More than just the beginning of a new series...

Tomorrow brings Series 3 to a close with the final reveal day on work inspired by artists.  I thank everyone for coming up with some wonderful artists and such a variety.  It has been enlightening to be introduced to so many new names and their work.

But it is with sadness that we say goodbye to Helena who has been with us from Day 1.  Helena is about to start on a new and exciting phase in her life with a solo gallery exhibition next year.  Her work has been inspired and I have looked forward every reveal day to see what she has come up with.  I will miss her but she has promised to stay in touch and keep an eye on what we get up to.

Apart from everything else in her life she is about to embark on an intensive yoga training course.  Best wishes for the future, Helena.  Thank you for your friendship and support.

So, as one door closes another must open.  I am hoping to be able to introduce you all to a new member soon - watch this space!

Hilary

Time To Talk.........inspired by the work of Derric van Rensberg

Imagine my surprise when Allison anounced that our next artist is Derric Van Rensberg. As a wonderful parting gift when I left South Africa 12 years ago I was gifted a painting by Derric which now hangs on my bedroom wall. It is so very special to me for a few reasons. The person who gave it to me is a very dear and sadly missed friend. I am welling up as I write..........
It is the view from my kitchen window - Bloubergstrand across to Table Mountain. I love it. The colours are softer, unlike his usual vibrant style but they capture my emotions and memories perfectly.

View of Table Mountain - Derric van Rensberg

My dear friend is also an artist and together we planned to each create a scene with the two of us walking into the distance among the spring flowers, out on the Westcoast.  She was going to create hers in oils and mine would be a textile piece. We intended call our dual pieces 'Time to Talk', which captured a precious time between friends with no distractions.   Unfortunately we never got around to it.

So for this final challenge in this series it was an easy choice for me. I have decided to finally create 'Time To Talk' using van Rensberg's work as my inspiration.

Farmscape - Derric van Rensberg

Time To Talk  Claire Passmore 2019

Hope you like it!

Just to let you all know that yesterday I  couriered back all the 'Blog It' quilts . Dianne will receive all the Canadian quilts , Hilary will receive all those from UK,Guernsey and SA and I have sent Venettas , Utas and Jinnies separately .
Thank you all once again for your enthusiastic participation which was much appreciated by the Symposium committee and the many viewers .
Rosemary

Hello again everyone ,
I have sent almost everyone images from the Blog It exhibition apart from a couple , the emails of whom Hilary will be sending through to me . Hope you all like the way it was set up .
One of the other exhibitions is called "HER Story" which is about ground breaking women from the past . Our fellow blogger, Claire has a piece in that exhibition and so I am sending through the image of Kate Sheppard which is Claires and then 2 others which caught my eye . The whole exhibition was wonderful . Rosemary

Hello everyone ,
The NZ Quilt Symposium is on and the blog exhibition is up and receiving many visitors and being much enjoyed by the many viewers. I will be showing  photos on the blog soon . So thanks everyone for making this possible .  Rosemary

Art by the Lake

I thought  I’d share a video of my show last weekend with the Lakeshore Artists. We exhibit twice a year, in the fall at this beautiful outdoor location, in the grounds of a local cultural centre. One-third of the proceeds goes to a local food bank. I am thrilled to report that I did very well, selling 7 pieces, including Fiesta, our latest 12btd, and the large blue circle you see in the video, Coral Reef. I am the only textile artist in the group of about 50 professional artists. 

 

This is my piece titled Vice Versa which I entered into the South African National Quilt Festival, held in Johannesburg last month. I was thrilled to win Best Interpretation of Theme, which was Interchange. This piece, with others, will be shown in Germany and also Ireland in the next few months. Enjoy. 

Andriacci inspired quilts

For once I think I'm glad, or maybe that should be relieved, that my sewing room is out of action. This round of quilts is amazing, the variety of interpretations and the standard of the work is wonderful, I'm not sure that I would have made the cut! I salute you all.

