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! :)

Drawings and paintings :)

Just a couple of pictures of artwork I have done this week

This one I just did for myself, it was an image that had been going around in my head for a while, and I needed to get it into paper. It's just pencil on cartridge paper.

This chap, if you haven't already guesses, is Boris the miniature Schnauzer! Someone on instagram saw my painting of a sausage dog called Percy, and wanted one of their pooch. This was a nice fun one to do. It is done in watercolour and fine liners on watercolour paper.

Shirt dress

I am trying to get a bit better at my seamstress skills (very slowly!). My sister in law, is an absolute whizz at it, and makes absolutely gorgeous outfits. My dreams are not quite that ambitious, so I am starting by customising and altering clothes.

I decided to have a go at making one of my husband's shirts, that was too big for him, into a dress. The pattern was just too cute to not have a go at doing something with it!

I cut off the sleeves, and nipped it in a little round the sleeve holes that were left. I considered having a go at putting some darts in it, but decided just sticking a belt round the middle of it was a much easier way of adding some shape (hehe big lazy cheat) ! I also added a couple of vintage buttons to the collar. It looks pretty sweet. Although, it is only just long enough to be a dress on me, and i'm a short arse!

Recent work

A commission completed for someone's wife for their anniversary, based on a few of her favourite things.

A painting for a first birthday and christening

A cross stitch portrait for someone's Birthday

I took my work into the camper van, so I had a nice little outdoor studio.

Winston came to keep me company! :)

A busy week off

So speaking of my busy week off, this is what I got up to:

A photo shoot on this beautiful split screen camper for Air Monkeys Magazine, the weather was glorious!

Time in the sunshine. Hooray!

 A few treats, including a cute fox print Shirt, that was in the men's section of Primark, but I thought it was too cute to resist, so I bought it in Extra Small, and some vintage lovelies from Burton's finest Charity Shops.

 

 

 

We watched a photo shoot for Growl and Grandeur Clothing, that my husband helped organise. It involved our friends, Si and Jess' awesome split screen camper. We set up at the Custard Factory in Birmingham. To top the fun day off there was free Ben and Jerry's being given out, with awesome 'shovel' spoons :D. We had peanut butter and jam flavour, it was awesome!

 Goslings! :)

 Urban Outfitters

York Minster

 The National Railway Museum

Great sign writing from around York

 Clifford Tower

 We had a lovely day trip to York, one day was no way near long enough, so we hope to go back soon.  Such a gorgeous city. The National Railway Museum was brilliant! Packed with beautifully re-stored trains, and also lots of fantastic examples of sign writing and vintage graphics and illustration.

 I did a spot of painting :)

I also popped to a vintage fair in Pelsall, at the Community Hall, which was great, so many brilliant stalls, and also demonstrations of dances on the stage. The Lindy Hop was great, I really want to have a go. The top photo shows some lovely jewellery on one of the stalls- I was in love with the vintage tin they were displayed in!

The middle picture shows a beautiful small plate, I didn't have enough money for it though :(

I did however, get the goodies in the final photo. The Hornsea owl pot, swallow hair clips, and a cute vintage print. Very happy with my £10 haul :)

Sorry for the mass load of photos!