Wings again, and yet more wings!

An orange tip butterfly, about to land on a cuckoo flower. Background fabric from part of an old skirt that belonged to my lovely Mum, and painted first with white gesso, and then some watercolour. butterfly and flowers raw edge applique, (and some paint!)

Another finished experimental piece for the birdsong challenge, this time the song thrush I photographed earlier in the year. I'm going to put these pieces together into a fabric concertina book, a bit like the set of collagraph boat images from Dungeness I made some time ago, here

I'm hoping to come up with an idea for a finished piece for this challenge, so plenty to be going on with in the meantime, and I'm quite enjoying making these explorative pieces, especially as I'm learning more about our local birds, their songs, and their habits.

Can you see what you hear?

I belong to a small group of women artists, and we have recently set ourselves a challenge! It is to produce a piece of art, in any form and in any medium, with the theme of 'Birdsong'. Above is one of my first experimental pieces. It shows a starling and a couple of blackbirds, and I've tried to interpret their song in thread, quite difficult really. I've actually coated the thread 'birdsong' patterns in glitter glue, but it's not showing in these photos. The blackbird's song is like a rainbow of colour in it's beauty and complexity.  These ideas need to be made visual so that I can assess how to proceed.

I've managed to take a few photos recently of birds in our garden and at the local park. Above is a starling, sitting at the very top of a Leylandii in a neighbours garden. In fact, at the moment that particular tree is absolutely full of starling chatter every evening when they come home to roost. Quite a noise, but they are completely hidden within it's dark, dense depths! I also managed to sketch a blackbird on our lawn and apple tree while taking a coffee break.

One of my favourite birds for character, crows! The one above is looking as though it needs a good feed, but that is something I can put right later, if I make a final piece with a crow. When it comes to the 'songs' that birds sing, or the noise they make, as in crows or those very noisy parakeets, I find that colour is important. I hear their songs/noise in colour, and the crows croak is definitely black and spiky!

I managed to get some good shots of these crows at our local park, plus a couple of sketches.

I must include the robin in this challenge, such a cheeky little bird, but one that I sometimes hear singing it's bubbly song at night in winter, under the street light. They also have that tic tic song, but I hear it's song in red and gold!

I have to confess that I've sat in the garden on previous occasions, and have tried to convey birdsong in a visual way. It always ends up looking like shorthand, as in the sketch above! 

Every year, the swifts come back over our house, and I really feel that spring/summer has arrived when I hear their high pitched scream! I am always sorry when they leave. Their high piercing call is blue in my mind, probably because they are always so high against the sky.

I managed to get these photos of a thrush {a baby maybe?) in our local park earlier in the year. This will be my next bird to experiment with. Plenty of time though, we have until the end of September,

What I enjoy so much about a challenge like this, is that it really encourages me to be more alert and observant of the wild life and nature around us in a more intense way, and that puts me in mind of that poem, 

LEISURE by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and care,

Hmmm, I think I may be doing a bit more of that now, lovely excuse eh!!

Link to my Etsy shop including these brooches.

I have just re-opened my Etsy shop, and for some reason the link that I could put on the sidebar doesn't want to play! So, I'm putting a link on here. Please take a few minutes to browse my wares, thank you in advance, and I hope you enjoy what you see!

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/DancingwithThreads?ref=search_shop_redir

ect

Poppies, Postcards and Butterflies.

Well, I decided that I definitely needed to have a go at translating those poppy pics into a small textile, and here it is! I'm not sure why, but it hasn't photographed very well, and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the strong contrast in the colours. It does look better in the flesh!

Four 4x6 inch postcards that I have made from a textile that I'd made some years ago, and then decided that it wasn't right. I just chopped it up, added some butterflies and so here are the results. Never throw anything away, they can always come in useful for something!

It's been so hot and sticky here in the UK, but at least it has been a good excuse to stay indoors in the cool and stitch!

Thank you for reading.

Colour, colour and still more colour!

Beautiful red poppies against a blue summer sky. Taken two weeks ago in Dungeness.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of this stretch of tarmac! Hmmm, I feel a textile coming on!

Above and below, two photos from our visit this week to the Hampton Court Flower Show. We went to the preview evening which ended in a spectacular firework display.

Photos taken in our garden. Such lovely colours, and I love the Hydrangea with it's blue and purpley pink.

Above and below, two paper laminations that I've stitched this week. They started out as black and white photocopies of a textile I made a couple of years ago, laminated onto voile, painted, stitched and finished with a little colour from my Karisma pencils.

Finally, below is a small textile I have made inspired by a photo I took of a ruin with an old rusted window frame. I built up the textures on the fabric with paint and stitch, and then added the two Six Spotted Burnet moths.

A productive week, so I hope you have enjoyed my offerings!

Summer Garden.

Just a short post today, mainly because this is the only new piece of work that I have to show. I'm having a bit of a 'fling' at the moment with moths and butterflies.  They are only very loosely based on any particular species, because I'm wanting to use printed fabrics, some of which I'm giving a quick wash over with white gesso. This gives the fabric a lovely crisp quality, which is good to free machine stitch into, and it also means that I can use my imagination with patterns and colours. I can still see the patterns through the paint, which is giving me shapes to follow, further inspiring my imagination and creative juices!

In the piece above, which measures approximately 30cm x 30cm, I've used a patchwork of printed fabrics, all painted with gesso, (some on the wrong side), and after filling in the background with the stitching and overlaying some areas with net to create areas of shade and light, I've appliqued the butterflies across the surface, and then added more colour with Karisma pencils.

I think I'll have to call this one 'Summer Garden'

Those Pesky Seagulls!!

The background went well, but then I ruined it with the seagulls in the foreground. They are too large and very clumsily done. Hmmm! I decided to play around with it in photoshop to see if I could salvage anything from it!

Paint daubs, again, I quite liked the effects in the background and sky, but those pesky seagulls......

.......still no good, and this one looks like a very cold and damp day at the seaside!

The only way to get rid of at least three of them was to put them behind some rocks, but I'm still not convinced! Oh well, you can't win 'em all I suppose, but at least I tried!

This one seemed better, at least these gulls were more in proportion, although I'm still not over the moon!!

Couldn't resist having a play in photoshop with this one either, but again, the weather has changed...looks like a sea mist is coming in!!!

So, this afternoon I decided to forget the seagulls and make my JQ for July instead. This has gone much better, so my spirits are happier again. This is the third in the wedding rhyme, and is called 'Something Borrowed'. Our daughter borrowed one of my gold chains, so here it is, machine embroidered in gold thread, and surrounded by flowers with two butterflies appliqued and free machine quilted.

I think I will be taking a rest from the gulls during the next few days, but I may have a play around with more of the seascapes. 

Thanks for reading, and please come back again soon.

Yet more of those moths, 'lurking' in the shadows!!

Yet another 'moth' piece, this one is 'Moth and Bird'

Above is the piece that had the white moth. Well, no more! I decided to colour it in, and knock back the background with paint and crayons. I much prefer it now.

This is something that I started about a year ago, mostly stitched by hand. I've finished it off this week by adding a little machine stitching, and appliqueing some standing stone shapes, so of course, it's now called 'Standing Stones'.

Three more brooches, which I'm also hoping to sell.

I feel as though I'm on a bit of a roll at the moment, probably partly because I had a break from being creative while my daughter was here for about 6 weeks. It's also a form of therapy for me so that I don't miss her too much!

Maybe still a few more 'moths' lurking in the shadows, so apologies if you're not as fond of them as I am!!!

Sunny, and Scrappy Happy!

Making the most of this lovely recent sunshine, I made a few sunprints yesterday. Not sure yet what I'll do with them, but they can always keep for a rainy day!

Yesterday I made the above still life using scraps of cloth for the background which I knocked back with some white gesso. I free machine stitched the background in black thread, to give a sketchy sort of interior looking out from a window into a garden beyond. The flowers and fruit were also cut from scraps, and appliqued down and secured with raw edge free stitching in dark grey.

Today, and still in a 'scrappy' mood, I dug out my moth collograph that I made a few months ago which led to this little cloth book here. I made two more scrappy backgrounds in the same way as for the still life, and printed one moth directly onto the background, and after printing the second onto some gesso painted fabric, cut it out and appliqued it down onto the second background. Again, I dug out a previously appliqued moth in white, and just needed to add some extra fabric to this, to bring it up to the same size as the two above.

The gesso gives the fabric stability for the free machine stitch, and is also then ideal for adding extra colour with my Karisma pencils. I've included a photo of the backs of these moth pieces, below, because I have to say that I quite like the effect of the stitching on the plain backing fabric.

Finally, above is my June Journal Quilt, and in keeping with last months, this one is called 'Something New', and is a free machine sketch of our daughter in her wedding dress that I took from one of the wedding photos. I made this on a patchwork of cream and white fabrics.

I have an idea for 'Something Blue' for my August JQ, but am at a bit of a loss for next months 'Something Borrowed'!!

Hopefully, inspiration will strike from somewhere soon, (without knocking me out though), so watch this space to see what materialises! ;)

Moody Maps

Maps have always fascinated me, and whenever I start to think back to places I know or have visited, I often see them in my minds eye as if from a 'birds eye' view!

Above is an experimental piece I've been working on for the last couple of days. It's the River Thames as it snakes it's way through London, with a few famous landmark buildings for added interest, and obviously by no means accurate! I have enjoyed making it though, and filling in details with hand and machine stitch onto  rag paper which I have previously coloured with silk paints.

This second piece is actually smaller than the top textile, but looks larger for some reason! It was made from a small section of a paper lamination of a map of Brighton and the South Downs. However, I used an ink jet print instead of a laser print, and the colour mostly disappeared during the soaking process! Anyway, I decided to add my own colour with my Karisma coloured pencils, and then finished it off with free machine stitch. I'm quite pleased with the results, and will be doing some more of these too!

Thanks for reading, enjoy your week.