Searching for Royal Red

I finished this hand embroidery quite recently. 'Searching for Royal Red' was inspired by my recent trip to the UK in October and November of 2008. I really wanted to see Red Squirrels while I was over there but I didn't see any. I saw plenty of the American Grey Squirrel and I was told that the Red Squirrel only lives in pockets of Britain now, that they're being pushed out by the Grey. Poor little Red, I hope he finds a way to win back his territory.

Wrist Band of Autumn Fire

I love finding out people's favourite colours. For this wrist band for my friend, she said her favourite colours were warm autumn colours. It ended up being very firey colours, so it is 'Autumn Fire'. It is free motion machine embroidery with beading and buttons. There is a soft cotton lining that you wear against your skin. It is done up with a snap and hangs quite loose like a bangle.

Purple wrist band

This wrist band was one of the first I made in this style last year. I had so much fun with the beading on this one. It is modeled by my friend (who now owns it) in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Bilby Stars

Here is one final post for my first day as a blogger. It's a detail of 'Bilby Stars', the full image is in my first post. I found out recently that bilbies used to be as common as rabbits on our property in my Grandmother's day. They were so common they were considered a pest and there was a bounty on their head! And then the introduced rabbits came and wiped out almost all the bilbies (I believe because they took over their burrows and food). Now there are only bilbies in the wild in small pockets of Australia. In August last year I watched the bilbies in the Nocturnal House at the Adelaide Zoo and were fascinated by these creatures and so I had to do this hand embroidery of one I saw there.

Watercolour Paintings

Here are 3 of my Watercolour paintings. The top one is 'Koala Zen', the next is 'Balancing' and the bottom one is 'Cockatiel Light'. The top 2 were done in January 2009 and the bottom one was done last year. I'm working on 2 other koala eared girls at the moment in embroideries, the koalas are taking over the kangaroos in my art at the moment.

Stitch 'N Bead Bangles

These are brand new wrist bands, they're made from clear vinyl and machine embroidery and treasure! Well, treasures from my travels around the world like coins from different countries I've been to, and beads, buttons and trinkets. The one shown in detail above is a Canadian coin. I'm going to sell a whole series of these at markets soon, probably displayed as shown - on an artist's model doll.

Hollow Stitches

Around our property are many hollow trees and logs and I want to fill them with stitches. This is a free motion machine embroidery referencing the colours of Australia's red earth and blue skies. I want to do a whole series of them around the property and photograph them.

Come Fly With Me

'Come Fly With Me' is a very recent free motion machine embroidery completed in January 2009. It's 50cm x 40cm. I love our Australian birds, one of my favourites is the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo.

The Queen Bee of 1983

This is one of my first major hand embroideries in 2008. It was inspired by coming home to the family's sheep station where I grew up. I was a little girl in the 1980s horse-mad and always outside, often in my Mum's garden filled with gazenia flowers and bees.

You Rest Within Me

This is one of my smallest hand embroideries at only 25cm x 20cm; depicting a kangaroo mother.

Nesting

'Nesting' is another 2008 piece where I completely covered the cloth in stitches. It was inspired by the chickens or 'chooks' as we call them in Australia.

Kangaroo Guide

This piece titled 'Kangaroo Guide' was completed in September 2008. It's 61cm x 41cm and is acrylic painted cotton with textile medium and free motion machine embroidery. All my pieces are from drawings I do, I'm very 'old school', I don't use any computer help to create my images or my art.

With this piece I tried to do less machine embroidery than I usually do; before I liked to completely cover the cloth with stitches so this was an experiment for me to see if less is more and I like the result.

Yay, I've finally started my Blog!

I have been wanting to create an Art Blog for quite awhile now and here I finally am. So who am I? Well, I'm an Artist who paints in acrylic and watercolours, and embroiders with both machine and hand embroidery. Above is a hand embroidery on acrylic painted cotton entitled 'Bilby Stars', and it was made September 2008. It was my one of my breakthrough pieces, the one I felt "this is what I've been trying to say, this is what I've been trying to create in my imagery and embroidery".

I love the Australian Aboriginal, and Canadian and American First Nation ideas of having an animal spirit or totem inside all of us. Of feeling connected to certain animals, to all animals. We have such amazing creatures on this planet. I grew up on a sheep station (or ranch as my Canadian friends would say) in outback New South Wales, Australia and it is also where I've been living for the last year. I love walking through the bush, seeing kangaroos, emus, occasionally an echidna, and all the parrots like galahs and Major Mitchell Cockatoos flying, singing.

I lived for about 7 years in Hobart, Tasmania where I completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in Painting with minors in Sculpture, Print-Making and Art Theory. In September 2004 I started the Textile Art Program at Capilano College in Vancouver, Canada. Above the photo of the Bilby and next to the photo of me is one of Vancouver at dusk. The program was 2 years but I ended up staying an extra year to do a Textile Arts Advanced Certificate. It was the best 3 years of my life thus far. I learnt so many things in the course, pushed my art much further and made the best of friends. It had been a dream of mine for a very long time to experience living overseas. Vancouver was the best place for me, I think I will always feel a little bit Canadian. But in my last year there I turned 30 and it felt like a big turning point. More and more of my art was becoming very Australian themed so I decided to come home to settle. I spent the last year on the station with my family, spending time with them and also setting up my studio in my Grandmother's old house. I've been working on my art almost every day, taking a year out to focus on it. And now I'm moving to Adelaide, (in South Australia) to sell my art and make a home there. But the station will always be home and I'll always come back here.

Ooh, and now I'll post this...drum roll please ;)