Mess, Muddle and Materials - Monet Water Lilies, Year 2, Earl Spencer Primary School

We looked at Monet's painting and his garden,

talked about light and time, distance and focus.

We folded origami water lilies

I rolled blue watery backgrounds

each child drew a water lily and a leaf 

into press print and rolled their chosen colours.

We worked on A3 paper and made about 60 prints

and 30 folded flowers. It was a busy day!

A Glimpse of Colonize

You can see and read more about the exhibition here I am an unnamed guest but it's nice to see the work made in my garden hanging in Jamestown - many thanks to Wendy Williams for the photo.

Link to Private view video

Published on Apr 9, 2014

Colonize is new work from the SCIBase; a collaborative project between BasementArtsProject, Leeds and the SCI Collective based in the Northwest of England. 

Dykeman-Young Art Gallery
100 east 2nd Street
Jamestown , NY

Open through April 26

Link to Gallery of exhibiting artists

Playing Tag

 As  a treat after all the hard work entails in moving from my former studio to my new space at the bottom of my garden, I attended a wonderful workshop at Unit Twelve Gallery, 'Found Object Jewellery' lead by artist Lucie Elsie Harvey. The 'Found' exhibition featured some of her jewellery , but do check her website as she has been involved in projects which explore objects, especially those held  in a museum context, in unique ways. 

Lucy's work is wonderfully poetic and she was a totally inspiring tutor, the day left my mind whirring with possibilities for some of the other bits and pieces I have and would like to use, I also started thinking about new projects. 

Before the workshop we were encouraged to bring our own treasures and found objects and here are two brooches I made on the day incorporating some of the many hoarded objects in my possession ie:-

Mother of pearl Mahjong counters, an acorn that may have been part of a hat pin, a brass tassel, an amethyst bead, a jet bead, a glass bead.

As I love incorporating words in my work I really enjoyed using the copper tags and letter punches available during the workshop day.

Once back home and installed in my work space, I was lucky enough to receive a set of punches and a tiny anvil as a gift and I've been making a new set of multiples which I hope to make available very soon. 

Medalling with words

Playing Tag

I have decided that since my relocation, I'm now a Shednologist and am finding this new / old space is quite a good place to work. I need to get the power situation sorted as the light days are fast disappearing - I'd love to be "off grid" practicing "bespoke up-cycling" like Kevin McCloud but at the moment I'm just about "on extension lead". I'm sharing the space with spiders-to-be and earwigs, but have had the pleasure of viewing my garden and watching the many Dragonflies dart past the windows. I'm busy working towards end events for two collaborative projects, some making has happened in the shed, as well as plenty of PPD - Plotting. Planning. Dreaming.