Blue Hair!

I work in a school for my day job, so the rules on appearance are quite strict, but as I've always wanted to dye my hair a bright colour, I thought the summer holidays gave me a great opportunity to do it. I always wanted to dye it pink at uni, but for some reason the first time I dyed my hair any colour was after I'd left! Now I've had it red, blonde and blue! 

I used Directions Atlantic blue hair dye. Man it got everywhere though! The whole shower was blue, my face was blue my hands were blue! It will probably wash out quite quickly, but it is quite fun feeling like a cartoon character! I am a bit worried about the reaction I'll get, which is silly really, as it's just a colour, and what should be offensive about that? However, so far I've only had a positive response, even from older people. 

More brooch fun

The Shrink art bug has definitely got me! I have been working on a few more designs, and have lots of more ideas. I will have a brooch for every occasion, and I think my friends and family know what they will be getting for their birthday, christmas and any other occasion! haha. I will have to try making some other jewellery soon.

It's just really satisfying creating physical objects, as much of my work stays on a screen!

Three Bridges Gallery

 

I was involved in a really cool exhibition a few weekends ago. It was great because the artwork was shown under bridges along a stretch of canal on Barton. It was devised by a local designer Dan Poyner.   He came up with the idea several years ago while walking Rosie the dog, along the canal tow path. He found himself standing under one of the canal bridges, looking at the great expanse of concrete, and a little light bulb went off, and he thought, why not use these spaces to show art work?

He liked the idea that it created an ambient space to show art work, as you would get canal barges going past, cyclists, dog walkers and more. It sounded like a great idea to me, and I was really pleased to be asked to be involved.

With the weather being so lovely, I decided to show some nice sunny pieces!

A local High School- John Taylor- were asked to get involved. The top image, shows a close up of a piece created by year 6 students, in response to seeing images of the waterways.
The image above this shows a piece created by Eleanor Douglas, a year 13 student. It is a textile collage, reflecting her experiences of travelling. There was also some beautiful work by some year 12 students.

Burton based photographer, Philip Grocott, was also involved. His subjects range from portraits to landscape work. They form a great document of life in the Midlands.

It took a lot of hard work on Dan's behalf to get this project completed, I hope he can build on it in the future. It would be lovely to see art take over a bigger stretch of the canal.

Good post days!

We may live in an instant world, where most things are done online, but you still can't beat pen and paper and snail mail. Here are a few things that dropped through my post box over the last week that really made me smile.

 A card, little note and cute stamps from @letterloves on Instagram.  She is very passionate about snail mail, and asked people if they would like her to post out a card to them. The first few to respond were rewarded with a little envelope of happiness! :)

 An AMAZING squirrel money box that @ptitbento of sent me out of the kindness of his heart, after I commented on his picture on one on Instagram, to say I was in love with it! He sent this from France just because! Don't you just love Instagram!?

This shows the awesome bits and pieces that my wonderful friend Lizi sent me from Hong Kong, where she is teaching at the moment. She hardly ever gets a day off where she can go to the post office, so she had been saving me bits and pieces for a while. Kawaii stickers, tape, page markers, and pen... I'm in heaven! Now time to go and write a letter back!

Shrink Art- It's magic!

Over the past few months I have noticed loads of cool pieces of jewellery about, that have been made using shrink plastic. For a while I have wanted to have a go at making my own jewellery and this seemed like a great way of having a go. I bought some Shrinkle shrink plastic off ebay and got stuck in. Here's some photos of my first attempts.

This one was done using permanent fine liner and pencil crayon. It was really exciting watching it curl and shrink in the oven ( it just needs a few mins at gas mark 3) Me and my husband were riveted! Though it was a little nerve wracking, as it curls and twist a lot, before it settles back down again!

 However, it went a bit wrong when we sprayed some lacquer on it, as it made the ink run. :( hmmm probably should have checked that first!

Above is the second attempt! Again done using pencil crayon and permanent marker. I used a sharpie marker, but found this bleed very slightly on the roughened surface of the plastic, though this wasn't really noticeable once it had shrunk. This time I used a different varnish on it, and yay, no bleeding!

 Sketch time, there was always going to be a squirrel! :D

Painted with a thin layer of acrylic paint

This was the last one I made, and I am really happy with this. This one was done using acrylic paint You can see how concentrated the colour gets after shrinking. So remember less is best when adding the colour!

You will definitely be seeing more of this guys! :)