Busy busy busy, but having so much fun!

A very busy week which started last Saturday 21st March, with an extremely enjoyable two day workshop with Bobby Britnell.

Bobby worked us very hard on Mixed Media Approaches to Abstract Design, but what a wonderful teacher she is! I really learnt so much, with plenty of samples to remind me of what we covered, and so much to ponder on.

Here are some samples of  what we covered during the two days, now all safely stuck into a sketch book!

Below a final piece using some of the techniques we covered. I think the one thing I really took away with me was the idea that we need, as artists, to investigate all the possibilities for an idea, before we plunge head on into the final piece, something I've not been too good at practising in the past!

So, onto my next project. I have been asked to make a reasonably large mixed media piece inspired by our local Lavender Fields here in Carshalton.

I decided that this was a good excuse to put into practise what I decided last weekend I needed to do from now on. Hence my sketchbook ideas, followed by some samples shown here and below.

I still haven't really decided exactly where I'm going with this, but have been recently inspired by  the idea of making some paper cloth for this project. This is the inspiring blog here, well worth a look, with some really beautiful work by Morag to feast your eyes on! 

The image below was another piece that I was experimenting with, and was supposed to be lavender flowers. As you can see, they look nothing like lavender, more like hyacinths, but I liked the colours, and decided that a postcard could be salvaged from it.

I've been having a play with this new idea of paper cloth, and made a large sheet as an experiment. I have cut it into smaller pieces, and there are two postcard size pieces below, plus another that may become my Journal Quilt for March.

The JQ image below still needs to be made into a quilt sandwich, and quilted, and the postcards above also need finishing.

I've had a very busy week anyway, and all of the above has been squeezed into any spare time I could muster! I just love it though, when a new technique inspires me, and after a workshop has fired up my enthusiasm. I'm so looking forward to next week now, and playing some more!

I hope you're having as much fun as I am!

A Tree, Moon Moths and some Flowers.

We went for a walk on Epsom Downs a couple of weeks ago, and this tree looked such a perfect shape, I couldn't resist taking a quick snap. My hope is to you use it in some way in some textile art!

Above is the result of playing around with one of my Gelli prints. It was photographed, laminated onto some voile, stitched and embellished with a bit more paint. Moon Moths!

Brooches for my Etsy shop. These have been made from some of my hand painted fabric, free machine sketched with black thread, coloured with a combination of paint and watercolour pencils, and finally sealed with some glossy sealing varnish. They have been padded out with a layer of wadding wrapped around a plastic template for sturdiness, and then backed with felt and a silver plated brooch pin.

Unfortunately they were too late for Mothers' Day here in the UK, but they would still make a lovely gift for a birthday, or for Mums' Day elsewhere in the world! Why not go take a peek!

Thanks for stopping by.