Portraits

Jacob spent the day with his dad on Saturday which meant I got to have a day out! I went into London for a day with Opus. I'd brought some of my work along as the morning was an Open Day for prospective degree students - also a good chance to meet and compare notes with some current students, most of whom were almost finished their degree not just starting like me. Then in the afternoon we had a lecture by the incredibly talented Paddy Killer. She brought lots of samples of her work and gave a very entertaining talk. Not sure it would be okay to show pictures of her work on here but if you follow this link to her website you can see loads of examples. She is the most amazing technician both in her drawing and her machining - do take a look!


Going on the train also meant a chance to do some thinking and drawing for my current Opus module. I'd already printed off this image of a self portrait I'd done in the previous module. (I'm not really that grumpy looking - despite what you may have read on my last post - but I had to concentrate very hard to do this!!!)



I then played around with different effects in Paintshop Pro to see what the drawing would look like with different colours. I really am totally useless with things like this on the computer so this is about as far as I got.




However, it did make me think about the brightly coloured portraits of Matisse and so while I was on the train I made this very rough version of the portrait with coloured pencils (it was a very bumpy ride!) I didn't leave off my glasses through vanity - I just didn't fancy having to stitch them!

I have also been looking at the work of Sue Dove as I love her brightly coloured stitched images and so over the rest of the weekend I turned my portrait into a stitched picture influenced by Sue Dove... (and Matisse!)

I thoroughly enjoyed the process of stitching this and seeing the image build up - especially working out of my comfort zone (i.e. away from my sewing machine). I quite like the end result but as always with my work I find it all a bit too neat and controlled... so what I really like best is the reverse!

Which is not at all neat!

*****

Jacob had his first full day at school today which meant a blood test and injection at lunch time but he has coped brilliantly so we had a treat when he came home... tea and fruit scones!