Seeing Red

I thought I'd share a few process shots for my 'little red' entry. This is an annual themed competition held at ART time supplies, Ipswich. 

The rules are:

- you must use the 50 x 50cm canvas and tube of paint supplied 

- work to the theme (this years is little red) 

All works are then exhibited for two weeks and a people's choice and judged winner are chosen. This is pretty well out of my comfort zone here but I thought I'd give it a bash.

The theme immediately made me think of mushrooms and I decided I wanted to try and create a tree trunk with crochet mushrooms growing out of it.

To make the bark I pulled apart an old woolen suit coat 

and tore strips from some linen fabric samples. 

I sewed these together randomly making a piece just a bit bigger 

than the canvas.

I painted stripes of red onto the stitched together piece (this was the only way I 

could figure out to incoporate the red paint). Then I top stitched, over 

lapping some sections and adding extra strips of twisted linen until I was

happy with the over all look of the bark. 

Using this mushroom pattern but in a me kinda way (which means not really

following the pattern properly) I made a collection of mushrooms from a stash of 

op shopped wool. I stuffed each mushroom and pushed thick wire through 

the stalks.

With my trusty red staple gun I fitted the bark piece to the canvas, then poked the

mushroom wire through both layers and gave the ends a good twist and a generous

dab of hot glue to keep each of them in place. 

And here's the finished piece:

Entries are not due until the 13th of April, but I'm the kind of person that has to take advantage of an idea as soon as it develops. I had fun crocheting the mushrooms and testing out my developing skills, though the more I try to follow patterns the more I realise that I'm an adapt and go my own way kinda gal. The exhibition will run for two weeks from the 15th of April, I'll be sure to get some snaps of the other entries and share them with you so you can see the breadth of talent in my home town.

xx Bec