My mask had a second layer of bandages applied today, after a bit of drying help with the hairdryer. The weather is so wet and miserable here that nothing is drying.

So as I couldn’t do much more with the mask except be patient, I decided to start another face. This is as far as I got today.

Sqeze thinks he looks stern, like a medieval knight. Perhaps my mind is too occupied with masks at the moment?

This is the beginnings of my piece made with an unusual starting point. I decided to try my hand at making a mask. Sort of building on the faces theme. I did some research on the internet and am having a go at making the foundation of the mask with a sort of fabric papier-mâché. I am using up out-of-date bandages. Here in Germany it is a legal requirement to have a first aid kit in your car. But they have a sell by date and have to be replaced now and then. We have 2 cars so that’s a lot of out-of-date bandages. If this works I have a neat way to recycle them.
Take bandages

And wallpaper paste

And a base covered in cling film

And start with a layer of bandage strips soaked in wallpaper paste.

I used a mexican pottery mask as my base. It has a fairly simple shape for my first attempt. The first layer is currently drying out. I am aiming at doing 3 layers of bandage. The research I’ve done seems to think that this will be sufficient to be stable but flexible. We shall see.

The last assignment in my QU course is “Choose an unusual starting point and create your artwork based on that item.” Well this is not what I am going to be doing as my answer to the exercise, but this seems to be in the same vein:
Announcing the 2007 Toilet Paper Wedding Contest
Go take a look at what some people can achieve with a few roles of loo paper!
This wasn’t one of the winners, I just like the legs

Do take the time to browse the dresses from 2005/6. It is amazing how creative some people are.

The Dutch are well known for having really good markets where you can buy fabric at reasonable prices. I’ve not visited one, but I was impressed with the fabric shops in Amsterdam last time we were there. I gave in to the temptation to bring home quite a few pieces of cloth. Made easier by the fact that we had driven up from Frankfurt, so that weight was not a problem.

Last year I learnt that the fabric markets tour around Germany too and that they visit Frankfurt. You can even keep track of when and where on their German website. Today they were here in Frankfurt again. We got there before the rush and I was able to pick up some bargains for my quilting as well as some denim to make myself a skirt.

This was one of the bargain stands:

While we were back in the UK I found this book whilst browsing in Waterstones in Truro, Cornwall. I had looked at it a number of times on Amazon, but couldn’t make up my mind whether I would find it useful or not. Being able to flip through it was enough to convince me that it was worth getting. So it travelled back to Germany with us and I have since read it cover to cover. So which book am I talking about:

I’ve since been recommended Sandra Meech’s second book Creative Quilts, so no doubt it will soon be landing on my bookshelf too.

I have decided to spend the rest of this year on self study and not take any more classes for now. Unless of course something irresistible turns up I have a number of ideas that I want to continue to follow up on and also lots of good ideas to try out from the books I’ve been mentioning on the blog. So taking time to do these things seems like a good way to spend the second half of this year.

As I haven’t posted for some time (the photographer was waiting to get his camera back from being repaired) I have another quilt finished in the meantime. This is the result of another assignment in my QU class with Myrna: “After researching the artist you chose, put away all the research material. Working in isolation, create a page or postcard size piece that allows the influence of that artist to appear.”
I chose to study the work of the artist Alexej von Jawlensky. We had been to see a exhibition of his work in Wiesbaden with friends of ours in 2004. His paintings of abstract faces had fascinated me then. A couple of weeks ago we went to an exhibition opening night at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt and while walking through the galleries I spotted an abstract face there. Sqeze took a photo with his mobile for me:

This was all before the assignment, but when I saw it I knew what I wanted to do. I did my research in the web and found this dutch site with lots of his face paintings. It is interesting to see how Jawlensky developed his theme of faces.

And here is my face quilt. This is definitely an idea I shall be pursuing in more quilts.

And here she is without the frame:

Well both Sqeze and Myrna - my teacher at QU - told me I couldn’t just stop there on a negative note. I had to find some way to finish positively. So being a good girl I put on my thinking cap and ended up adding some beads to the quilt. So here is the truly final version of the footsteps quilt - honest

We got back from Cornwall on Thursday. Can’t say we saw many beaches like this one but it was good to see the sea again. Yesterday I finished up this piece. I put some extra quilting on the grey pieces as they are meant to be the waves breaking. I decided to put some gold foil on too - as the setting sun glinting on the water. Unfortunately I forgot about the disaster I had the first time using the foil and ended up with unwanted blue and green painted fusible web on the piece too. So now the beach has some seaweed on it too. I’m quite cross and have cut out the offending piece of foil so that it can’t happen again. Still as this was just a learning piece although annoying it’s not the end of the world.

Here is a detail showing the foil and extra quilting: