Drawing with a sewing machine.

There are so many amazing things I see on the internet all the time that inspire me to create, it's hard to pin down exactly what I want to do sometimes. Just lately I've been looking at mini quilts. I love fabrics, colourful patterned fabrics, new and old. I've slowly been building up my stash by picking up vintage buys I see in charity shops. I also love paper for the same reasons - pattern, colour, texture.  I don't buy a lot of fabrics because I don't use them enough, but when I see a beautiful piece of fabric, with gorgeous colours and patterns it's hard for me to say no. I've been looking for ways to use fabrics that tie in with my love of drawing. A couple of years ago I was blown away by some work I saw by an artist called Claire Coles, who uses hers sewing machine to 'draw' on scraps of vintage wallpapers. Here's some of her work:

Clare Coles.

http://www.clairecolesdesign.co.uk

Her work really opened my eyes to the possibilities of 'drawing' with the sewing machine. I've seen quite a lot of work lately using this technique. I've been gradually doing bits here and there, around life's other demands. I'm trying to use the same idea with bits of fabrics to make pictures, which I will endeavour to post in the near future. In the meantime I hope you feel as inspired as me when you see her exquisite work.

New Cakes

Food for Fun.

I've not done a post for a while because I've been so busy the last few weeks with cake jobs. Don't get me wrong, I've been rushed off my feet but in the best possible way! It does mean though that other art stuff has gone by the wayside, including writing on my beloved blog. However, I now have some new photos of these recent commissions. The jobs were very varied, between a children's Nintendo Ds cake, a carpet cake and a modern art cake. They were all birthday cakes, all very different and all enjoyable to do in their own  way.

Modern Art Cake.

A very good friend of mine asked me to do a cake for her 40th birthday party. I had an idea for a design, based on her abstract paintings. So I took photos of her work and sketched out a design. I was very rushed that week, I had two cakes to do for the same day! But I'm really glad to say that they seemed to have worked out and the people who received them were very happy with the end result, which is the point after all.

The sugar paste paint tube.

 The Carpet Cake!

 This was a cake I was asked to do for a 60th birthday, it had to be something very personal and special. The gentleman it was for works for a flooring company and his daughter asked me to do a cake which was a model of him climbing out of a big pile of carpet rolls. So that's what I did! It took a lot of sugar paste to make all the carpets, but it was worth it to get the right effect. I stacked them around a prism shaped cake, it's not actually just rolls of sugarpaste, there is a cake inside! I also spent some time taking photographs of some of his work 'tools', his folder price, list, calculator etc, and his lovely wife showed me one of his favourite ties and shirts. A cake like this is all about the detail, that's what makes it special, you really need to think about it, 

This was the cake as I was building it.

 Club Penguin Ds Cake

This was a completely different job again. A lady asked me to do a cake for her sons birthday party. She wanted something that involved a model Nintendo Ds and the childrens game, Club Penguin. I did some visual research, since I'd never heard of Club Penguin before! Luckily, I did have a Nintendo ds at home, so I tried to copy it as best I could, out of sugarpaste, of course. In the end I settled on a design based around penguins sitting on icebergs. Getting the Ds to stand up was the big problem in the end. I had to prop it up with BBQ skewers and hope it survived until cutting time. It seemed to be OK, and the little boy was very, very happy. If loads of kids say to you, "that is the best birthday cake I have ever seen", you know you've done something right!