Yellow & Easter....

are two words that go nicely together at this time of year, and is the theme for Make A Moo. I have made my Moo's 3D by shaping the card into a daffodil and Easter chick. The backgrounds are colored using chalk eyes and then the shaped applied onto the surface, then finished with some Distress Stickles to add a bit of shine to the Easter sun!

Any Piece of Paper........

.............Can be turned into a work of art.........

In an earlier post I refered to a paper artist Paul Jackson - http://www.origami-artist.com/ - from whom I received a workshop while at KIAD in Maidstone. I love the way in which he takes a simple sheet of paper and turns it into amazing sculptural forms full of texture and detail.

Below are sculptural corsets I designed and made from paper while in the first year of my BA(Hons) Decorative Arts at Nottingham Trent University. We had to produce work based on architectural forms found in the city.

I started with drawings in mixed media - newspaper, ink, charcoal and graphite, and progressed from here to producing background images in ink and bleach and monoprints which I then folded into sculptural shapes inspired by the tiled roofs, railings, brickwork and layering I found in the city. From here I then formed three basic corset shapes of card and added to them using the folded forms. The results of which are below:

Close up details of the folded forms:

These may look complicated, but once you know a few tricks on how to fold the paper, it is not as daunting as you think............

Degree Show Work

In the final year of my degree I chose to specialise in textiles. More specifically mainly hand woven tapestries encapsulated in hand-made paper.

Most of my tapestries are woven on a miniature scale - with the largest ones being approximately 5" x 12" and the smallest about 1.5" x 1.5". I used a mixture of wool yarn, embroidery threads, metallic sewing thread, wire and nylon filament. Even weaving a few sections with invisible nylon thread.

I chose to explore further the theme of Passage of Time, exploring themes of archaeology, myth, and re-discovery. Especially the way civilisations are preserved in fragments by the earth and time, only to be re-discovered in tantalising pieces to be pieced together.

Once the tapestry is woven I then make different handmade papers and encapsulate the warp ends of the tapestry in the paper during the making process - trapping them securely. Sometimes paritally covering the tapestry with the paper, again adding to the feel of re-discovery and fragility. Machine stitching is then applied to the paper to pleat and distort the surface, representing ripples in time.

I also applied folding techniques I was taught many years ago now, just after completing my A-Levels, on a Btec Foundation Diploma in Art & Design. We had a paper workshop with Paul Jackson, who does amazing things with paper and I have taken much inspiration from the techniques he taught us. See his work here: http://www.origami-artist.com/

Below is a selection of work from my Degree Show: