All hung up ............

Visiting Artist

                       

Visiting Artist Louise Tullener. will be displaying a small amount of work at Wellydog Gallery during May.

Originally from South Africa Louise specialises in hand embroidered artwork. The style is unique and relatively unknown in the United Kingdom but is very popular in South African and Australia.

Working in this style for the last 3 years she has built up a collection of various styles including portraits, still life and landscapes.

The process for creating an art piece is to print or paint the image onto a fabric suitable for embroidery (usually cotton). Depending on the design, certain areas are highlighted by embroidering, beading or attaching embellishments to the cloth. This results in a beautiful 3-Dimensional artwork.

She uses unconventional techniques and materials, such as silk, holographic and metallic threads, silk and organize ribbon.

Each piece created is  a Unique and different art work.

Future events at  Wellydog Studio and workshop

Bookings now being taken for the Beginners workshop on the 12^th May from 1pm – 5:30pm £25 including all materials.

Birds workshop , explore techniques for drawing and painting birds, 26^th May  1pm – 5:30pm £25 including some materials. 

Starting May 31,  Thursday evenings will be a Drawing club,  non teaching session,  but with a qualified tutor on hand if you need any help. We will meet and practice the art of drawing.  There may be (depending on demand) Life drawing where an extra fee towards the model may be required .  10 sessions for £60 ( payable in advance) 7pm -9pm

Bears

In case you haven't noticed, I  haven't been around recently,  Thats because I have been on holiday.  Not just any holiday but one to celebrate my 50th Birthday. There will be a separate blog about it with all my pictures when I have sorted through them all. So apologies for not updating you enough,  but as I start I thought I would tell you all about my new little scheme!!

My Lovely sister in law recently had a birthday,  she asked for a donation to go to her favourite charity instead of a present and so we did,  but as I couldn't afford to be as generous as I would have liked, then I came up with a cunning plan.......

Her charity of choice is the the 5 sisters Zoo.  This is a bear charity and you can read all about it here http://www.fivesisterszoo.co.uk/,  so I painted a bear and will try and raise money for her charity using the picture.  I have yet to think what to do with the original painting, so any idea on how I can raise the most money from it would be gratefully appreciated,

but to make a start I have produced a bag with a transfer on of the image on that I am selling on Etsy,  20% of the cost will go to the 5 sisters charity ,  so if my maths is correct ( I'm hopeless with numbers) then as each bag costs £7 each, then £1.40 will go to the 5 sisters charity.  I have sold 3 already so thats a good start.
I am trying to think of other ways to sell this image,  but will have to come back to you when I have worked them out.

If I could ask for your help to spread the word then I would be very grateful, and there is a link below if you wish to buy one.

Thankyou x

Get your Bear Bag here

Easter at the studio

It been while since I gave you a proper update.  Things have been a bit chaotic, as some of you will know my Dad has been in hospital, so there has been some running around,  but things are calm for a moment so I will give you a brief update from studio 4b.

Although the weather has not been brilliant the last couple of day,  the sun was shinning the last few weeks so I have been putting things outside to help draw people in.  The placement of my studio at the end of the Centre is proving to be a challenge to get people through the door.  I don't know why but they get as far as my sign and turn around and leave,  they don't even look in the door,  I am planning to try and do a survey,  when things calm down, to see if there is a problem. I did know when I took it on as the last residents had the same issues.  but luckily my workshops and drop in sessions continue to grow,  and I am pleased with my progress,  slow and steady just as I like it. But it would be nice to get the tourist trade as well.

If you have any suggestions or can spot some obvious problems,  please feel fee to let me know.

The centre and farm has been busy getting itself in order,  I have no idea why this tree went but its nice to see all the bits of wood scattered around .

I have been recently obsessed with scraperboards,  I have no idea where the idea came from as I haven't used them since I was a kid,  but I really wanted to have a go.  I have been looking a buying some for ages but have found them difficult to find and also more expensive than I was expecting.

I decided to go for the black boards as they were easier to get hold of,  but I am also going to buy the white ones so I have more choice to add different inks and colours.  but the basic black seemed a good place to start.

I have been disappointed with the tool provided as it is blunt already after 2 goes and these are not big by any stretch of the imagination. So I need to invest in something better.  Its been  challenge to work out the negative spaces to be able to do it but I have really loved doing them.

I hav also started listing on Etsy again,  I need to give it a better go now I have closed my folksy shop. 

You can check them out here

I had a bit of a sort out of things still at home and came across these 2 sets of canvases that I had done a while ago,  The Chrysler buildings ones had not been finished so I finished them off, and surprised myself that I enjoyed using acrylics again,  although i wont be swopping them for my beloved watercolours any time soon.

 I also had a new order of cards arrive,  I think these are the only 2,  I wont have shown you previously.  I had to do quite a bit re-order as I was very low.  I will be getting so more new designs sorted after Easter,  but for the time being I wanted to stock up on my best sellers.  I will be listing some of them on my Etsy shop soon, along with some more bags,  but I can't show you my new one yet as its a bit of a surprise for someone,  so that will have to come later.

I also finished a commission,  from a lovely lady on Folksy,  you can see the finished painting below.  She explains it all much better than me so you can see the development of it here on  Natalie's Blog

http://nofkantscurios.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/art-commission.html

Happy Easter everyone

Look what I did today....

I have been anxious to use some scraperboards,  I haven't used them since I was a child,  I loved doing it,  Not bad for a 1st attempt????

Why buy new?

When I moved into my little studio I had no idea if I could make a go of it, so I made a conscious desicion to keep my start up costs to a minimum.  That meant having to find cheap frames for my pictures.  I bought some from Wilkinsons and other cheap shops but even those started to add up and the quality was rotten,  so when my pictures got bigger and the frame costs were getting higher I turned to charity shops.  I love charity shops,  I am not a fan for clothing,  but thats just my hang up from having lots of hand me downs as a child.  But for everything else brilliant.

Now I am in my bigger studio and money is starting to ease a bit, then I thought maybe I would get a more professional look and try and get a standard frame look, in my studio. 

I have been out this morning and looked at lots of frames,  wood ones,  white ones, glittery ones,  shabby chic and very classy ones, apart from not being able to make a decision,  I added up up the cost and nearly fainted.

So guess where I have just been and bought from...........

I go this lovely lot for £9 from my favourite local charity shop ( Weston Hospice Care)   I think that has decided me once and for all. I love the variety and I love matching a frame to a painting.  Of course there will be people who want that pristine new look and don't want the character of an old frame.  Well all I can say to them,  is I will offer a discount for taking a picture unframed and then they can bear the cost of the framing,  or of course the option to not buy from me is there too.

Love them or leave them  the secondhand eclectic look is here to stay.