Trish Bee’s Art-Venture

I think Im in serious danger of getting hooked!

This is a piece I was working on last week, Im going to make it into a Christmas gift for a swap, I havent finished it yet as it needs a lining on it.

This is a felted bookmark Im working on:

Below is a purse I made using my first felting attempt which I blogged earlier:

front with open flap:

front closed flap (isnt finished yet)

back of purse:

This is my very first attempt at needle felting. Im surprised how easy it is to accomplish with so very little tools and very little energy too. I needed to make some art using a technique beginning with the letter F for Carols challenge, naturally I decided on Felting because Ive wanted to give it a whirl for some time

To make this felt piece I used various colours of wool roving which I had got in a textile collage pack which I bought from ebay. I also used a sheet of black felt as my felting base, a polystyrene block as my felting mat and a couple of felting needles.

I was surprised how quickly and easy it is to make the felt art, simple puching movements with the felting needles fuses the wool fibres to the felt piece and makes them join together.

Once I was happy with how the felting looked I highlighted it using gold glitter thread with a back stitch.

Im really pleased with how this turned out and with how easy it is to do. I must do more felting!

I wonder if this is the start of a new obsession?

I made this piece of artwork for Carols challenge on her blog. Details of her challenge along with a link to her blog can be found here: www.squidoo.com/ABCsofTechniques

To make this piece I first used a gold oil pastel to make a background rubbing using a background rubber stamp I had. I then used a piece of tissue paper to make the gold blend into the lutradur so that it wasnt quite so vibrant.

Next I tool a white oil pastel and made a rubbing from a large rubber stamp of a tulip, I then tool a red and green oil pastel and coloured inside the rubbing I had made.

To finish off I then coloured over the gold background I had previously made using a purple oil pastel.

The lutradur was then left overnight to dry out.

Once the lutradur was dry, I used gold rush white metallic glitter embroidery thread to sew along the white stamped outline with a backstitch to embellish it.

Next I sewed the lutradur piece onto a sheet of watercolour sprayed background using random stitches and then added a blanket stitch border all around the edges to finish off.

Heres the completed piece:

This is a purse I made using one half of the melted oil pastels background sheet I blogged earlier, the lutradur I used was the 100g variety which is pretty thick and because of its thickness it can take the weight of the oil pastels melted onto it.

Surprisingly the oil pastels didnt flake off when I sewed the purse together, I half expected them to, I had planned on adding a coat of gel medium over the top of the purse once Id sewed it to protect the oil pastels if they had become fragile but as luck would have it, I didnt need to!

I love the texture and feel of this background and cant stop touching it..

Ive been experimenting with a pack of black lutradur sheets I had in my stash for a swap I signed up for, Ive been meaning to use my lutradur for ages but never got round to it. Adrienne announced a lutradur swap on UKArtSwaps which caught my eye – I now had an excuse to dig out my lutradur and actually USE it for a change

Heres a couple of backgrounds I did with the lutradur, havent made anything with most of them yet though! My next step with the background is to experiment with distressing them with my heat tool!

Dont forget to click all the pictures you see if you want to see bigger images!

Lutradur Metallic Rubbings:

I made this background using a sheet of black lutradur and a stamping mat to make a rubbing using metallic oil pastels. I love how the pastels pop out on the dark background

Lutradur Squirty Painted Background:

Various paints and colours where brushed and squirted directly onto the lutradur to make a painterly background, I then placed another sheet of lutradur on top of the painted sheet and pressed them together, then pulled them apart to make a print of the background. Both backgrounds are below (click for bigger)

Lutradur Resist Background:

I made this background by first stamping a repeat pattern all over the sheet with metallic paint, once it was dry I rubbed over the top with another colour to make a kind of resist effect.

Lutradur Oil Pastel Background:

I used metallic oil pastels gently rubbed over the black lutradur to bring out the patterns of the fibers. I love the feel of this background

Lutradur Melted Oil Pastels Background:

This is one of my favourite backgrounds, I used various colours of both metallic and regular oil pastels to make this background, I used a hot encaustic wax iron to smear hot wax across the lutradur and added little droplets of wax to add accents.

To make this cover for the paper bag book I joined together two different pieces of fabric paper together using hand stitching. I decided to embellish the fabric paper using random stitches across the paper to add further interest. Then I sewed it directly onto the paper bag book to finish.

Pictures below (click for bigger)

Cover Opened Up:

Front Cover:

Back Cover: