Barbie within frames

I have chosen to put Barbie either in or within frames or as part of canvases.

Barbie escapes the clutches of the hummingbird’s beak by a hair’s breadth…..

I went to a painting evening at The Tel Aviv Art Studio at 42 Frug. I sat next to some lovely young people who were from France and Germany and to include me changed to speak English. Then Kylie came and sat next to me and painted a really beautiful red flower. For relaxation she paints bottles at home and lives between Haifa and Acre. The wine was flowing and the food amazing (cheese, crackers, roasted veggies, loads of fresh fruit and brownies.

We had a 30 cm x 40 cm canvas and were copying a Yayoi Kusama hummingbird with a red flower. To overcome her childhood trauma Yayoi paints with lots of dots.

I like spirals so included them in my painting. As we used gauche paints (liquidy and quick drying) I experimented by put lots of paint on top of other colours and ended up with 5 marbled circles (on top of spirals).

My hummingbird was not great so when I returned home with my canvas I applied real feathers and puff paint for his crown. I embellished her beak with a snappy and sharp and scary hair-clip beak. I didn’t have any spare Barbies to use for this piece so suggested Barbie’s exit from the clutches of the hummingbird’s beak with a pair of pink Barbie shoes.

Imprisoned Barbies on a Cork Noticeboard

Debby found an old cork noticeboard. I had all these drawing pins – with small grey and white stones on the outside. So I decided, having decorated the corners and edges with textured fairy stickers, I would capture the four (3 pink and 1 purple) small Barbies with self striping sock yarn. These Barbies I bought on the Holloway Road, Archway, London.

My friends Christian and Maria gave me a load of Algerian sweets. I was already the third recipient. The sweets were incredibly sickly and all made of almond. We ate a few and then I gave most of them away. Christian suggested the Barbies would look better in this box rather than within the rather cheap aluminium frame. It took some doing to remove the frame without ruining the cork but I did it! Debby suggested rope as an internal frame. And Yasmeen suggested we call it “Trafficked Barbies” which really resonated with me. Thanks all! Christian since then said it is too narrow a title as it doesn’t allow the viewer independent thought. He suggested calling it Barbies tied up in an Algerian sweet box. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

Saree Barbie is a Ganesh devotee

This time I made the saree for Barbie having followed a YouTube video. She has an orange Ganesh (who went round Dubai airport at the time of the Hindu festival of Diwali) and four instrument playing Ganeshs at her feet. I painted the background using stencils with felt tip pens and watercolours.

Barbie in her multicoloured dream coat

I went on a course to learn how to do punch needle work. It appears I do not have the patience for this and in fact do not really like the end product. The teacher was wonderful and the rest of the women there loved what they were doing but I went off piste. Firstly I used my own yarn (alpaca as opposed to the provided acrylic which was better in fact!), secondly I “imprisoned” some fleece to variable degrees of sucess and thirdly I thought I would use this new technique on Barbie. I had brought with me a canvas painted Barbie pink and a Barbie. I had fun “imprisoning” her using the punch needle. I redid it at home with firstly dressing her in a velvet back shift, using black yarn for her boots, rainbow fleece with pink needle punched yarn and a rainbow rubber band necklace.