Friday, February 4, 2022

My new business venture - Haveabashery!

 I've been busy since my last post. I've retired (well, semi-retired from teaching), moved to Waihi, gained a new grandchild and I'm about to start a new business.

My move has provided me with a huge studio space and I'd like to share it. I'll be offering classes in sewing, art journalling and anything else that people are interested in.

I've set up a Facebook page which is where I'll be advertising upcoming classes.

Haveabashery

Like my page to see new posts.

Also coming up is news about my tiny house.


And I can't leave without a photo of the most gorgeous little girl...








Wednesday, August 11, 2021

A tag a week, first three months


I'm following the tag challenge by Anne Brooke. She was also the inspiration for the book I made last year. This is the first 13 weeks. Sorry about the colour balance. It was a really miserable day! I also have photos of each tag on Instagram. @rona.keith.art


Anne's youtube channel
 

Sunday, January 10, 2021

100 day project 2020, altered book and Sew4thesoulbook


Here are three projects from last year.
  • An altered book - unfinished
  • My 100 day project - stalled at day 50
  • My Sew4thesoul book. 
My quilter and textile art friends will find the last one interesting. I've been following Anne Brooke's slow stitching project #sew4thesoulbook.

Some still photos.








Thursday, January 7, 2021

The first of a few catch up posts - Jill Maas doll


I was going through my photos in preparation for my annual post and I realised that I've missed quite a few projects over the past few years.

This is one from when I was still living in Auckland, over five years ago. I attended a great workshop with doll maker extraordinaire, Jill Maas.

My Bathing Beauty ended up being a Red Hat lady. That wasn't intentional but she happened to have a purple bikini and then I found a fascinator with a little red hat. Ideal!





Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Summer is coming... but not today

We've had some wonderful weather already but today is overcast and windy. A bit miserable. But here is another art journal page I've completed.


This is decoupaged napkins again and the dragonfly is a rub-on transfer. I'm doing this in my pregnancy book. No, I'm not about to have a baby at 60! I have repurposed a second-hand book from the SPCA shop. It's a really weird book on pregnancy with old wives tales, recipes, strange bits of prose and the most unusual 50s style drawings. Think of it like Buzzfeed. It's just a whole load of different things flung together. On this page I decided to leave a bit of a drawing exposed. The top of the page is the original book page.


I've been playing around making some texture plates for my gel plate. These are cardboard letters that I bought somewhere, probably Warehouse Stationery, and then mounted on to foam core board. I love the look of text in mixed media art works but I'm too cheap to buy stencils. I figured that this would work on the gel plate since they are the right way round which when stamped into the gel plate and then lifted in a print will end up the right way round again. I picked out "happy birthday" first, reckoning on that being useful. Then I filled a board the same size as my gel plate with random letters, numbers and punctuation. Looking at the letters I had left, I could make "bacon", "cove, "zone" and many more but I thought "sun" would be more useful. Here's a fun game; add any other words you can see in the comments, just from the ones that are not on the happy birthday or the big mat.

Well, "sun" ended up being useful on the page above. Of course, if I had stamped it, it would have ended up the wrong way round. I had to ink up half my gel plate, press the stamp into the paint and then stamp it on the other half of the gel plate. Then I printed it on to the white layer of napkin I had pulled off the flower napkins. I cut as close to the letters as I could and then glued it in the book. The white of the napkin disappears when it dries.  I have small letter stamps which I found in the bargain bin at Spotlight. I used them to print "here it comes" in purple ink but I forgot to let it dry and I ended up with most of it on my hand. I went over it with a fine Sharpie instead. I've gone around the words with a glitter gel pen and added lines to the "sun" words. It doesn't show in the photo but nice in real life. I hope you enjoy my page and ramblings. I'll make a video next time - maybe!



Friday, December 13, 2019

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

An art journal page using the weta threadpainting I did many years ago.




I trimmed the fabric around the weta leaving about 2cm all around. Then I decoupaged napkins, painted, stencilled and sprayed until I felt that it was all looking like one piece. The saying was added with Posca pens and highlighted with gold and silver pens.

There was a light bit at the bottom which looked out of place. The napkin had an image of brown ornaments with string. The light bit was a bit of string and that gave me the idea to add some jute. I think it improved the composition of the page as well so a lucky accident.