Finished!!!

Yay!! I have finally finished putting up this exhibition!! Thank goodness for that! Took ages to put it all together and I kept running out of things like wallpaper which was incredibly annoying- here is a brief flick through of how it all went up!

 (Painted white)                                            (Half wallpapered)

                         (Completely wallpapered)                                    (Painted green)

(Darker green drips flicked on)

There were a few difficulties when wallpapering as in the left hand corner are two little blocks sticking out which had to be individually papered and then cut round with the long sheet of paper- took ages and lots of beating the paper to get it to go right. Then there is the hole for the light switch access which had to be wallpapered around as well!

I did have it all up on Thursday but I really hated it! It looked awful in my opinion! Here is what it looked like then:

 

I didn't like the placement of the 'curtain' which was originally much taller until I started attacking it to get nice loops and textures. Also the string holding up the vines was not very aesthetic. Added to that I wasn't sure about the colour of the walls and the fact that the rug is much shallower than the size of the box!

Still, all was not lost as the next day the string collapsed and it all fell down. Instead, I have individually stapled each vine to the ceiling, moved the 'curtain' backwards so that it is in line with the rug- making the jungle appear bigger somehow- the curtain has also been stapled to the ceiling so that it is no longer hanging in mid air, and it is all looking much better! Here are a few shots of the finished installation!

 

Time Spent Weaving

I got quite a surprise this morning when the post dropped through the letterbox, two sets of ATC returns in one envelope!! Very exciting. This time they were the 'Time' and 'Weaving' ATCs.

Time:

(By Bobbie)

 (By Alison)                                                (By Anne)

Weaving:

(By Bobbie) 

(By Susan)

(By Wendy)

An Ever Growing Jungle

Nearing the end of my FMP now- the walls are up, painted and pristine. The floors have been meticulously and back breakingly scrubbed- well in the room I was doing anyway, other rooms were allowed to just simply repaint (totally unfair!). I have my little three sided box with a roof and tomorrow I am going in to wallpaper and then repaint it green.
In the meantime, I have been hanging my vines from trees again and forcing my brother to look interested in it all. He did say some very nice things about it afterwards though, about how it 'transported him to another world, a jungley world' and how he 'felt he had to touch and explore, moving and looking at things.' He can sounds quite pompous at times, must be all the films he watches...

I think I prefer the black and white photograph of these vines, it makes you focus more on the shapes rather than the colours, and make the vines fit in more with the natural surroundings. They look almost like hanging roots dripping down the photo.

Again the black and white photo looks much better and more natural without the almost garish pink colours to distract.

 

My brother before he started getting serious and poetical...



It's In The Bag (& Other Random Bits!)

So I'm sort of on an unofficial study leave now- they've taken away my desk and turned the room into a fabulous exhibition space...sort of. Today I have to go in and tape it all up, whatever that means, and then tomorrow we are painting it all white. The only issue I have with this, is I want my space green and I'm not sure if I can just paint the walls green or if I have to buy wallpaper and paint that.
Anyway, it means I've had to bring all my stuff home- no mean feat when your on the bus, carrying this:

Bits of waxed vine trailing everywhere, tripping people up etc. Although I did pity the man who was carrying four planks of wood on the bus- he got off in the middle of nowhere as well so I don't know what he was doing with them...
The Mother is hating having all this stuff lying around the house. If I took a photo of each downstairs room in the house there will be several bags, boxes, folders, piles of my art stuff blocking up the space. Still, as there is nowhere else to put it, it will have to stay there until someone buys me a shed to put it all in!!!

I'm feeling really nervous about putting up this installation. I mean, I haven't seen it all together, all hung up before as the space I was working in wasn't the space I'm going to have to exhibit it in- plus I hadn't finished it all by the time I had to take it down. But I don't know if I have got enough vines, whether they will hang well, if they will hang at all, how long they are etc. For me, there are just too many unknowns but all my friends say that it will work out so I will just have to trust them I think. It is hard getting the attention of the technicians or the teachers though as they are all so busy setting up the spaces or helping the fashion lot make complex outfits with bizarre pattern pieces and hidden messages.

