This is another guest blog post, this time from Folksy Seller Teodora Totorean; her shop is TeodoraPaintings. She creates unique paintings using a variety of techniques and chose to talk about how she came up with a new idea – incorporating doilies into her paintings.
Doily Art – A Mother and Daughter Collaboration
The words ‘nostalgia’ and ‘memorabilia’ have never been more powerful than in the recent years due to the popularity of vintage items that have dominated home décor, fashion, and the arts and crafts world. Re-cycling, re-purposing and re-vamping are in everyone’s vocabulary nowadays and we all want to do something around our homes to make it more original and unique to us. And we all want to take on a long forgotten craft and put our stamp on it to show the world our creativity.
This new trend couldn’t leave untouched the arts world where the rise of mixed media art means that artists now have all the freedom to create unique pieces using anything they find laying around their studio: old postcards, old pieces of lace and fabric, magazines, etc.
As my art is all about creativity and colours, I have been in tune with the mixed media trend in the arts today ever since I started to take my art to a more professional level. For four years I have been experimenting with various styles, techniques and materials, incorporating fabric, newspapers, and fibre washers into my artwork. So using my mum’s doilies was just a normal consequence to my act of creation routine.
I have always been fascinated by lace and macramé and I am happy that I grew up in a creative environment where my mother, apart from her teaching job, also had a hobby that continued throughout her life up until today. I loved how her doilies enhanced our home when I was little and I like them today not just under a vase with flowers but in my paintings too.
It all started last year when I ordered from my mother some small round shaped doilies to use as coasters. One day, when I was short of ideas for my paintings, I just happened to place a doily on a canvas and imagined a whole picture around it. I carried on completing the painting and next thing I knew, I created a mini series of four paintings that later have been in a spring exhibition with a gallery in Gloucestershire.
I don’t use doily on a regular basis yet as I am still experimenting with other techniques, materials and styles, but every time when I complete a painting using my mum’s doilies I feel that this is my style, this is me – my childhood, my personality, my love of handmade and hand crafted items that are seating around my house – and as artists, this is what we do: we share it all with the world hoping that our art will resonate with someone.
Where you can find me:
Folksy: https://folksy.com/shops/TeodoraPaintings
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teodora.paintings
Blog: http://teodora-paintings.blogspot.co.uk/
Website: http://www.teodora-paintings.com/
Through The Looking Glass 