Inspiration from my new home town.

My new home town! I took this last week from Beachy Head, looking back and down towards Eastbourne. It was sunny down there, but very misty up on the Downs, but you can still make out the pier.

Talking of piers, just before I moved (which was three good weeks ago now), I decided to explore mark making with acrylic paint on paper, layering it up, scraping it back, drawing and scratching into it. The result was a bit of a mishmash of shapes and colours, and although enjoyable, it didn't really excite me in any way!

So last week, I decided to make it up into one of those books that fold three ways across, and three ways down before making three cuts along part of three of the folds. Sounds complicated, but is in fact quite straight forward. The paint was so thick in places that it cracked on the folds, but that just seems to have added even more interest to the texture.

This action gives smaller sections from the whole piece, which are often far more interesting, and can inspire some ideas for further work.

The section above reminds me of the structure for a roller coaster, and the section below reminds me of an old, damaged pier!

I printed this one off onto some cotton cloth, which seems to have picked up quite a bit of the textural detail. I have started to machine stitch into it, but will continue to add yet more stitch, and maybe some extra colour.

It has been a very busy couple of months, packing up one house, and then unpacking everything again into my new home. Trying to find my way around a new area, working out where the best car parks are, and how to get to them without getting lost!  All very exciting, and I am absolutely loving being here. However, it was really good to be able to get back into some creative stuff today, and as the weather was very wet and windy, I wasn't so tempted to explore outside!

My new garden is also rather lovely, and I'm sure it is also going to keep me quite busy once spring arrives! Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you will continue to join me on my new adventures by the sea, I am sure there will be plenty to inspire me in my new surroundings.