Luscious!

I've been hopping between one project and another all day today... working at pages in my Opus sketchbook and then while they've been drying I've been on the computer writing. The writing is a new and exciting venture for me which has come about as a result of blogging... I'm writing an article for the Issue 2 of Fibre and Stitch. It's in draft form at the moment and now I've got to think about photographs and diagrams... all very exciting! Watch this space.

Whilst walking Barley (the dog... no prizes for guessing what colour he is!) I spotted these gorgeous berries. "Luscious" I thought... so had to photograph them and paint them for my sketchbook!

Didn't progress much further on that train of thought but I started to think about "Perfume" and how descriptive the narrative is about the layers of odours and scents, each peeling back to reveal further layers. It got me thinking about layers and so I created a couple of pages built up with layers of papers.

This one was magazine pages, woven and stuck down. They were coated with a layer of acrylic medium, then a thin layer of gesso and then pen and ink on the surface... returning to the pomegranate theme (more "luscious".)

The second was paper with patches of coloured ink (I was trying to think rich and luscious colours) then layers of crayon, with more paper torn up and applied to the surface. At this point all my deep thinking about layers degenerated into fits of giggles as all I could think about was "Shrek" descibing how Ogres are like onions because they have layers that can be peeled back! Mmmmm! Perhaps "Shrek" is more my level than "Perfume"!

And as I promised, I'll finish with some more Summer School work by the students... such gorgeous luscious colours!

More Pictures

A few more pictures from Summer School ... some close ups of samples and one or two finished items. There were a few books and needlecases made during the week.

Thought I'd have a play around with the layout of the photos... limited sucess I think! Or rather their postion is more of a happy accident then part of any design. It is lovely to have all these pictures of student's work because there is not much to show of my own today.

I took my Opus sketchbook away with the intention of getting some work done in the evenings but it didn't really happen. Although I have started to read "Perfume" by Patrick Suskind which was recommended for us to read as part of our project on the senses. I'm not really enjoying it as I'm finding it almost too descriptive with an overload of adjectives which can be quite stomach churning at times. The narrative really immerses the reader into the world of odours and scent - extrememly evocative but quite overpowering. The central character is also quite strange and disturbed which I find uncomfortable. It hasn't inspired any artwork as yet!

Well... lots of catching up to do of the domestic kind, laundry, shopping and that type of thing so I'd better get off the computer. More student's pictures tomorrow.

Back Home

Well, I'm back home from my "Razzle Dazzle" Summer School after an exhausting but wonderful week! Nine lovely students who have worked incredibly hard all week long and produced an amazing amount of work.

Here we all are (minus Ros who had to leave last night) this morning just before our exhibition... a couple of hours when students on other courses and friends and family can come and visit.

And this is just a selection of their fabulous work! I'll post more detailed pictures during the coming week.

Well done Cathy, Sue, Ros, Linda, Mary, Adele, Veronica, Marion and Marjorie... you were a pleasure to teach!
As for me... feet up and a glass (or two) of wine tonight!

A Day Out

Today we've been blessed with the most gorgeous summer weather - sunshine and blue skies and so Stewart (husband) and I have had a day out in Ely. I have recently completed a residency in Ely, working with year 2 children and much of our work was inspired by the Stained Glass Museum in the Cathedral. The children did observational drawings and then made their own "stained glass" panels from perspex. You can read more about the museum here. It is a real undiscovered gem.

We were delighted to discover many of the children's perspex panels hanging in the entrance to Waitrose in the city centre where they are on display for the summer. Don't they look beautiful. You can read more about the project here.

We had a picnic lunch by the riverside which was lovely

and then we went onto the Cathedral to visit the museum.

We also saw an interesting exhibition at the Babylon Gallery by Fran Crowe called "Walking to Save the Sea" which raised issues about the huge amount of plastic waste that pollutes our oceans. Fran has a website with lots of pictures which explain it all far better than I can.

As well as a lovely day out I've managed another couple of pages in my OPUS sketchbook so feeling very pleased.

Another tinsel page... it doesn't look very tinselly in the picture but it really sparkles!

and another Luscious page!

Tomorrow I'm off at the crack of dawn to Missenden Abbey for my Summer School. A week of teaching but also a week catching up with friends as well as a week of no grocery shopping, cooking or laundry! Can't be bad. I'll be back in a week, hopefully with some lovely pictures of student's work.

Cutting and Sticking

I finally made a start on my summer project sketchbook last night - thanks to Ben (son no. 1) cooking supper. He's an excellent cook and produced a wonderful smoked salmon and spinach tart with watercress pesto, all from scratch. What a treat! But I digress...

When I say I made a start I stuck some screwed up tissue onto a page and left it to dry. This morning I looked at it and still didn't know what to do. A cup of tea and some magazine browsing led me to the following quote from Henri Matisse: "Don't wait for inspiration, it comes while one is working." Which was just what I needed to kick start me into action. The project is about the Senses and we have a list of words to "inform" our work. I took the first word which is Tinsel and produced a couple of textured pages with a bit of sparkle. The sparkle doesn't really show in the photos. I'm not that pleased with the actual pages but happy that I've made a start and as a result have lots more ideas of things I want to try.

One of our other words is Luscious which with a bit of word association led me to succulent, juicy, mouthwatering etc. So I did some pen and ink work of pomegranates - playing with the patterns really, which was fairly basic but fun. I think it is going to take me a while to really get to grips with this project though.

However the highlight of today was discovering a Ginkgo tree in our village. So I removed a few leaves, brought them home, painted them gold and now I feel another book cover coming on! Watch this space.

Reflecting

I've been thinking over the past couple of days about why I wanted to start a blog. Partly, I wanted to be part of this fantastic supportive creative community and I haven't been disappointed in that respect. Your comments and support so far have been amazing. But it is more than that - it seems to be allowing me to reflect on what I'm doing in a way I've not done before. In a very positive way too. I'm not sure I'm being very articulate about this but I know it feels good! I was concerned that it would become yet another distraction, another reason why I hadn't got on with a certain project (I'm the master of procrastination) but it seems to be having the oppposite effect... Gosh this is all sounding rather serious and reflective!

Anyway, all of which is good news, because in September I'm starting a degree with OPUS and feel the blog will be an excellent forum for trying out ideas and keeping me on track. With that in mind, I've had the details of a summer project we have to do before the start of the course for about a week now. I keep looking at my blank sketchbook and thinking I must start something today... but as yet it is still blank. So by telling you that today I WILL make a start on this project means that I will. And possibly I'll have something to show tomorrow!

Talking of finishing things, I did a bit of stitching on the embellished piece I posted about last week. Initially I thought it looked vaguely like a landscape but with the addition of some stitching I think it looks more like a rockface. There was no real planning in the design, only playing, but I think it could have potential to be developed into something a bit more substantial. I quite like the subtlety of the reverse side too. Not sure which I prefer.

Stickers and Ivy Leaves

Lots of excitment here today because these arrived in the post.

I spotted them first on Julie's blog about two weeks ago and just knew I had to have some. It was so easy to do (even for me!) I love little stickers anyway but to be able to have one's own pictures on them is just so much fun. They are MOO print stickers and are available here. They will be stuck on everything from now!

Have almost finished everything I need to do for summer school so have spent the rest of the day painting ivy leaves silver. I kept thinking of the Cards in the Disney Alice in Wonderland, singing "Painting the Roses Red"... Painting the Ivy Silver doesn't have quite the same ring to it!

so I could make this... another commissioned book.

It's quite a simple construction - a zigzag concertina book with board covers. The covers are the painted ivy leaves bonded between layers of black paper, lace and sheer fabric, decorated with free machine embroidery. There were lots of leaves left over so may make some more ATCs later if any one fancies a swap?