Approx. 26cm x 19cm.
Black technical drawing pens, Inktense pencils with water wash, metallic gold watercolour paint and gold Uniball pen.
This has kept me busy the last four days while I’ve been off work with tonsillitis.
Lots of gold on this one, not that the scan shows it up well, but it works out nicely, I think, if a tad fussy and ornately.
…mandala or just circular piece of art.
15.5cm diameter. 0.3mm technical drawing pen, Zig Art and Graphic pens with water wash, and a white Sakura Gelly-Roll pen on cold-pressed watercolour paper.
Yesterday I attended the opening night of the Aber Valley Arts Festival. I had entered three pieces of work into the competition, including ‘Moments after the big bang’. I won first prize in the textile section of the competition!
Prehistoric fertility 2 finished and renamed!
I really need to learn how to take photographs! This is a dreadful picture of this textile work.
It’s framed and renamed to be entered into a local art competition – Aber Valley Arts – along with two other pieces of my artwork, but I don’t know which two yet. I have to choose then write some gumpf to go with them. I’ll be asking my pal, the head of art at work, to help me choose the others.
So, it’s been a busy morning here measuring and cutting daler-board to mount the various art works (seven in total, phew!) and calculating any aperatures that need to be cut.
Time for a ginormous mug of tea!
Dimensions – 23x30cm, approx. Silk fibre needle felt on a black felt background. Embellishement with beads, metallic and Japan threads, and custom-made sequins.
Photographs never seem to do my work justice, simply because I’m not a photographer. There is no idea of the shimmery nature of the work, the way that the gold Japan threads used to outline various parts of the needle felt define the shapes and provide a channel along which the colours seem to flow like oil on water. There is no sense of the texture and heights/depths that the needle felt has brought to the work, nor to the patterns and textures the beads give. The colours still look garish in the photograph, yet in the actual piece they are more subtle and muted.
I have spent many hours on this so far – around 30 I would guess. Every moment has been a pleasure, and I’ve even caught myself looking at it and smiling at how well it is working out – unusual for me as I’m my own worst critic, and it’s a step forward that I can appreciate the beauty in my creative work.
It’s finally arrived. Today marks the end of my freedom to a degree. Tomorrow I return to work, to a structured day and all the ups and downs that go with the job that teaching is. My time for art and other pursuits will become very limited.
I had a list of things to do over the Summer, and I’ve achieved few of them, however I have achieved other things, and that is good. What is better is I’m not beating myself up about the tasks undone. There’ll be time to do them…
I will miss the slow starts to the day, the spontaneity of trips and visits and time with friends. Friday afternoon I spent with a friend in a local cafe-bar, drinking, talking about art and other things, working on art, having nice food and laughing before going to take the weekly meditation class I lead. I will miss the opportunity to do those kinds of things.
On the positive side, it won’t be long until the next school break, and there are the weekends too…
There’s definitely a coolness in the air in the mornings and evenings. It’s a feeling I associate with the coming of autumn, the return to school, the start of the new academic year and a sense of hope of better things to come, a hope that was usually misplaced, and still is. However, I still hope that a new school year and a new term will bring new attitudes, opportunities and good achievements.
This year, the new attitudes must be towards myself and my expectations of me and how I react to the poor attitude/behaviour of others. The Summer break has allowed me to relax, to become who I am meant to be. I like this person, I like the contentment within me, I like the confidence that comes with it. What I don’t want is to lose this with the stresses and strains of teaching. There’s a challenge!
One of the tasks left mostly undone over the Summer was too look for an alternative career/job, one that will allow me to use all my personal skills/talents/gifts in a positive manner. I’ve been stumped as to what to do, and looking around at available jobs there is nothing that seems to fit me, well not yet.
So that’s another task for the coming weeks – to keep looking at available jobs, to seek advice, suggestions, to continue the audit of my personal skills to help me focus on what I could do.
I have been thinking about training as a hypnotherapist. The biggest stumbling block for me is finding the money to pay the fees. I’m making enquiries about that…so finger’s crossed!
