All heavy seriousness aside, this month's personal map making class on Creativebug is colourful, light, thought provoking & fun - OMG, so.much.fun. 

e bonds’ daily mixed media Creativebug class celebrates maps in all forms, most importantly, the abstract concepts of map making. 

e’s teaching style is amazing. She ever so gently guides you through a method or technique that is then yours to play with. The most wonderful thing for me is that each day presents a completely new aspect of ‘mapping’ about which I have never thought. It’s brilliant. 

Here in NZ we’re a day ahead & kind of a day behind at the same time.
​Every night, at about 9pm, Hugh & I sit on the couch together & watch the next day’s class which means I go to sleep thinking about it & usually by the morning I’m pretty excited to get my morning routine shizzle out of the way so I can scoot over to the studio & play. ​

I cleared my table deliberately the week before the class started & ironically the work I’ve put to the side is a map of sorts. It’s an extension of our ‘Listening to the Land’ series, it speaks of connection to place, also my leaf litter project & laments the loss of wetlands from the NZ landscape. 
There’s an aspect of this new work, well several aspects actually, which i believe are incredibly significant for us as kaitiaki of this whenua . . . & that’s a story for another day. 

A real positive of this class for me is that it's given me with an idea that is likely to be the basis of my next muka artwork and that for me is the most exciting thing of all !

I’ll keep you posted 
 
Sal xx

I love these as none of the black is super black, which looks pleasing to me on the undyed fabrics. 

I decided to test my heat setting process by over-dyeing some of my black monoprints in a harakeke pod dye bath.
I also popped a few whenu of muka in too.

Love, love, love these - perhaps mostly because it worked !

So there it is:
Changing paints, changing fabrics, creating layers all whilst preserving the detail of the leaves.
Overdyeing, or is it underdyeing, with natural dye.
​White on black, grey on black, black on white, black on harakeke pod brown.

It's been a fabulous summer following my whims & now, at the end of March, I have washed & ironed all the small squares of fabric I've been using over the past few months.
Some I used to filter the inks I made & some are the result of these last explorations.
I literally have a couch covered in 30cm squares of different browns, all obtained from harakeke pods - no wonder we can't find one word to describe them all.
Some look slightly pink, some look slightly green, there are definitely a few that hover a little too close to beige for comfort & some are a rich warm harakeke brown.

Tino nui te mihi aroha ki te pā harakeke.
​He taonga tuku iho.

Sal x
​

At the beginning of the year Kristin Axtman, from Brooklyn Haberdashery, proposed a year long, creative project Instagram challenge called #our52weekproject.
The rules are guidelines & extremely flexible; you choose your own project, choose a unique hashtag & post to IG once each week.
​That's it !
So simple & so attractive.  
Attractive to me because I like to experiment with different techniques & different media AND I like to have a point of focus & a deadline, albeit self imposed & arbitrary - basically it just helps me get shit done !

Selecting a unique hashtag which relates to your project is a brilliant idea for posting to IG as it means all your own posts will be in one place. 
I've chosen the general theme of 'botanicals' which will allow me to experiment & explore many different things & I'll be using the hashtag #52weeksofbotanicals.

January has been an exploration of mono printing & embellishing the mono prints with embroidery.
I've been making direct prints of kawakawa leaves (piper excelsum) onto calico using water based fabric paint which is heat set by ironing before I add some embroidery stitches. 

On a side note, last year I started 'a thing', guidelines for me to work under, basically, to use readily available materials, which makes things accessible to me & it also keeps the cost down.
This month's project has been a great example of that.
The leaves grow in my back yard.
The fabric, fabric paints & embroidery cotton are sold in my local Spotlight store & are affordable.
The make up sponges I've used to apply the paint I bought in my local supermarket.
I found a superb resource book at my local library.

Below is a gallery of photos which show the process I've used.
​I think piccies are easier to flick through then wading through a sea of words.

I am incredibly excited about this year long project as it will provide a year's worth of motivation & continual exploration.
Continual exploration ensures I will be able to approach my creative year with enthusiasm, excitement & energy.
I look forward to trying new things, learning new things & hell, I'll probably even take myself out & meet new people !
I've said it before & I'll say it again, I love Instagram & this is why.