When this group plays...

...they play hard, and with spectacular results!  The TAPS workshop ended last week, and there were some crazily creative quilted collages completed (say that ten times fast).

Just take a look at these works of art!

Don't these pears pack a punch?

This apple was clearly grafted!

Such a serene landscape.

Hard at work!

Applicious!

These pears look fabulous floating over the Himalayas.

Pears POW!

Now there's a dream landscape!

Is that a pink worm?  I think so!  :D

Apple haven.

I'll take a bite out of that!

Check out that dragon!!!

I was amazed at the variety of colour and vivacity in these pieces - no two alike, and some amazing takes on our valley!  What a wonderful group of people here - they were a delight to play with each week, and I was so impressed at the engagement of the participants.  Helping each other, chatting, exchanging news and ideas, and generally keeping a sense of community is often challenging for seniors living on their own, but this program does it all.  Kudos to the organizers for ensuring there is a space in which seniors can remain so engrossed and absorbed in daily life.

Are you wondering . . .

. . . about that red cow?  I suspect you're not alone because I've had a few emails and messages about it.

In my initial post about quilted collage, I mentioned a failure (well, there were many more than one as I test drove the process of  'quilting' with Gelli prints).  I mentioned then I should add some red cows to it.

The initial collage of the local Skimmerhorn mountains, annotated in jest, looked like this;

did you note the two pieces sliced on the end of the above photo?  Well, I sliced to my heart's content, and rearranged the pieces like this:

 and this,

 and this.

Once I determined I liked the lines in the second version best, I glued the pieces to some cardstock and added a red cow.  The landscape is much happier now, and I had a great deal of fun with it.  I'm kind of hoping that we have some art 'fails' in the TAPS group so we can play with them there, too.

Now I'm wondering what you do with your art 'fails'.  I'm so experimental that I have a ton of them, and I'm always looking for more ways reinvent pieces.  What's your favourite technique?  Share them in the comments below and I'll do a draw on September 30 - you might win a fail of mine.

Yesterday...

...was round one of three at TAPS as we explored the possibilities of what I'm going to call Quilted Collage.  I'd prepared some examples of the kind of work we'd do, with four options for them to try.

Collaged pears from UFO net photo

Collaged Creston Valley Landscape from a Jean Henderson photo

Collaged apple from UFO net photo

Collaged landscape mostly invented

With a large stack of cardstock backgrounds in mostly solid colours, Gelli-printed papers and magazines for further collage fodder, we were well supplied.  I also provided a numbered template from which they could cut their papers. 

And didn't they tear into it?  

With scissors, glue, tenacity and a LOT of laughter, most of them managed to get about a third of the way through their collage.

That's pretty awesome because coincidently we have two sessions left in which to finish!  

I know I mentioned the need for a red cow in one of those collages I test drove and I will show you the result in a future post - keep your eyes peeled for that one.  In the meantime, I expect to show you some outstanding Quilted Collage work from this stellar group sometime soon.  Until then, I hope you keep playing and let me know what you're up to in the comments!