Rust and Colour

I made a very small book from a sheet of A4 paper that I had previously rusted and embossed with a large sycamore leaf.

Some pages had less rusty marks, so I tore and stuck down some rusted tissue paper.

Lastly, I hand stitched a continuous line around the outline of the leaf, which covered most of the A4 sheet. This gave me small stitched sections on the pages of the mini book. 

You can see where the embossed leaf left marks from the leaf veining, adding some extra interest and texture.

I also added little snippets of rusted cartridge paper on a couple of pages.

The cover, below, with the title! You can see the size compared with my thumb.....tiny!

I've also been enjoying making some mono prints with my Gelli plate, and then finishing them off with some sketchy detail using my Inktense pencils. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for your company if you've managed to read this far, and hope you're enjoying Halloween.

Talking of Rust!

So, talking of rust, (see my last post), while visiting Wakehurst Place in Sussex yesterday, we found this wonderful sculpture of a beetle sitting in a small pond. He is gloriously rusty isn't he? Made by sculptor Ross White.

Tea, Coffee, Red Wine and Rust!

  Along with 14 other very enthusiastic ladies, I have just spent a very happy Saturday and Sunday enjoying a workshop led by Alice Fox. We were mark making on paper and fabrics with tea, coffee, red wine and a selection of old rusty nails, screws, hinges, nuts, bolts and plenty more weird and wonderful objects scrounged from sheds and garages! Great fun!

Above are some of my efforts, gently (and hopefully), transferring a magical selection of  marks in a variety of oranges, yellow, greys and pinks!

We also wrapped rusty objects in calico, cotton or silk, dunked them in the above potions, and left them overnight, or longer to 'do' their thing! You can see some of the marks this process created above.

You've guessed it, the above  was soaked in red wine! It smelled rather more tempting than the tea I have to say!

Today, I arranged lots of the samples into my sketchbook, with notes, (my memory seems to fade rather fast these days), and then played around with some of the others which you can see below.

Finally, I started a printing class a few weeks ago, and the first couple of sessions were concerned with the techniques of mono printing. I thought my result below was reasonable for a first attempt, so will be having a bit more practise with that.

Finally, an example of my first attempt at 'etching'. My fish was etched into a thin sheet of acrylic, inked up, wiped off and put through the printing press. I will be able to show further photos of some Chine Colle techniques that I used with the same printing plate after half term. They needed to be left to dry under a weight at the college,

Oh how I love a new technique, and the possibilities if offers to combine with stitch!

Thanks for reading.

Blossom, Berries, Trees and Leaves!

I spotted this blossom while out on a walk this morning! I think it's a blackberry, but surely it's the wrong time of year?

Then, these beautiful white berries a few bushes away, we always called them 'snowberries'.

Above, my finished piece that started as a monoprint, and then finished off with paint and stitch. Below is the photo I took recently that inspired it.

I decided to have a play with my felting machine, the result is below.

And finally, I couldn't resist making something to capture the beauty of all the gorgeous Autumn leaves that are floating down at the moment,

 I think our summer is finally over, but Autumn does have a beauty of it's own, so thanks for joining me yet again.

Nature's Totem.

Another finished textile that I stitched today. I made a monoprint first onto some calico, hand coloured it, and then thread painted the whole surface. You can read more details on the inspiration and process here.

It seems daft to repeat myself after writing the process up on my FB page, so I hope you will forgive me for redirecting, Thanks for looking in!