Awfully Big Art Adventure: April 2009

Saturday, 25 April 2009

HAVE YOU SPOTTED THE BIRD?

Some people are wondering where the bird is in Jaqi's photo....well it is there.
Can you spot it? (Its like one of those childrens puzzle books, LOL!!)

Friday, 24 April 2009

Welcome back everyone - and thanks again for your amazing support, suggestions and comments which we've taken on board. This month we have another guest challenger; our lovely friend Jaqi http://jaqi-scrapbookinginmysleep.blogspot.com/
Last week she emailed some wonderful old photos for me to look at which had been found recently in a garage. They are thought to have belonged to Jaqi's great grandfather who was a photographer. She thinks this is a photo of her great aunt Rosina who owned the local bakery in Boldon.
I suggested to Jaqi that this would make a great challenge.....to use this image in our artwork.

Jaqi has created a lovely 12"x 12" scrapbook layout.......

I made a transfer of the picture (using gel medium) on a 5"x 5" chunky canvas then collaged around it ....

.......and Rosie used the image to create a page for a little board book she's making (and made up a story around the picture - as Rosie loves to do!)

(To see more pictures of our work, please visit our individual blogs.)

Thanks to Jaqi for inspiring our challenge..........we hope you'll join in and have a go!

Copy the image to any size you like and make something in any medium that inspires you.

Can't wait to see the results....

Linda x

Friday, 17 April 2009

WELL THAT'S DECIDED THEN

Thank you for your brilliant response to the previous post! We were amazed and relieved to discover how many of you a) loved the blog and b) felt that weekly was actually a bit TOO often!! This takes a lot of pressure off us, and if we can also include guest designers as well this may solve our problem.

So we've decided that the Art Adventure continues and we will try it monthly for now and see how it goes. Since there's another monthly challenge blog that starts on the 1st of each month we thought ours should be at a different time, so we'll put one up next Friday and around about the 20th of the month thereafter ... or something like that.

Thank you so much for the support you've given us - we've loved it all but we now know what a huge commitment something like this is. We both hope that making these decisions will mean that we can go back to really enjoying it, and not feeling constantly under pressure.

We're always delighted to receive ideas for challenges - or links to something you've seen. Saves our poor menopausal brain cells from having to think up something original too!!

Friday, 10 April 2009

SORRY BUT ....

So sorry, but there won't be a challenge this week - the Easter holiday has caught up with both of us and we just haven't had time!! Perhaps if like us you have family visiting etc you wouldn't have time to do it either?

Our apologies for not saying this before - which if we'd thought it through we could have. We are both finding it quite a strain to keep coming up with interesting challenges, and may need to use this next week to make some decisions about the future.

Wishing you all a very happy holiday weekend.
Linda & Rosie

Thursday, 9 April 2009

Wow we had some lovely entries for the felt challenge this week! Joan's felt ATCs just made me smile SO much - aren't they great? See more here on her blog. Lay Hoon's cake tickled me too and what an inspiration, totally calorie free cake! I love the orange slice on the top. See more on her blog here.

And Lynn's beautiful felt hanging took my eye straightaway - don't you just love that flower? Have a look at her blog here.

We have an announcement for you tomorrow so watch this space please.

Friday, 3 April 2009

IT'S FUZZY - IT'S FELT!

Here's a new challenge for you - to making something using felt! This is such a versatile material - cheap and readily available in a wide range of colours, and you can stick it or sew it, so what's stopping you? Some of you may even be making your own felt - Linda's exploring this at the moment, but I'm still using the bought kind.

And you can see just how many different ways you can use it - the pincushions are made from a tutorial here and are made around a plastic bottle cap so they're tiny and make wonderful little presents. Then there's a flower brooch made using felt "beads", and Linda made me this little pink birdie as a present ....

This blue house hanging is lightly padded and appliqued with felt and buttons, with a hanging metal charm to finish it off.

Now I'm sure that you'll be showing us ideas and possibilities we'd never have thought of - which is what we love about doing this. But please nicely, if at all possible, we'd prefer it to be new original work and not just something you made ages ago which "fits". Anything else is outside the spirit of what we're trying to do here, which is explore new media, try new techniques and find out that we can do more than we ever dreamed we could!!