Moon in the blue sky.

I love to see the beauty of a translucent Moon floating in the blue sky, it’s always a gift. I’ve wanted to use this title for some time; I tend to store up and keep titles until they find a home. This piece was conceived after the first heavy-ish fall of snow we had at the start of the year and as I made it it became apparent that the title Moon in the blue sky had a destination.

I took some images of the snowy trees and garden, it was relatively early so the colours were quite dark and dramatic. I later printed them after a brief edit onto some fairly unpleasant bright white stiff silk. I have no idea where it came from, disconcertingly, but the prints were beautiful, so I think its found its purpose, at least. Typically I don’t have that much left and now wouldn’t mind some more. I used my inkjet printer, after ironing the silk onto Bondaweb, and putting sellotape along the feed edge.

We have jays visiting our winter garden, not so many lately, but in the past we’ve had a visiting pair and one, many years ago, who would take peanuts from your hand.

So I decided this piece needed a jay, especially as I had a drawing ready to go of a jay that I had never used, and I sorted out some other references too. Yes, this image was in the last post, but I thought I’d pop it into this one too, for a bit of continuity.

Above you can see the A4 sized snowy garden prints, with some thread and bead inspiration too. The little images of arches are a hedge from a garden visit, I can’t remember where, and what I think is a little stone altar, on a wall in Venice. I didn’t use these references eventually, they are saved for another day. I’ve always liked an arch.

Above, the finished piece, mixed materials on felt, 45 x 67 cm, 18 x 26 inches. I hand stitched it which did take a while, but when a piece is this sort of size manoeuvering it through the machine is unpleasantly difficult and can damage it, I’ve found.

A close up, above. The sky is indigo dyed silk. And below, a slightly closer view.

The stitching wasn’t particularly mindful or relaxing, as is the current fashion, but I didn’t think it would be. I use quite a few layers in some parts of my work and the needle doesn’t go through them with much grace. I use a sharpened bradawl to help. I’ve been doing this for years, one day I hope I will make something that is easy to hand stitch…I’m not holding my breath.

Below, an even closer view.

I have another five pieces waiting to be stitched, and no reason not to get on with them, so I’d better be off.

Thanks for reading! Look after yourselves.

The birds are back part two.

One of my intentions this year is to use materials I already have, and although my stash is small compared to many, there’s still enough to make a lot of work. I did actually decide this late last year, and although I wasn’t supposed to be buying anything new, I had a notion to use felt for some new work ideas, so naturally I had to buy some, albeit far too much. After buying it I decided it wasn’t for me, or at least the ideas weren’t for me.

It turns out that I was quite wrong. I had started to plan and make some new work, and found myself choosing the felt as the background. It’s lovely heather wool felt, and of course doesn’t fray, which makes edging really easy. I hate thinking of solutions for edging, so felt may be the chosen way for quite a while.

I am a member of Eclectica Artists, and we have regular Zoom meetings. We decided a project of sorts would be a good idea to keep us going, share developments at meetings and eventually hopefully exhibit the results. Naturally we didn’t pick a theme of any kind, as we never do, we are fully into each of us going our individual ways; we just decided to use recently taken images to work from.

I chose some images of a rose I had photographed, and did a fair amount of collage work, and some drawn ideas for applique and needlepoint pieces. I love a stripy flower.

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When I started to choose fabrics and felt, the palette reverted to was one that is basically more my normal toned down approach, except for the brighter pink I still wanted to include, below. I had wanted to use full on bright pink and acid green, but they are making a guest appearance rather than being the leading participants.

Then the subject matter veered away from roses and butterflies, and landed once again on birds. Here are three pieces, all laid down and ready to stitch. They are around 65 45 cm/26 x 18 inches.

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So these pieces were distinctly unplanned, but I believe in making what comes naturally. It may be that the more vivid pieces happen at some point, I hope so.

The recent snow inspired me to take a few photographs, and print some images on some silk. The silk was fairly horrible, very stiff, shiny and bright white. I have no idea why I bought it, but I’m glad I did, as it produced some snowy lovely tree prints. The two small images of arches were a possible idea for inclusion, which didn’t happen, but like the pink and green, may do in another piece.

Inspired by the previous flying hoopoe I wanted to do another flying bird. They both seem to flying in the same direction, so they must know something. This time I chose a jay as we often have one or occasionally two in our garden during the winter. I wanted the pink, black and white against the winter colours, and I’ll use beads to introduce the bright blue on the wings.

Now I must stop putting pieces together and actually finish them, so let’s see if that’s what the next blog is about. I have five to finish in the queue, but I may need to lay down a nice tropical bird using some of those bright colours first…