After five long months we are actually moving in two days time. Although not much smaller than our present house the bungalow we are moving to has a very different layout so I don't know how long it will be before I'm sewing properly again but I hope to pick up the group challenges again soon. I've no doubt that I won't have to wait as long as Mai-Britt did!

Hello everyone ,
My apologies for apparently not putting up my Andriacci piece by the 31st . My only excuse is that I have been travelling (US, SA and AUS )during the past 6 weeks and only arrived back in the early hours of 1st . September . However I thought I had scheduled it to appear on 31st August . It has not appeared !! Where it is in cyber space I have no idea ??? Anyway here goes:

ANDRIACCI appeals to me immensely as an artist because of his naive style but also because he makes his naive shapes more interesting by filling the primary shape with secondary shapes . In my quilting I do a lot of stylised flowers and so having zoomorphic symbols to deal with instead is a good challenge for me . I have done several Andriacci inspired quilts now and may do others in the future as the more you look at a work of his the more you see in it . I am really glad that most of you got some fun out of your beautiful interpretations . Here are mine :The Inspiration

My Frog

My latest piece done while visiting Patricia in SA where we had so much fun sewing together . I based this piece on Andriacci tree images which ,of course, are less structured than mine. I really loved doing this one . So much fun and bright colours.

Something Fishy

I found Fernando Andriacci's work a little bit to colourful for me, but I was happy to find his painting "Hidden Guys" which colours spoke to me. It's a funny painting, I keep finding more "guys" every time I look. 

This is my piece "Somthing Fishy" based on the right side of the painting.

I'm happy to have finished in time as I had several technical problems with my newly unpacked sewing machine (after a six month in hibernation), not to mention starting a "bit" late....... Next time - give my self more time. I'm ready for your challenge Allison. 

When the Crocodile eats the Moon

I was excited when I first saw the work of Fernando Andriacci but then I started to think about my piece and it suddenly seemed more challenging than I expected.  To the extent that I started using distraction tactics not to have to think about it.  I had to give myself permission to be as ridiculous as possible and to let my imagination run riot to get the ideas flowing.  What fun!

The title refers to the title of a book I have just read by Peter Godwin about life in Zimbabwe in the recent past (harrowing).  It is what the indigenous people say when there is a solar eclipse - a crocodile has eaten the sun!  I love that.

So my piece is an elephant which is my sewing machine with the LCD screen (and me!), knobs, thread, rotary cutter AND the crocodile eating the sun!

It is a wholecloth, painted and machine quilted.  I used a black laundry marker to draw the outline, then quilted the sandwich in those lines.  I have used Inktense pencils and blocks, ordinary artist's acrylic paints, Fabrico markers, Koh-I-Nohr paints and ink pad (to stamp) - and NO water.  It was all done with Aloe Vera gel and I didn't have a single bleed of colour anywhere.  I thoroughly recommend this idea.

This is the work of Andriacci that inspired my piece.  Thanks, Rosemary.  

Hilary

Dreaming of multicoloured mice

   I've already introduced our resident mouser JP. Although he is not our cat, he spends a lot of time in our garden, the attraction being the mice who live under our terrace . Other cats have always shown a passing interest in mouseville, but none have been as dedicated as JP. He spends hours lying in wait, and sometimes he is successful. When he is not mouse hunting, he sleeps on the terrace, or in the flower patch.

 . I liked Andriacci's paintings with the brightly coloured animals, si I decided to use JP as a model for my quilt and took several photos of him (from a distance). When I was designing my quilt, I tried to make the cat and the mice angular as in some of Andriacci's work, but they didn't look right, so I decided to keep them a little more rounded and realistic .  I quilted them first and then painted them with inktense blocks and pencils. I was pleased with the result once I finished the quilting, but was disappointed when I had finished colouring the quilt. I like the way JP has come out, but I'm not satisfied with my colour choices, finding the overall result not quite right. I think it's the background: it might have been better left in white.