Mixed Media playtime................

Hello all,

I have finished my blue JQ's, (can't believe this project has finished and a year has gone by) and posted them on the contemporary site. Before I post them here, I thought I would show you a few pages from the little stitched book I've been working in for all my JQ's. Blue being my favourite colour I had to do it justice and took a while pondering what to work on. In the end I decided to work from my photos of agapanthus, which come in many shades of blue.
So, it was a case of gathering everything blue together and getting stuck in, don't you just love it when being creative means you get to make a mess, dive in and play..............

Spiral of ransom letters spelling 'blue' and mixed media framed strips

Adding a wash over the ransom letters

Reference to agapanthus, torn photo and fabric strips

Mixed media collage and gel medium transfer

Mixed media weave

Some of these pages are not finished and will be worked into further.

I liked the mixed media collage and decided that was the way to go with my JQ's. I had some lovely spent A4 Transfer Dye papers, that were the perfect candidates for this project and already the right size.

You've probably realised by now that Carolyn and I like to change the surface of fabric and paper whenever possible, to that end I used wax pastel to do a  rubbing over lace and painted lace to use as a print, all adding more texture and layers to dyed fabric and transfer papers.
I also like the gel transfer, the edges have a nice distressed look, so I used that method onto rusted fabric as my feature photo of agapanthus, then built up around them with a varity of mixed media, which included.....painted bondaweb release papers, hand dyed scrim, silk rods, indigo dyed fabric, torn transfer paper, torn hand written paper with reference to agapanthus. They are all backed with cotton wadding, tea dyed fabric and free machine quilted. I then embellished where needed, with fly stitch, cross stitch and hand quilting. The edges are satin stitched and painted, so here they are.........

Agapanthus Blooming

Agapanthus Garden

Agapanthus at Sea

Agapanthus Dreaming

So there we are, all twelve JQ's done and dusted, I've enjoyed making them and the extra sketch book work has got me wanting to continue 'playing'................
Hope its inspired you to make a mess and get creative!
Back soon
Sue