Sneak peak

I am working on my leaf for the exhibition. I go from joy to despair. One minute I am SO content with the result and the next minute I hate it! Recently I learnt that there will be two exhibitions, first one in Malmö showing the leaves from the south Swedish crafters and then a second exhibition in Stockholm (the big one!!) where the 2000 leaves from all over Sweden are shown. Now this doesn’t lower the pressure I am starting to feel one bit! Not many weeks left now before the deadline either.

First I meant to do a wet felted piece. I even started on it…..Then I decided that I wanted a different feel to it all together. My leaf is a combination of metal craft, paper mache, wood carving, decoupage and some embroidery. One can say that it’s a mixture of the things I like to do the most…

Here is a sneak peak…..

Take care

Jeanette

A daily challenge for 2012 ?

In the middle of December artist Cathy Cullis wrote a post about having a daily project during 2012.  She wrote about the challenge of a daily project and how it would or would not appeal.  I have been thinking about her post ever since, weighing the pros and cons for such a scheme. Should I take the challenge on? Would I have time for a daily project? Would it add something good to my creative life or just be stressful?

Finally I came to a conclusion. I do something creative almost every day and my life would feel very empty if I didn’t but I also would find it hard to stick to one thing everyday since my greatest joy is to try out new things. I am also very hard on myself when I set a goal and would force myself to live up to it. There would be a big risk of this turning into something I “had” to do instead of something I “wanted” to do. So I decided to not go for a daily project but a weekly project instead. I decide to join Tag Tuesday, a project where I  get to try out different techniques but within a certain theme. Tag Tuesday is a weekly challenge hosted by Carolyn Saxby and you can learn more about it here.  I have never made Tags before so it will be great fun to make one….hopefully I will find it  a fun challenge the next 51 weeks too.

Up until now my Tuesday posts has been devoted to – Things I Love Tuesday but from next week on it will be Tag Tuesday instead. Welcome to tag along! ( sorry about that, just couldn’t resist it)

As I was thinking about Cathy’s post and daily or weekly challenges I suddenly realized that I was actually doing a weekly challenge already although I hadn’t really thought about it that way.  I’m thinking about my Friday tutorials. Every Friday I post a tutorial, a DIY that you can try over the weekend if you like. The tutorial is usually something I myself have tried out during the week and then felt like sharing with you all. So I decided that I would continue with my Friday Tutorials during 2012 too.

So now I have two challenges for 2012 thanks to Cathy’s post!

Jeanette

Getting started

Do you remember my leaf? The one I am making for the Swedisk Art & Craft Society 100 year anniversary next year? I have been thinking about how to create my leaf for quite some time now but on Boxing day I finally got started. I decided to go for wet felting and the "working name" is Tree of Life. I needed to make both a front and a backside for the leaf.



Placing the wool on the prefelted fabric



Wetting it down with hot soap water



Hanging it to dry. The red is the front side and the pink is the backside...I think. ....So far...

 I plan to add needle felting and embroidery to it as well and probably some text and photos in decoupage. It was a relief to finally get going instead of just thinking about it. Sometimes I am SO very hard on myself and everything has to be perfect at once. That sort of stops me from getting started at all in fear of it ending up all wrong. Which is extremely silly really because I can always make another piece if I am not satisfied with the first one....

The leaf has to be ready at the end of February so for once I am not making a last minute project...

Take care
Jeanette

A head start

I am making a head start on Christmas. Angels in papier mache and pillow cases for my living room sofa. Translation of the text? well...something like " give me a peaceful Christmas for fucks sake" but not in so many words.....

Take care
Jeanette

Tiny work of art

These are my sunflowers seeds that I picked in my garden this weekend and are saving for planting next spring.



Photo Tate Modern



These are Chinese artist Ai Weiwei seeds, each hand-fired and hand-painted by inhabitants of Jingdezhen, the town that once made porcelain for the imperial court . The seeds are an installment by Ai Weiwei that was showed at the Turbine Hall in Tate Modern October 2010.

The sunflower seeds in the installation refer to hunger and collective work but also to everyday life. During the Cultural Revolution, when many Chinese were starving the sunflower seeds could be the only thing they had left to eat.



Photograph: Fiona Hanson/PA



1600 inhabitants of Jingdezhen made a 100 million replica sunflowers seeds. Just imagine the amount of work put into it. I made a quick calculation…

100 000 000 seeds

4 strokes of paint per seed

400 000 000 paint strokes in total

1600 inhabitants of Jingdezhen making them

62 500 seeds made by each person

thats

250 000 strokes of paint made by each person in total

Makes your head spin!

When I look at my tiny little seed I imagine how it would feel to look at one of Ai Weiwei`s, made maybe by an old lady or a schoolboy. How they would have picked up every tiny seed and ever so carefully painted the four strokes of paint with a tiny brush. I wonder if they could grasp the enormity of the installation, what they were actually being a part of and if they felt proud.

Sometimes art is pretty amazing!

Take care

Jeanette