Moving...

I'm still here...it's just that life is pretty busy at the moment. We are moving house and countries and continents too.

Tomorrow the house will be packed up and shipped to England. We are flying to England (via Vancouver) getting back in early July.

I'm taking my unfinished tree fern with me - hoping to get some time to stitch and finish it!

Watch this space...

Tree Fern - I'm still going!

I finally had a bit more time...

so I've made a bit more progress.

There is still a lot I can see that I want to do...and this is far more time consuming than I had anticipated. This is about 3 hours work since the last entry - so I am really slow...this is a classic example of "slow cloth". But I am really enjoying stitching this and feel very challenged by it.

In many ways this feels like painting with threads and I am having to think how I can represent each mark with a stitch, before I do it.

Tree Fern - March Progress So Far

I have been working, albeit intermittently, on the Tree Fern macro piece. Thank you for your comments and suggestions on blending in the colours.

Ati's (Ati on the Crazy Road) suggestion of using tea to dye the pale stitches was very tempting (what a great idea - I'm saving that one for later). In the end I decided to try and blend the lights and darks using a range of tones.

This is my progress so far. Still a way to go, but I am now much happier with how it is going and can see what I want to do now - when I get some time...

It won't be finished by the March TIF deadline...but this piece has been evolving for a year or so now, and is a step in my own creative style development so that doesn't seem to matter so much...

This is my favourite bit so far.

Tree Fern - In progress

This is the progress so far on my TIF March and Sumptuous Surfaces piece.

I stitched for hours - and then stopped to look. Now I'm not sure it is working ...yet.

I think I have too much contrast between the darker and lighter colours. Actually the lighter "whites" are quite colourful on their own - but just looked washed out here. Partly the camera photo - but it also looks like this in reality too.

I had an art teacher who said if your painting or mixed media piece wasn't working to paint it all white and start again....it's tempting, but it's not a painting, so I'll have to try something else!

I don't want to unpick too much, so I'm thinking of getting some "inbetween" shades to try and bring it together. Or may be when I add the paler areas on the left of the piece, it will just work anyway! Here's hoping...

Sumptuous Surfaces - Colour Design and March TIF

I took this photo a couple of years ago. It is a macro shot of a section of a tree fern stump. I loved the colours and textures and knew one day, when I had the time and felt ready, that I wanted to do an impression of it in textiles.

I am fascinated by nature at a macro level and my digital camera has given me a new lease of life - helping me record what I see. I also love the beauty in decay at close up. I think of all things returning back to the earth - whether they are natural or man-made - everything is ephemeral.

I smiled to myself when I saw the topic of the March Take It Further Challenge. The theme is: "Do you ever notice the little things, the small moments, the details in life? This months challenge is to do just that, pay attention to the tiny details. Sometimes the small things become emblematic for something larger."

This macro interpretation fits that topic and the colour scheme pretty exactly for me. As I am also time poor - it will give me a chance to catch up with this and the February TIF within the next month. Sharon B and I are obviously on the same wavelength at the moment. What luck!

I started this piece a while ago...well, I found the brown corderoy (from cut-offs when shortening a pair of trousers) and painted the interfacing with acrylic. Made a postcard sized background area. Then I ran out of time, inspiration and any idea what to do next.

Sharon B's sumptuous surfaces design class has given me the basics of design and a framework to see how I can "Take this Further". I have been inspired to have another go. It has also enabled me to give myself permission to work on a piece of art that I feel very inspired to try.
I didn't do much art at school. I never had a chance to develop a personal style. I have just been trying lots of different things. I feel that this may be one step closer on that personal style journey.


The design outline and colour scheme...

















Here is my progress so far...