Last Friday I was fortunate to attend a local Chillingham Community Centre, art class with a visiting guest Water Colour Painter Lorraine Rogers, http://www.sidewalk-gallery.com.au/ it was great to learn from her skill, and simple tricks of the trade.
Much easier, than from the 'How to' collection of newsagent lessons I inherited from a woman living in an Alice Springs Caravan park a few years ago,along with two sets of water colours and a bag to carry it all in, that doubles as an excellent travelling 'Beanie Making Bag'.
I have been using wax water soluble crayons for about 25 years and have often felt that a watercolour wash for the first few layers would make life easier. And it is ! Now I just need to practice my new skills.......Here are my first two attempts...
But first, a deadline........ Monday 19th,........ must have the 'Old Chai Tent Table Curtain' spruced up somehow,????......for the Rainbow Chai Tent's 4th visit, to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in the Gardens in front of Old Parliament House, Canberra, for Sovereignty Day 26th January 2009, and the Action for Climate Change at New Parliament House on 3rd February.
I have made a new table curtain for the regular market set up, but for longer set ups, with extra marques and preparation and servery counters, we always need more table curtains to screen off and hide the under bench area for storage etc.
This old one I originally painted back in the late 80's or early 90's, and is looking quite seedy, especially when wet. It's old and faded, and has some bad areas of mold spotting. But at 6 metres long it is still redeemable with some more paint and I did think for a while, I might sew a backing layer and do the revamp with some applicque-ing! Maybe that'll be the go the next time round.
When I was making the new one I did a tiny bit of over painting to try and keep it going and disguise the worst spots,( see the first 5 pictures )
Decided to just add some more fabric paint (Silver, gold and light silvery blue, with a pink red heart that darkened to more red than pink). That done I nearly finished there, late Sunday afternoon. Then at 4pm Geradus suggests it needs some words ! So we set about working out what words describe the Chai Tent, we came up with quite a few, and I had just enough time to paint thru 3 DVD's til late night, and till 1pm Monday to get 47 words painted in, before Liffy, my Very Active 78 year old mother, headed off to rendezvous with my brother, for the long 2 week trip south.
Geradus kindly cooks the dinner while I work !
I used my wax water soluble crayons to write the words and colour in , then used Fabric Medium to make it colourfast, Much easier, than trying to paint letters with fabric paint, and achieving clear straight edges
And the colours are super bright
Unity, Clarity, Hope, Service, Community, Freedom, All One, Harmony, Equality, Communication, Creation, Acceptance, Music, Friendship, Happiness, No War, Caring, Sharing,
Dance, Wisdom, Listen, Communal, Culture, Sing, One Mob, Tolerance, Inclusion, Education, Integrity, Peace, Love, Charity, No Nukes, Joy, Justice, Serenity, Loyalty, Family, Truth, Growth, Fun,Honesty, Awareness, Heal, Birth, Flow,
Such a change from a tired old curtain, it is earning it's status as a Chai Tent Heirloom!
There's still room for more, that I'm sure folks down there will come up with some, when they read all of these.
That will be for painting on in the next round of revamp, when I'll probably start on the applicqueing and strengthening with a backing cloth.
