Work in progress

I haven’t blogged for ages as I’ve been zooming around the country – Ammerdown Centre near Bath for my masterclass weekend, Harrogate Knit and Stitch and Penzance for my baby brother's 60th birthday.

In between, there hasn’t been a lot of time to make progress with my own work but thought I’d record these images just to remind myself of what I was doing so I can take some time over Christmas to make real progress.

Firstly, an image of my ‘studio table’ at Art Van Go’s “Artists in Action” area at the Knitting and Stitching Show as Harrogate in November. It was great to see so many of you who came to say hello. I did manage to get some work done and you can see some of my preparatory ideas on the table and large sheets hanging on the washing line behind. I drew large flying bird shapes with a feather and ink onto large sheets of tissue paper and tissutex . I then cut them vertically into strips and re-arranged them in over-lapping flaps. This was to see if I could create a feeling of movement. The lighting wasn’t good in this area so it doesn’t show the translucency of the papers well and therefore the overlapping of the bird shapes. But its given me food for thought.

This photo is one I took myself – hence the empty void in the middle. Viv from Art Van Go will be sending one which shows me to replace it soon – so come back in a few days.

I painted similar shapes with ink on a long strip of linen scrim (see right in the photo above) and then pulled the threads sideways slightly to displace the ink colouring. I think this might have some value to develop later. I found that you can control the direction of the pull to suggest movement  differently.

I haven’t added more stitching to this piece below as am warming to the feeling of understated completion it has at this stage. The edges are curling beautifully as a result of the slight dampness because of the metallic paints I smeared on.

I have several drawings  and more ‘pulled’ bird shapes that Id love to show you so please keep looking. I hope to blog more often over Christmas.

I leave you with this piece of loopy hand stitching into perforated vellum – again - done as a Christmas pic for you with a little help from PaintShopPro.