F*ck Cancer

I have a friend needing to engage in full on chemo treatment. So I’ve made her a hat. Not a hand knitted hat because I didn’t have any appropriate yarn in the house. Instead it’s a more summer friendly fine mercerised cotton knit and I’ve had fun with paint.

This project gave me an excellent excuse to buy something I’ve wanted for years- a proper light box. Only these days it’s more a light board. The light is provided by LEDs and the whole thing is all of about 3mm thick. 3 light levels. Cool, literally, so I found I could paint directly over it rather than pencil tracing first, which is great for such a detailed design. I’m delighted with it.

The sewing part is only a single seam to tun this into a tube, which I failed to get a picture of. No hems or overlocking to keep potential irritation to a minimum. Put it on inside out, twist the loose end around 360 degrees until the design is at the front and invert over the top. It’s a bit hard to describe but it ends up looking like this…. I forgot to ask for a picture of it on her, so here it is on me.

Or it can be worn with the loose end draped down your back, or as a cowl or a head band.

The words might upset some, but she doesn’t care. I’ve deliberately made it less than perfectly easy to read to gently reduce the danger, but without actually obscuring the words. It’s a a slightly enhanced version of the “Parchment” font.

 

Painted mats

Medieval painted cloths are turning up in my feed quite a bit at the moment. I wanted a little door mat or two for reenactment camping. These are not truly medieval but will serve the purpose and painting them up was a lot more fun than the weeding that I spent the rest of yesterday doing.

Started with a couple of $1 opshop sourced placemats.

Then marked up a grid to paint into pretend medieval tiles. I used a ruler for that part and then drew up the rest by eye.  The paint is cheap acrylic art paint with Jo Sonya textile medium mixed in. My first try at this paint combination.

This is the first one I did. Is ok. I learned how hard it is to paint on such a rough surface. I also decided that I wasn’t happy with the black.

Here is number two. I like this a lot better. I’d like it better still if I hadn’t used the yellow ochre. I am pleased with the terracotta colour I managed to mix up (equal parts red + yellow ochre, plus a tiny bit of black from the paint water). My silly free hand birds amuse me. Cave paintings? I tried to put a tail on one but that looked a bit too demonic so I left that off the others.

Indulging a whimsy

I’ve been doing a bunch of woodwork and painting designs on it, none of which  has made it onto the blog yet. Here is the most recent one, an idea that wouldn’t go away.

Take a sexy wine crate, make it smooth.

Give it a lid and a hole in one side.

Paint an eye around the hole, oil and burnish give it hinges.

Pay your friendly neighbourhood glass men to line it with mirrors (actually before the hole was drilled in the wood, sensible I thought).

Add a tiny LED light or two, look inside…

…and get a star field, the matrix, a glimpse of infinity.

I have twice delighted in the wonder of being in a fully mirror lined room. I was aiming to capture a little of that experience. I think it’s worked. It ought be even better when I can take off the temporary holding tape and clean the mirrors. I mean to have fun placing different things inside the box and seeing what craziness results.