Textile Tour of Morocco

 Yes, I am actually going to Morocco! A friend mentioned that she had booked into the textile tour of Morocco that is being hosted by Gloria Loughman. I know Gloria because she lives in the same state as me and we go to the same quilt shows etc, but she is world famous and I love her quilts. Click on her name if you don't know Gloria Loughman's work.

Anyway, I am leaving for Morocco on Thursday and I am flying by myself! I fly to Dubai and then to Casablanca and then to Marrakesh, where I will be met by a guide who will take me to our first hotel. My friend is meeting me at Marrakesh because she is going to London first. 

I have been busy tying up loose ends and getting prepared.

I have been making another portrait quilt that features my grandson, Jack.

I managed to get the top finished and basted it yesterday, so it is ready for me to quilt when I get back.

I am still doing the art course on-line with Laura Horn. She's a lovely young artist from South Australia. I follow along with the lessons but it's quite time consuming learning a new craft. I hope to apply my new skills to art quilts. In fact, I have decided to spend the Christmas holidays doing fabric surface design. But I have had that goal for the last couple of years and didn't get around to it. We'll see, I just might do it this year.

Last month, we had to make abstract marks onto watercolour paper and then cut it up and try and resolve the compositions. I hated mine and they sat in a pile for a couple of weeks. Finally, I thought I might start trying to draw on them and see what happened.

I ended up enjoying it and liked the end result. I haven't got a photo of what they looked like before I started decorating them because they looked so bad to me, it didn't occur to take a photo. I used posca pens for the mark making.

Next time you hear from me, I'll be back from Morocco, I'll be gone for two and a half weeks.

Bye for now,

Linda

Playing with paint and Collage

 The time is flying by and although I am busy all the time, it's hard to remember what I have been doing. I might have to start keeping a record or a diary!

I have recently finished an improv quilt but it cannot be revealed yet, but here is me putting on the binding. Although binding is not my favourite part of making a quilt, at least it means that it is nearly finished.

I have also been playing around with collage, paint and paper. I really enjoy it and hope that I will eventually do something that I love. At the moment I am allowing myself to experiment.

I bought an online class (actually I have bought a lot of online classes during and since lockdowns) with a French artist named Laly Mille. The class is called Soulful Abstracts and she asked us lots of questions about the things we like and we had to quickly answer them and then find a picture on Pinterest that looks like the answer to each question. We weren't supposed to take much time, just go quickly and then take a screen shot of the pictures that we collected.

I was so surprised to see them and how the colours went together. Apparently that is a colour palette that we should try and work with. I printed out the photos and pasted them into my sketchbook.

I was shocked to see all those blues, dark pinks and golds. Then I remembered a photo that I took a few months ago of a scene from a TV show because I liked the colours and it happened to be the same colours.

The next step was to just paint a page of those colours.

Now I have  to try and use those colours and prompts from the photos to see what happens. I still haven't done that, it's on my do-do list.

I did do some little abstracts using some other colours.

I wasn't that happy, so I added some mark making and I liked them better.

I hope I will be able to translate these ideas to fabric eventually.

One of my daughters wanted to make some cushions for her new house, so she asked me to teach her how to make them. We had a lovely afternoon making them. She sent me a photo with my granddaughter Anna admiring them.

The world has had the sad news of Queen Elizabeth passing away, I feel a bit flat and sad about it. I remember lining up in the city to see her drive by on one of her visits to Melbourne. I think it was in the 1970's.

Bye for now,

Linda

Back to Nature

 Our theme for the year at the Waverley Art Quilters is Back to Nature. After a few years of contemporary and abstract work, it is really nice to go back to nature. Everyone else in the group feels the same. Maybe after what we have been through in the last couple of years, it feels right to connect with nature again.

I started a new sketchbook and try to draw regularly.

Our first topic was flowers and the the following month was leaves.

Last Month our topic was Seed pods. I have a collection of seed pods because I have always loved them. Here is a photo of a few in my collection.

I enjoyed drawing them, it is hard to photograph the book though, the pages won't stay open.

I finally came up with the idea of holding the pages back with a clip, it made it a bit easier to photograph.

I wonder if this work will eventually translate into any quilts. Our next topic is Feathers.

Bye for now,

Linda

Permission to Play

 I signed up for a 12 month on-line Art course with an Australian artist named Laura Horn. I think I must have seen Laura's art in Instagram and liked her style and when she advertised her new course, I signed up.

I am not expecting to become a painter and I already have so much to do but I did feel ready for a challenge. The last couple of years have sort of taken a toll on me and I felt a bit burnt out and needed something fresh and new to inspire me.

The first month was called Permission to Play. I got out my paints and practiced some mark making and did some acrylic painting.

Then I decided to make paint swatches of my paints, so I knew what they actually were. It was time consuming but fun.

Because I went away for 2 weeks, that is all I managed to get done in month one. I am being very kind to myself and realise that I am a beginner to all this and do not expect to make any masterpieces. I hope that I can stay in that frame of mind.

Month 2 has just started and we are playing around with watercolour paints, water soluble crayons and Inktense pencils. I am enjoying myself.

I am also busy receiving entries for the Victorian Quilters Showcase and organising a quilt exhibition for Kyabram in June and July. Lots to do.

I posted my quilt Melbourne Malaise off to SAQA in the USA this week. It will tour around with the SAQA Haven exhibition to various locations for 2 or 3 years. I wonder if we will have forgotten all about Covid when I see this quilt again.

Melbourne Malaise by Linda Steele

Bye for now,

Linda