New Zealand Inspirations.

After the last, very stressful and emotional 5 months, I've just spent a glorious 4 weeks staying with my daughter who lives in New Zealand's north island, Whangarei to be exact. It has given me the time to recuperate and rest, and to slowly get back into my textiles. Above is a finished piece of work that I started in NZ, and finished at home today. It has been inspired by the colours and shapes of the landscape, seascape and plants that I saw, with the added element of a kauri shell, which I cut from lino and printed.

Above and below a few of my very many photos. I think this small selection should give a flavour of where my inspirations have come from.

Some close ups of the finished work. It is made up of a combination of gelli prints on paper and cloth, a printed lino cut, hand stitch and free machine sketching which I have been doing since arriving home.

I used different fern leaves with the gelli plate.

Some of the gelli prints on paper above, and below one of the photos I took from the glass bottomed boat, showing the seaweeds and colours beneath the sea.

We enjoyed some fantastically hot sunny days on the beaches, swimming in warm, clear blue seas. I managed to make some quick paintings in my small sketch book. 

There are trees at the edges of lots of the beaches, so I also made some very speedy sketches of those, and on one day I also had a go at trying to capture the bird above before it flew away. It was a bit like one of our magpies, but with more white on it's back.

An inland walk to Abbey caves took us past these many boulders, that almost looked like sculptures. Nature's artwork!

The Kauri shell lino print on the top left, with some sketches of the unfurling of a fern on the right.

Some of my small collection of shells, gathered with the help of my five year old grandson.

Sketchbook coloured print, and a drawing of a kauri shell.

Finally, a photo of my daughter and myself in their local Quarry Gardens. Huge thanks to my daughter and her family for giving me such a wonderful 4 weeks. I'll hopefully be back again next year, and it may be for a bit longer, so watch out!!!

Thank you for joining me, and I hope to be back again soon.