Saturday 29 July 2017

More Sketching ....


A bit more of my drawing from during the week.  These were Lotus flower seed pods.  I found them quite difficult to draw but will have another try if I get chance but using a more conventional method than left hand drawing. The comments were my own and from 3 fellow delegates on the course.

Friday 28 July 2017

Love in the Mist




Did lots of drawing with graphite pencils and sticks from chosen items in the seeds and pods group.  Very difficult drawing with your left hand and trying your best not to use traditional mark making techniques.  As the days wore on and my technique improved I started to achieve something resembling the 'Live in a Mist' I was trying to draw.


Stitching onto a long thin piece of calico which had emulsion paint added randomly to the surface was the next challenge and is still 'Work in Progress'.

Unfortunately the last picture does not really show the tuck to its best advantage. Perhaps when I have done further stitching I will be able to get a better image of it.




Stitch Heaven

Just returned from the Textile Study Group Summer School and now full of enthusiasm and ideas.  It is a privilege to be able to spend quality time with like-minded people whilst learning new skills and enhancing existing ones.  I made one big mistake and that was to volunteer this year to co-ordinate the tutor's gift from our group ....

It is a Turkish Map Fold structure.  Each student in our group decorated a square of cartridge paper which was then folded and assembled to create the book. Having no wrapping paper to hand a piece of tissue paper was quickly printed with gold and bronze paint and fitted the bill nicely.

Saturday 22 July 2017

Success or What?

Sent DH on a Beginner's Cookery Day a couple of weeks ago.  He made 4 recipes and brought 2 of them home to eat.  Since then I have been trying to encourage him to do one a week so that he remembers what to do.  This is a man who never cooks anything.  Well today he succeeded in producing this Hidden Vegetable Shepherd's Pie.  He had to double the recipe as I could not get a smaller amount of Lamb Mince.  It turned out great and there is a smaller one to eat during next week and another one (without the potato and grated cauliflower topping) which is going in the freezer for some other time.  Success!!

We are going to attempt the Chicken Curry today, but that looks more complicated so he will probably need a bit of assistance.  I ended up doing most of the shopping and washing up for the Shepherd's Pie - so no change there.

Wednesday 19 July 2017

More Moths

This moth appeared on the house wall on Tuesday.  I think it would have remained there resting all day but DH was repairing some holes in the house mortar so he had to move it.  I think it is 'Dark Arches - Apamea monoglypha'. It was quite large.

Sunday 9 July 2017

A Burst of Stardust

These petunias are so uplifting.  I wanted a couple of trailing petunias to go in a pot on the patio and they were 3 for 2 so this one was the additional buy. I did not really want a third plant but it has really cheered me up every day when I get time to sit at the table on the patio.


Thursday 6 July 2017

Hot and Sticky Day


It was the last printing class this Wednesday until September and we were putting Gum Arabic Transfers onto our prints and into our sketchbooks.  It was very hot in the afternoon too and I noticed it was 29 degrees when I drove home at 4 pm.  The little beetle above is from a drawing in my sketchbook which I had photocopied and reduced in size.  The oil based ink is silver and was printed through an etching press onto a piece of calico.


This lovely chap is also a photocopy of a drawing from my sketchbook and is inked up with Prussian Blue and printed on a piece of nice linen fabric. Very, very pleased with the result and he may yet become a patch on something.


Finally, this was the aim of the exercise.  I added a Gum Arabic Transfer of dandelion leaves to an existing silk aquatint print I had done in a previous week.  Again the printing ink was silver and the image was taken from one of my photographs.


Sunday 2 July 2017

What a Hoot

Popped over to Webbs on Saturday afternoon and had time to walk around the lovely gardens laid out along the river side.  Just look who we found perched in one of the trees. It was actually nice to have some time to look around the gardens, so beautiful, full of wild life, including lots of bee hives, and the wildflower meadow was just wonderful. Not what I had expected at all.



Saturday 1 July 2017

A Couple of Hours Play

On Thursday morning I popped to Hellens Manor and participated in the 2 hour workshop, which was part of the 2 day Textile Bazaar programme, with Viv from Art Van Go.  It was huge fun and we were able to use fantastic materials at minimal cost.  My results were not outstanding but I did really enjoy myself and actually used some things I have never done before such as Dye-Na-Flow as a diluted spray over fabric print.


Handmade blocks using, amongst other things, adhesive Funky Foam with both fabric and acrylic paints produced the lovely patterns on the piece of fabric above.  Any leftover paint was applied to A4 sheets of cartridge paper ....


The vibrant red and yellow colours came from using Golden acrylics.


Above is a small area of one of my paper pieces that I have cropped, and finally below are some of the strips of masking tape after they were removed from the fabric to which had been adhered where they had several moves and much overprinting.