The Plight of the Bumblebee - my entry in 'Living Colour! international travelling exhibition

I've had a really productive year this year so far, at least for me :) I've produced two major works, one as posted below for the AQC 'Ten' challenge and the other is this piece, 'The Plight of the Bumblebee' for the 'Living Colour!' juried exhibition.

All works had to address the theme 'Living Colour!' and were to be 100x40cm in size - a quite long and narrow format which really pushed me to design something that would be best suited to this rather unique layout.

The flower petals were painted with Lumiere acrylic paints, the yellow centre is needle felted silk velvet surrounded a machine embroidered hand dye. The bee is painted and wings are made out of Angelina fibres that have been fused, backed on a water soluble stabiliser and then free machine stitched. The dew drops were created with plexi glue and opal transfer foil. Thread painting and quilting were used to further enhance the surface.

My artist statement for 'Plight of the Bumblebee' is:

 The amount of variance of colour and design on the Earth is so breathtakingly amazing and yet so often taken for granted. I wanted to show the beauty of a unique flower and how nature has allowed for so much contrast and detail, right down to the smallest dew drop or insect. The artwork's name reflects on the current significant population decline of bees worldwide, an issue for us all given they pollinate so much of the food we eat.
Techniques & Materials: White cotton was painted with metallic and iridescent acrylic paint and fused onto the backing fabric. Extra depth was added with translucent fabric paints. The middle of the flower incorporated machine embroidery, machine needle punched silk velvet and a fringe created with a tailor tack foot on the sewing machine. The dewdrops have been glued and foiled. Bee wings are made from moulded Angelina fibres. I have also used a double wadding trapunto technique on the flower petals to give extra depth.

The exhibition premiers this week in Ausralia from Thursday April 10 at the AQC in Melbourne at the Royal Exhibition buildings. To see other venues and dates please view:

http://livingcolourtextiles.com

'Ronnie's Red' - A5 textile art quilt as thank you present

Here's what I've been working on over the last week. It's only A5 in size (148 x 210mm ...approx 6x8") and has a whole lot of free-motion stitching in silk, rayon and ultra-fine polyester. The edging is layers of satin stitching using wool thread. It's one of the first things I've produced on my new Bernina 750, and apart from some thread breaks while I was getting used to how tensions needed to sit it did a great job.

It's a thank you present for Ronnie Di Stasio, the owner of Bar Di Stasio here in St Kilda, he has the most amazing food you can imagine and has been more than generous with feeding me on quite a few occasions. My husband Colin does Ronnie's security systems for him and when he's gone above and beyond Ronnie has done the same and fed us in return. If you've ever eaten at Di Stasio you'd know a thank you present is well deserved!

Ronnie has a winery in the Yarra Valley and produces a world class Pinot Noir, which is why I thought it should be the focus of this mini-quilt. He is also an avid art collector, of names far, far more well known than my own so I do hope he likes this.

I figure at worst, it's small enough to hide in his cupboard :)

"Ronnie's Red" 148x210mm, cotton batting, backing fabric and face, printed from one of my own photos of ink jet ready cotton, thread painted and quilted. Bound in wool thread.

"Ronnie's Red" The back.