turmeric on silk

Happy New Year to 2016
It's been quite a year of transitions, for me. Settling into my new job; making new relationships; getting out and spending more time with people; camping and travelling more; being ill; getting the trees cut back out the front of my garden. 
We had the horrendous floods in Yorkshire over Xmas; though I haven't been personally affected, we were at risk over the xmas weekend. I can only imagine the dreadful conditions people are currently coping with.


I've had some more personal transitions too; it wasn't only the trees that got cut back this year. 
A number of my friends have had a crap year; and so I'm glad to see them through all that. So I'm welcoming 2016; I hope you have a peaceful and love-filled year. I will try my best to! 

The opened bundle. Silk with the turmeric dried on it. I've left it to dry, and settle a while; then I'll iron it, and see if that fixes it. I've not used a mordant at all; it's an experiment. See what happens. I do like the marks made by the binding though; I hope the silk retains that. It may need some overdying at some point though? Have to wait and see. 

 The dried turmeric on the silk, before I opened the bundle.

Letting the silk soak in the turmeric; it's in a cup, so it's only a small bundle of cloth.

The cup with the turmeric mixed in water; I left part of the fabric out of the mixture, to see if I could get a graded colour......because it's yellow, it hasn't got as much contrast as I'd like.

Happy New Year - 2015

The Christmas Cactus came out on Christmas Day, so that was a good harbinger.
I spent a lovely xmas and New Year with family and friends.
And I'm still in the place of 'resting'.
Of letting things settle; of feeding my creative soul before I start the next artwork.
I am hoping to continue with my ideas of making collagraphy 'plates', and printing them in the mangle I was given in the summer. I've done one experimental print; below.

For speed I used acrylic paint, rather than printing inks. I just wanted a quick result, to see how the mangle would work.
I think it's worked quite well; and there's a lot of potential. My friend Berenice and I went to Spurn Point on the coast, earlier in the year (2014) and collected bags of found treasures! I hope to use these to make collography plates; and experiment with prints made from them. 
In the meantime, the stitching won't end. There'll just be a different direction. I'm looking forward to it. It feels like the recent past is wrapped up and boxed away. But things are different. My life is moving in another direction. So this is a good time to post this print.
And wish you all the best for 2015. X 

work & weaving

The world has moved back to 'normal'; work has begun again, both paid work, and course work. And my own creative work has resumed; although it didn't quite cease over xmas and new year!
During the break, I went over to visit my friend Tracey; who's been doing some weaving, both tapestry weaving, and 3D weaving. As a total novice, I felt 3D weaving might be great fun, but perhaps I should start with something a bit more straightforward!
So Tracey has kindly lent me her frame, and I've been doing some slow, steady weaving. I'm working in a very muted colour palette; whites, creams, greys, beiges. This is as a result of seeing the work of Polly Binns at Barnsley at the end of last year. Normally my colours are brighter than this; so my decision to change my colour range is significant of new ideas percolating though. And that is no bad thing.
I'm a bit further on that this photograph now shows. But it does give me occasional headaches, as I try to work out exactly where threads should go!!!! I don't think it's something I'll take up in a serious way. But already I can see the potential of it for the ideas I'm working on.

New Year's Day

Happy New Year!

Jon made this lovely wreath for us this year; very 'holly and Ivy', with lots of berries. Evergreens the symbol of life in the depths of winter. 
I'm currently reading Richard Mabey's  book, 'Weeds'. And on page 192 he asks the question, 'what are weeds for?' The answer comes in his following sentence;
'I have not seen three-quarters of these species, (of moths) but the list of moths that feeds on that governmentally scheduled weed, the dock, reads like a found poem:
bearded chestnut, black rustic, blood-vein, brown-spot pinion, chestnut, common marbled carpet, cream wave, dark-barred twin-spot carpet, dark chestnut, feathered ranunculus, garden tiger, gem, green arches, grey chi, Isle of Wight wave, large ranunculus, large twin-spot carpet, Lewes wave, mottled beauty, muslin moth, nutmeg, pale pinion Portland ribbon wave, red sword-grass, riband wave, ruby tiger, satin wave, striped hawk-moth, sword-grass, twin-spot carpet, white-marked, wood tiger, yellow shell.'

'Another year over, and A New One Just Begun....'

Light a light for the New Year!

Last night Jon and I went out up the hill near our house, just before midnight, and watched as the sky filled with fireworks and sky lanterns!

The fireworks were glorious and colourful; intense bursts of light against the black sky. Loud bangs and crashes, deafening us when they exploded nearby.

What awed both of us though, were the sky lanterns! An armada of sky lanterns, flying towards us; past us; beyond us; on into the night.

Wave after wave, they kept coming; from away on the horizon they rose up, and caught the thermals of the city below.

Some came so close we could identify the different colours of their paper balloons; white, red, orange. And a couple flew past with their flame extinguished; just burnt out ghosts of grey, trailing the winds. Pale white globes, still moving, but losing height rapidly.

We returned home to candles and lanterns in the garden, that I'd fired up to welcome in the New Year.