Getting there

This is where I am now with the bootcovers!

 

Do you remember my  latest post?

 

After I had stiffened the fabric, I cut and sew together the two halves. The thriftened boots were my 'pattern' so I cut out the leather parts and then used my old sewing machine, which initially caused a lot of problems with thread tensions. Though I like them myself I felt insecure and therefore showed them to a friend and my daughter via Skype. They encouraged me to move on and said they liked them very much...

The dubbing about some kind of closure started, which of course I should have tried before working with the final materials but I was too eager. I decided to close the back seam after all other embellishing has been done, so some more stitching, the upper seem needs a kind of lining and then the 'thing' can be closed. When it appears to be too tight to fit over my old simple brown boots, I will take apart the fabric part of the seam and look for some kind of closure (a leather string, velcron, snaps?) But for now I am going after a bootcover without closure.

 

Another thing I am not sure of is whether yes or no to attach studs, the fabric is kind of elegant with the glimmers and maybe studs are to bold in this setting.

Never  knew what kind of problems had to be solved with designing, but this is my 'learn as you go'-method !! 

 

 

 

Not sure if this will be finished in time for the new year, for there are many gatherings to attend, but more important is that I feel I'm getting there.

 

I wish you a very pleasant New Years eve and may all your dreams for 2016 come true!

Upcycling!

Hi there!

 

 

This is one of the paintings I made last year, I'm not sure if I showed it on this blog already

 

Anyhow, today it is here because of some relation with my latest upcycling project:

the boots

 

 

 

these are the boots that I wrote about recently: old, worn but totally what I had been looking

for a long time, a pattern of the shaft (no, I am not making complete boots, sole including, Mary Ann, but they will be worn over a simple pair of brown boots)

 

 

it did not hurt to simply cut the upper part from the sole, after which I made a paper pattern

 

 

I would have liked to use an old kelim for the fabric part, but they are way too expensive to cut up for an experiment and moreover it was impossible to find one at the thrift store, haha...

 

But this piece of fabric (a kind of runner, or tablecloth?) made my heart sing, I could imagine this as a replacement for the kelim. I fused some wonderunder and let it cool down completely, after which I could easily take of the protecting paper. Then I ironed the cloth on a very stiff fabric I still had lying around from a former challenge and now one part of the two shafts is ready for embellishing with leather.

For that I have to use my old sewing machine, because it works better with the leather. Until now the project is going smoothly, but of course much is possible and some challenges will follow...

 

Btw: the very tiny white dots on the fabric are glitters. In one way this seems strange on this kind of paisley pattern, I mean it makes no sense at all, but nevertheless it looks nice and festive.

My tolearnce for this modest glittering may have to something to do with the aproaching days of Christmas, but we'll see if I can stand them later. At least I will have more experience for future projects. Think bags....

 

Will be continued, enjoy your Sunday, I am going to enjoy a drink on our X-massy veranda

 

Bye!

Regina



Winter details

 

it is hard to imagine winter, when living in a sunny country

where even in December it is possible to drink your morning coffee on a terrace near the sea...

 

 

I'm trying to combine cool, winter colours with details that warm my heart,

symbols that mean much to me,

symbols that have ingredients that I am fond of, by its shape and contrast,

symbols that make me feel happy...

 

 

combined with fragments of a Dutch text, that means so much as 'longing for'

 

as an artist there's always the longing to make something that touches the soul, that

speaks to the viewer

 

Ongoing attempts to make my Winter painting!



Winter

 

 

Hello!

 

 

Winter in Spain means a grey, sometimes silvery Mediterranean...

 

Half of the restaurants and terraces in our village are closed in this time of the year. But that does certainly not mean that it feels like a dead place, oh not at all.

 

This morning I walked to the village centre which is about ten minutes from our home, I posted the Christmascards and after that went to a few of the charity shops. They are an addiction for me, since living in this beautiful country.And this time they again had some treasures for me, one persons trash is another's treasure it is called I remember.

 

For quite some time I have been searching the internet for a bootpattern, a modern kind of spat. I had seen a lady with a really gorgeous pair last winter and when I asked her how and where, she answered: Oh, yes, my aunt made these..! Because I am a maker and really believe people can make everything they want, my search started. But as far as the pattern was concerned to no avail. There came in this morning's surprise: there was a pair of old, worn boots that had exactly the form I want, so I bought them and will now take them apart to make my own pattern. I will see which parts I can recycle!

 

The other find was a tiny necklace, composed of cotton string with dangling metal circular charms attached. They will have a future life in a selfdesigned tribal necklace and maybe even in the spats.

Happy me on a Monday morning!

 

The digital collage above is a detail of a painting I started yesterday. The topic is Winter, of all topics. I have to say I hate everything cold and slippery, snow, ice, rain etc. and that is one of the reasons we moved to Spain... So my interpretation of winter will not be traditional and for now the painting consists of a big iceblue part with a warm and to me lovely heart. We will see whether I can get on the canvas what's in my head...

 

I'll keep you posted, bye for now,

 

Regina

On painting

Hello!

 

 

 

It has been too long, again, that I posted. But there were reasons...

