From Photos To Cushions Tutorial

I have a new toy... and I think it might be my most favorite of the year so far

Its a jar of 'Gel Medium'..Im sure all my next posts will be filled with experiments of artistsic pleasure with the odd disaster thrown in!

So here today Im goimg to show you how to use it for basic white fabric pictures.  You can get this stuff anywhere they sell artists mediums, like if you were an oil painter it would be on the same shelves as you oil painting stuff somewhere!

You will need gel medium, fabric, paintbrush and I use a roller but your hand is fine...

First thing, select your photos and go photocopy them, you cant use inkjet printer prints with this stuff, it bleeds, so if you have a flash carbon printer your away, otherwise your like me and pop down to the shop and do it, I have blown my pictures up so they are A4.

Cut picture to size and paint with the medium, also paint the fabric with the medium too,,,if you dont the fabric can absorb the gel too fast and not take your picture with it.....

Put the picture face down and smooth flat, ahh I forgot, if you have writing it will have to be reversed as all the prints come out opposites of what the original picture is...

If I hold it up to the sun I can see my picture thru the material..Yay!

Ohh look I finally have a caterpillar on my swan plant, this will be a monarch butterfly xxx  eeehemmm!

and while Im playing Munchy has been to the chickens and returned with eggs to degorate with felts and stickers!  Yay!!  eeehhheemm!

Sorry, so much going on here..so when you have done all your pictures let them dry over night, or in the sun till they are bone dry...

Next day lay them on a surface like a bench or I use a glass chopping board, wet both sides, fabric and paper and rub your rag around until the paper starts to pull off and make little balls, if it takes too long just scrape your nails around on it to get it started....

and rub!!!!!  as in you will be rubbing for quite a while, these 4 pictures took me till 12 so about 1 hour each, but they were big.. So just keep rubbing till all the papers gone...

like so, but alas you feel you are there and your not because it will dry and look all ghosty because the paper is still there...

so you can see that I have rubbed the left completely but not the right, just keep goign, its worth it..

I had a constant rotation hanging drying by the fire...

After a week of hating the sight of them you will want to make something, so Im making cushions, I choose fabrics and ribbons...

Tropicana Duck Hunter!

Tuscan Fairy Chef...

and Frilly Girly Girl

Here are my finished cushions, very fast!...

You just cut a square and sew on the photo and because its fabric it sews beautifully, then go round and round with edgings and lace...The back is two bits of fabric overlapped, Im sure there is a name for it??

If you make all the ends eventuate in the same corner you dont even have to finish nicely, just let it all hang down and add a few bows, did I mention fast!!!

as in please dont look too close at my sewing fast!

I love this one, I dyed this silk back in 98...

this is my favorite edging, I use this olive stuff wherever I can!...its the best frame..

and this is my brothers daughter Lauren, I made this cushion with fabric that was our Nana's so thats her great Nana, hopefully she likes it when she gets it as a present today...

this frilly lace looks better in multiple layers of different colours...

and someone loves theyre new pillows, she treats them like little TV screens all lined up...

SO there you have project #1

If Im vague on anything or have rushed the tutorial please ask questions!!

have a wonderful day

xxx

Sheree

Painting My Emotions

In the middle of my trauma releasing chaos a few weeks ago I can home and painted this with my hands, its a meter tall and done on a cardboard box.  I dont think Ive really painted with my hands before but it was great.  Very emotional and a bit like a dream, you sort of stand back and feel like.."did I just do that"???

My pain was so raw, it almost looks like Im emerging from the fiery depths of hell! maybe I am!

Or maybe this is an angel who comes in my darkest hour to help me navigate my way thru, believe me I never have prayed so much in my life!

She seems to be blowing fairy dust in front of her all the way down to the sea, the deep swirling emotional sea..  this part disturbed me the most about this picture, wild un tameable seas with bits of red blood for the chuncks that my emotions have ripped from my heart, this needed healing, my emotions needed to be fixed in this picture just as they are being fixed in my body..

So I did some weaving over them, weaving prettyness and love, the blue vertical strings are still my memories but woven between them is something nice and wonderful and no longer pain, for what Im learning thru my TAT therapy is that you can still have memories you just need to release the emotion from them..

So all the emotional turmoil was woven over with my precious wools fabrics and ribbons...

now the painting is crawling towards warm and cosy..

with a dash of hell!!!

and that magic angel can sprinkle her dusty blessings on my new heart...xxx

I feel its a work in progress and as I reach new stages I will add more of whats going on.

and here are some pictures I did while I painted with my girl the other day, it rained all day so we painted for hours.  I put my two affirmations on these pictures.  this one says..

'I easily release that which I no longer need, the past is over and I am free"

I love doing aboriginal dot painting, its an amazing zone out, so funny because as soon as you try, you cant do it, you just have to drift and be taken on its journey..

This is my Eckhart Tolle affirmations, isnt he just amazing, more people need to be alerted to this mans teachings, if only we could get what he is trying to say, we may be able to save this world.

So not alot of art but alas ART!

'Healing Art'

xxx

Sheree

Jack Frost Is Here

I have had a lovely morning, feeling like a regular person, isnt it strange when your involved in illness to have a good day and they seem to be the days you dont trust.  Everyone says just enjoy it! yeah I am, but still there is that little rascal on my shoulder saying "are you sure this is a real thing, it could only be a few hours long?"

Bugger off shoulder rascal!

So my day starts with a little wonder ....

What in the world is this??.....

 

On my way back from feeding the ducks this morning I was stopped in my tracks by the most precious thing, so I had to run back 100 meters up the hill to the house to get my camera, I couldnt just walk by without sharing this with you.

A garden snow ball teetering on a stick.

Frozen in its beauty waiting for the sun to come and free it from the ice queens spell she cast during the night. 

Strange that sounds like the story Im about to tell!!

anyway I thought this was beautiful xxx

Here is my current state, check out those black eyes below, my doodles were not lying.

We are now going for a thing called "Freeze" its when you are a non fighter/flighter and just passively go thru traumas/dramas, never fighting back and just storing all that energy in your body. Its like a post traumatic stress syndrome, you eventually get so full,  you topple over the edge into what seems like insanity! YAY! so we are filtering out all the gunk and finding a few recuring patterns along the way.  Its really working, Therapy is great, Im using a technique called "TAT", very cool.

In 2 weeks I go for my past life regression to see if Im bringing any of this thru from other life times, I will be sure to tell you all about who I was, how fascinating.

Meanwhile while I have had my eyes shut over the last month and a bit, someone has become rather rascally indeed, look at this tongue....

Today we had to tag the cows, so off down to the 5000 year old 'am I still really standing' stock yards, we need to ear tag all the new baby calves.  Nana and Grandad came to help us...

Poor little guy has no idea what hes about to get into awww, lucky this one is a girl, the boys get rings  OOwwchie!  and no thats not nose rings!

Indi was very busy, she had to keep the mummy cows occupied by feeding the hay thru the fence, she takes her jobs so seriously, even bossing me around when I was putting it in the wrong pile. Sheesh mothers, we have no idea!...

Come on!!!!!!! great grandad would be so proud of my cow calling, where are all my customers??

Thats better, right back to work!

And of course because I had opened the barn to give out hay, who could resist a Sepia Hay Stack Photo Shoot?? could you???

Yay!!! god I love being a farm girl!  Yeeeee Haaaaa!

Hope everyone is taking care in these wild astological times, and summer in 2 weeks for some, how exciting!

I will put up an art post tomorrow with some paintings that have helped me on this journey.

Love and Light to all

xxx

Sheree