Vintage Book Covers and Collage

Finished another Multi Layered Collage.

Salute to the Seaside

A small series of old book covers with a little collage added to make a new story.

 

 Duckworth watching Hillare Compose Poems

Duckworth was the publishers name and Hillare Belloc wrote the poems. The little pixie writing was just the right thing. 

Hovis is Good for You

The marbled book paper looked like a close up of bread, well to me it did! Hovis adverts always had a family or children in them.

 

Towering Wonders?

The Wembley Tower was a bit of a failure as it was demolished after a few years.

On the Tewksbury Road

The poem is called Tewksbury Road and was in the book of poetry. So I found another really great picture to go with that theme. The map has the town of Tewksbury on it.

These are great fun as I have to spend my time reading children's books and poetry.

Multi Layered Collage Work

Here's how I start my multi layered collage pictures.

Always I have bits left over from other collages or mixed media work using paper. So I decided after the studio clear up that I have to make an effort to use these leftovers up.

I took a sheet of A2 cartridge paper, heavy texture medium, to use as the glue and the box of bits and pieces.

Here are the results.

 Victorian adverts and front header of a newspaper.

 French fashion plates, more Victorian newspapers items and sheet music.

 1950 knitting booklet and some Edwardian babies.

Here's what they might look like in a multi aperture mount. I'm going to call this series Fragments.

 Its quite fun when you get a pair of eyes peeking out of a narrow aperture as in row 2 column 1. If you are not happy with your collage just keep adding bits until you get what you want. You can buy multi aperture mounts for photographs. The ones I have were from another arty friend who could not think what to do with them.

I often paint these using acrylic paint and glazing medium. Then drag a notched piece of plastic over to make a pattern. Have a look at my previous post for examples. I also add images from children's picture books or annuals. These little characters interact with the background figures.

These examples are not finished yet I have to play around some more. That's why I love my art you get to play!

Now I'm off to Handmade Harbour to visit some other talented bloggers blogs.

New Collages and More

 You can't keep an art brain quiet for long. 

Collage on an 8 x 10 mount board, which was a horrible salmon colour. Adverts from a French Magazine, Male image from 1954 Film Star Annual, words and lady from the front of the sheet music for the song.

 Book cover collage on same 8 x 10 mount board. London Illustrated News original page, with school lines written by hand, remember those? Hand coloured pictures from within the book, raised on paper rolls to give some depth.

 Collaged background, glazed with acrylic and glazing medium. Images from a Mabel Lucie Atwell Annual. Some hand coloured by me, some by a previous owner and some were colour printed. 14 x 10 mount.

 Collaged images from many sources. Glazed with acrylic paint and glazing medium, scraped with serrated plastic. Hand written words in white and black. Gold detail on the kingfishers. Brer Rabbit and friends are giving a bit of Sales Patter to the collaged folk. 20 x 16 multi apperture mount.

Close up so you can get a bit more detail. Hard sell to the kingfishers.

Lots more art done, but still on the laptop and bless its ancient and so slow! 

I've re-vamped the art room, moved all the fabric into a double wardrobe and set the garage up for messy art. Its really great to have a clear out and move round. You find stuff you had forgotten and it gets your mind seeing things anew. I will take some pictures soon.

Hope all my lovely followers are well. Looking forward to your comments. My friend Val is coming round on Saturday and I bet she comments on the lack of boxes and the fact that she can sit on the sofas!

Molly has a New Pal on the block

Well there is now a little Molly on our block! Yes the neighbours have called their new Jack Russel puppy Molly. So now when I call two dogs come running.

Little Molly popped over yesterday.

  Big Molly and I came out of the gate real early for our walk and there was Lillte Molly. So we could not leave her so she came for a walk with us. I was a bit worried she might run off, but Big Molly kept her up to speed on the "come back when Mummy calls" thing. So I just wolf whistled and back they came. Amazing!

Here they are still running around after an hour! I am exhausted just looking at this. Big Molly is now 11 how on earth she kept up I don't know. I only managed to get them in frame on these two shots. They whizzed around so fast by the time I had snapped and the camera worked they were off somewhere else.

On the arty front, lots of background stuff going on here. I'm still clearing the barn, setting up messy art studio in the garage, emptying and re-vamping my small bedroom studio, turning the greenhouse into a sun lounge for the cloudy and wet days, weeding and mowing in the garden. Even sorting quite a lot of stuff for resale or dump. Working on making some fabulous paper for use in a new project. Oh and I got the camera to talk to the laptop, but only a very basic photo program.

It does you good to have a complete clear out. My brain was frazzled by so much so this is great therapy.

Now I have to go mend the lap top, the letter J has just up and flown across the table. Please pray the lap top does not break.

Love you all. 

x Joan and Molly.

Gremlins in the House

Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darlings

Please!

Yet again I have managed to wipe out the main PC. Worse the darling son - he who fixes the PC is going on holiday - so it will be a long wait. Harumph, grumble, grumble.

Trusty lap top of ancient years has been pressed into service yet again. This time I hope it talks nicely to the printer. Also I am going to dare to try and load the camera software. Hope you all have your finger crossed for me?

OK enough, there will be lots of catching up when all is fixed.

Many xxx's

Joan & Molly - she is unimpressed with me :-)

Apple Applique

This was the last lesson that we did at the weekly sewing class.

Simple Apple Applique. Big scary step for all my beginner sewing ladies - Free Style Machine Embroidery.

An Apple

A day

Keeps

The Doctor

Away

These were my samples, using a variety of apple coloured fabrics. Top three are finished, bottom three need their little stalks. I love the one that shows the inside. Next time I might try an apple core as well. This will be a cushion front.

The lovely pattern is from Bustle & Sew here you will find sewing, embroidery and more free patterns from the lovely Helen. Please do pop along and have a look, you will be amazed.

Pleased to say all my ladies stitched their own apples. Julia brought along a vintage Singer 15 hand sewing machine and we discovered that you can even do machine embroidery with that!

Now off to collect art that has been in various exhibitions, my lounge was just beginning to clear as well.

A little Birdie Retrospective

Love the Bird theme from Inspiration Avenue this week.

These are a little birdie pictures a retrospective fly past from last May.

Made from various papers and vintage book pages.

Or with sheet music. Buttons or sequins for eyes.

Words were printed on the computer but using blank pages from  vintage books.

I really enjoyed sewing these on the machine. All fit a 8 x 6 mount and then a 10 x 12 frame.

Now why not fly on over to Inspiration Avenue Weekly Challenge and see what the other talented artists have been up to.