 

Almost was I finished with preparing a blogpost, when the terrible terrorist attacks in Paris happened.

And again it seemed so useless to me to blog about something like inspiration, beauty and luxuary topics like these. A few weeks went by and slowly I came to realize that there is no reason to deny the importance of writing about these subjects. Of course I knew that rigth away, it's just that at that time I could not, could not do it myself.

 

That being said, I have been painting, nevertheless...

This month's topic was: 'painting like Van Gogh' and it was quite a struggle for  many of my fellow painters on the club I can say

 

For me the most characteristic are the striped brushstrokes, so I tried to focus on that. I have never been much of a Van Gogh admirer, despite the fact that he was a fellow countryman. But this summer there was a very interesting series on Dutch television that I saw and like often happens, the painter and his life got my attention. The program was presented by Dutch temporary painter Jeroen Krabbe (he is an actor too) and he really succeeded to transfer his enthusiasm onto me!

 

So the above picture is my interpretation of Painting like Van Gogh. I could have chosen one of his land- or cityscapes, but I found them restless with all those whirling skies and elements. The above chair is after a painting of one of his admirers. I came back to this very (deceptive) simple painting time and again, supposedly because it made me happy to look at it. And now it is in my studio!

It will be hung at the club Thursday next

 

Thanks for reading, have a great Sunday!

 

Regina

 

( oh and, the almost finished blog post will follow next week...)



 

 

Thoughts on Cohesion

cohesion

 

CloseStyle: MLA APA Chicago

               

noun co·he·sion \kō-ˈhē-zhən\

: a condition in which people or things are closely united

 

 

Hello visitor on my blog,

 

Today I would like to share a little story about something that happened to me this week.

A situation where one sometimes thinks: this is no coincidence..!

A situation where there seems to be something that ties facts, experiences, even persons together at a given moment.

 

So what is the story?

 

Lately I have rediscovered the ISSUU app on my tablet. In a few spare moments before dinner was about to be ready, I read one of my favorite online magazines, Through Our Hands, which I highly recommend to all (textile) art lovers! In my opinion some of Europe's top fiber artists and their works are described and highlighted in this magazine, but I digress...

 

 One of ISSUU's features shows related magazines on the bottom of the screen and it was thus that I stumbled upon the Nashville Arts Magazine. The fact that I had an internal picture of Nashville since we visited this city in 2012, made me interested to look into this magazine (coincidence nr 1?)

 

I saw a terrific sculpture on one of the pages, that looked quite familiar to me and I remembered we had seen a similar near one of the MIT buildings in Cambridge Massachusets, back in 2011.

My followers may know that at that time we lived on a small island in the Caribbean and traveled throughout the US in our motorhome during two months in summer, four years in a row. And so it happened that after we left the states of New Hampshire and Maine it was time to visit the Boston area

We planned to stay there during a few days and I expected to have plenty of time to visit downtown later...

My husband is an engineer and always had a keen interest in MIT, so we decided to spend the first Boston area day on visiting MIT and Harvard (my wish). Now back to the magazines statue and the one I remembered...

 

 

This sculpture was made by the artist Jaume Plensa and is called the Alchemist. I googled for Jaume Plensa and found that he is Spanish (coincidence nr 2).

When I shot this picture it had only recently be placed on the MIT premises and the intention of the anonymus alumnus-owner was to have it there for a period of one year. Because of the many positive reactions about this being the perfect place for the sculpture, its chemistry formulas etc. the owner has now made the situation permanent.

 

Can you see why I had this feeling of cohesion and coincidence? Having made fibre art during a long time, reading in a related magazine and then be attracted to another because of the title of a city we visited, then seeing a sculpture we recognized from another travel and last but not least the sculptor happens to be Spanish...

 

and here I am, living in Spain!!

 

BTW: after we came back on the campground that day we had to leave the area because of the expected path of hurricane Irene, another story of cohesian for a future post...

 

 

Have a great Sunday and thanks for visiting, as always,

 

Regina

 

 

More pictures of sculptures and art by Jaume Plensa:

http://www.visitmusiccity.com/Visitors/thingstodo/jaumeplensa

and google, of course

 

ISSUU- Through Our Hands,  the magazine

https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/issuu-world-magazines.-free./id914453825?mt=8 

Finished

Hi!

 

Last week my latest painting was hung in the club where we are members. This club of Dutch speaking people in Moraira (Dutch and Flemish members) offers a large variety of activities, one of them painting. After a long time of working with fabrics only, I could no longer resist the paint and joined the group of paint lovers that get together every Thursday.

Usually there is a specific theme that we all try to work with, changing every six weeks or so. This time it was sports. In this post I already wrote something about that.

 

 

After printing my digital design I transferred the basic lines with charcoal,

 using a raster (still slightly visible when clicking the above image)

 

 

Since I am only a beginning painter without a formal art training,

 it is an extra challenge to get results that look somewhat like the original digital design!

 

 

it was difficult to get the effect of splashing water...

 

 

but I am happy with the results!!

 

(in real life the upper right corner is less yellow..)

 

Thanks for visiting, enjoy the weekend!

 

Regina