The incipient return to work has been causing some anxiety and worry with me. My meditation this morning was filled with thoughts of things that need to be done, ideas as to what to do, worries about things that cause me emotional pain …
Just finished applying the needle felting to the black felt ground. I have to admit the colours are a bit garish, even for my likes! It is all a learning process, however, and as this is something new to me, I’m exploring how it works, or doesn’t, for me, including the use of colours and so on. The ‘space dyed’ felting fibres (silk in this case) really don’t lend themselves to this kind of work…
The piece is approx 23cm x 30cm, so it’s a biggie for me! Now the fun begins, with the stitching, beads, sequins and wires that will be added for more embellishment, and perhaps these garish colours will fade into the background …
Patterns inspired by prehistoric rock art once again…
15×23 cm, around 12 to 15 hours of work/pleasure.
Needle felting in silk fibres, embellishments done with various metallic fibres, beads and custom made sequins.
Patterns inspired by British Prehistoric rock art and Neolithic/Bronze Age pottery.
I had my doubts part-way through whether this was going to work out, but I’m really now quite pleased with it. When friends saw it, they thought it was like cells expanding and reproducing – hence the ‘Fertility’ part of it’s title!
When I mount it for display, I’d like to put it onto a piece of slate, an old slate tile maybe; however, I have my doubts about the sensibility of that with the damage dust and fingers could do to it … I’ll work on the idea!
This week I’ve been experimenting with Needle Felting, and this is one of the works in progress. It’s approx. A5 in size, and the pattern is inspired by prehistoric rock art, something that is beautiful in it’s honesty and amazing that it has survived so many thousands of years!
Needle felting is simple enough to do – strands of un-felted fibres are laid out in the required pattern/shape and a special ‘needle’ is used to push them through the background fabric, in this case I’ve used my favourite black felt, though many different kinds of materials can be used to do this.
I thought it would be interesting to try, a change from the use of wires to lay out an abstract pattern – there is a limit to the thickness of wire I can use because I’d be unable to bend or cut it, and the weight would no doubt cause problems with the fabric ‘ground’. The relatively matt effect of the needle felted parts is a contrast to the shiny beads, sequins and threads that I love to attach to embellish the basic desigh; perhaps by using a more matt ‘outliner’ I’ll use more in the way of matt embroidery threads and other items.
I’m also conscious that the outlines I’ve created are quite ‘thin’, I need to experiment more with making much more gutsy and raised designs, so that beads and so on nestle in the valleys created by the needle felting. I also need to experiment with various fibres, such as Angelina, to add shimmer and sparkle to the needle felting. Having said that, on one of my experiments, I’ve stitched over the needle felted lines with gold thread, which creates an interesting texture.
Here’s the other two experimental pieces :
Each of these is approx. A6 in size.
A friend of mine asked me late yesterday evening if I’d create a couple of cards for special birthdays, one of which is today! No chance of it getting in the post for today, but that’s fine as apparently it will work really well as a post special birthday surprise. Fortunately, I had some little textile pieces on one side that I’d wanted to frame, so instead, they’ve been trimmed and mounted on card blanks that are slightly iridescent/metallic in sheen.
They work well don’t they?
I’ve just finished this piece of art created using wires and beads and threads and custom made ‘sequins’ using black felt for the ground. It measures approx. 20cm x 15cm and has taken some 25 hours or so to make.
The inspiration for the swirls and loops comes from La Tene or early Celtic art and ammonites and shells. The sparkly-ness is all my own – my inner magpie will not be denied!
I find working with this is a lot like drawing for me, but using the wires, threads, beads and ‘sequins’ as the mark-making tools. There’s something calming about doing the work, and something magical about turning the black of the felt into something much brighter and lighter.
The choice of colours – coppers, golds, blues, greens, with the odd dark metallic purple and brown – was specifically for the friend who asked me to create a textile artwork for them. They love all shades of blue, but especially turquoise, and copper and the gold and greens and other colours just seemed to go with these.
Art is the Adventure 