It's been so long since paper birds....

It would be fair to say I've had a few distractions since my last post, firstly I would say xmas'08, followed by and long and agonising application process for teacher training and more recently the most stressful and time consuming task.... moving house.

I can happily report that we are much happier in our new pad, and now have enough room to be more creative than ever, its just taken us so long to get here and 2 months to get the place in some sort of order, but now we are ready to begin and hopefully I will have some updates of this v.soon.

In the meantime here are some photos of our new home.










And now for the all important room...the studio

She-Bird Stage 3.....finally.

She-Bird stage 2..."the golden glow"

Joan Walsh Anglund books

I found myself in Cheadle on Friday afternoon, and as well as collecting some leaves and Autumn falling's from the ground to make pretty pictures, I also pickled up this pair of oh so twee childrens books from the Oxfam Books Shop! I think I am in love......

Here is some info about the author....
(1926-) Joan Walsh Anglund became successful with her first book, A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, in 1958. She's been making books featuring these same round-faced mouthless characters ever since, and her popularity continues to grow. There's something ineffably sweet about her creations, which are based in large part on people and places in her own life-- particularly on her children Joy and Todd.

The illustrations are so cute and perfect, I would so love to get hold of a picture to frame, I may scan one in and make my own.

Pinocchio

We all know the story... wooden puppet come to life and despite guidance from the beautiful Blue Fairy (Braschi) and the love of his father, Gepetto (Guiffre), Pinocchio's curious spirit leads him into on wild adventure after another, an enchanting and magical journey.
I love it... my parents brought me back this lovely puppet from their travels...

Papier-Mache Models

As I said in my last post, I have been working on a papier-mache model of my she-bird character in the Fairy Tale Collection, here is the dried model awaiting paint and costume...

Also Col has been working on one of his own, quite a creepy creature....

New 'Fairy Tale' Collection

I've finished a few new projects but haven't time to take photos and scan them in yet as I started my new job as a SEN teaching assistant last week. After re-discovering Julie Arkell at the Ruthin craft centre I've been looking at doing some more artsy based work, in particular a collection of mixed media projects based on fairy tales.


(C) Handmade By Halo 2008

This is my first piece, a collage using a papier-mache background, layered with paper, wool, wire, fabric and felt for the details, I made most parts separately. I am really happy with the results!

I have also began stitching some small felt banner scroll's with quotes from fairy tales, which are to be used across all my pieces as a narrative to the theme of the piece.

(C) Handmade By Halo 2008

My new project is to be a papier-mache 3d model of my bird character used in the collage, for which I am using mesh, newspaper, paper, acrylic paint, fabrics and other.

More coming soon....