So for now I'm just waiting for my space to be built and then I can crack on and get it all up and analyse it from various angles....what shall I do whilst I wait?!

I have just joined up for several more ATC swaps so once I have done them I can bore you with more photos of little cards. I am currently working on an embroidered Alphabet card with 'G is for Garden' on it. I'm going to do another one called 'H is for Home' and then it will be like Home and Garden...see?? No?? Never mind.

We've had a little visitor to our garden recently as well, he very obligingly posed for me whilst I took photos, although I think I may have blinded him more that he was already- the flash on my camera certainly blinded me! I had white squares in my eyes for ages after wards. Anyway, meet Hodgeheg the Hedgehog!

Time Flies

It has been a very busy few months lately what with my Final Major Project and a rush of ATCs to complete and send off. So these possibly aren't as detailed as my other cards, and my Mum doesn't really approve but as I still have another set to make and send off this month I can't devote any more time to them.
Incidentally, the theme for them is 'Time'.

Waxing The Jungle

I haven't said much lately about my FMP so I thought I would let you know how it is coming along. I am in the final few weeks!!! My studio has been taken away and turned into an exhibition space so at the end of the week I have to go and do a load of taping and painting to make it look beautiful. I spent all of yesterday knitting like crazy- volunteers are welcome...I'm knitting my fingers to stumps!!!
Anyway, in the last week of studio time I was waxing lots of my knits to give them unusual textures and shapes, only issue is, it makes them a lot thinner so in my opinion I need more of them!!!

 

They do look less woolly though which is fantastic!

I have also been thinking about backgrounds for my jungle. The space I have consists of three walls set in a partial box shape. These will be painted white and then my jungle set within it so people can walk into it. The issue is the white walls which are just too clinical for my jungle. So I think I will buy some plain wallpaper and paint it- or maybe green paper and dribble paint over the top. Here are some of my experiments...

 

The coloured background does look better I think, and the walls don't really need texture as there will be lots inside the box to take in.

Alphabet C & D

My C & D Alphabet ATCs also came the other day, very exciting. These are really cute cards, lovely additions to my ever growing collection!

 (By Amanda)

(By Susan)

Made with Metal II

I got my Made with Metal ATC returns the other day. All gorgeous as usual!! Metal is such a lovely material to work with, and again there is quite a bit of variety in the techniques and ideas.

 (By Liz)

                                                                       (By Pat)

(By Sue)

And Now For Something Completely Different...Or Not!

Ah the genius of Monty Python!!

Anyway, yes you probably guessed it...more ATCs! What a fantastic hobby, I seriously recommend it to any people of vague arty inclinations.

This time from Lorraine, and with a very original theme, no fish in sight!!

 

Only one more set to go and then I can swap them out!!

 

Spiky Glass Shibori

Very exciting at college today (well, an exciting moment in amongst the endless knitting!), I had knitted a square using wire, and yesterday it was put in the kiln with a sheet of glass on top! The glass obviously melted through the holes in the knitted and made really interesting shapes which do look a bit like shibori. Some of the spikes were so thin I had to snap them off or risk spiking someone as I walked past, they were also too delicate and kept waving precariously around.

It creates a lovely pattern if you hold it up to the light (this is looking at it from the other side)

Tangled Mermaids

Yet more ATC related post!!

Firstly my Mermaid returns:

(By Sue)

 

This is a very sweet card which opens out to reveal the mermaid underneath!! It's a bit of a palaver to get it out of the folder each time someone realises that it opens. Definitely worth it though! :D

(By Alison)

(By Susan)

And here we have some ATCs for the Tangled in a Fish Net swap I am hosting. These cards are from Marina:

 

They are all lovely- it's going to be so difficult to choose which ones I want to keep! Maybe I will just turn them over and randomly pick.