.

Time's a wastin'

I 've just realised that its less than two months until the Melville Art Awards. I told myself that I'd put an entry in this year, now that I know the competition exists. So I have to get cracking! I have a concept that I'm working on, but trying to make a decision about what techniques to use is proving difficult. Yesterday I created the background for my piece. A piece of handmade felt ~30cm x 45cm. The plan is to create a round disk that will be attached to the felt. My theme covers 'The tree of life' 'earth, fire, wind, and water' and somehow how these elements impact on us as Australians. Yeah, am I'm gonna communicate all of this in textiles... I was speaking to a well known, Perth textile artist on the weekend about communicating through art, and she agreed with me that the artist's intention doesn't have to be obvious in the finished product.

Success

The photos that I printed onto fabric turned out wonderfully. Really sharp images. I rinsed them in water and washing liquid and the image stayed. I guess I didn't really believe that the product would do what it promised - so many things you buy are disappointing like that. I made my first mini art quilt with one of the pages of images I printed. My aim is to make one quilt a month so that I can try out all those new techniques that I've read about but haven't tried yet. I think this will give me a good framework to play in. The quilt has images of Chuck Norris that I converted to solid black and white images. The chuck Norris theme is a little unfortunate, but a group of friends and I have been watching Chuck's repertoire and he's so bad he's almost good. So; "Tribute to Chuck"!

It's Official...

I got the letter in the mail today. So it's all happening. I've been playing around with some new techniques the last little while. Sometimes I feel like this is all I ever do. There's always new things I want to try - makes it hard to know where to start. Paintshop Pro and I are becoming fast friends. I've finally sussed out the settings I need for it to print really nice photos with my inkjet. I discovered the correlation between ppi (pixels per inch) on the computer and dpi (dots per inch) on the printer. If you want a good image then you need to set the resolution to at least 150 ppi if you have a 600dpi printer. Makes a world of difference. Still can't get image transfers 100% sorted. I will wait until Golden soft gel medium is available again and give that a go. Today I printed out some photos I took that I have manipulated. I have printed them onto fabric using Bubble jet set 2000. Now all that remains to be seen is whether the colour stays IN after I rinse the fabric.