International Women's Day in Swansea

An exhibition of 'Wonderful Welsh Women' at the Waterfront Museum, Swansea includes images and small pieces of work by Iris Martin, my mother, and myself (as well as Catherine Zeta-Jones!) Come and join me there on 8th March and for a Peace Rally on the LC2 bridge at 11.45.

More on masking fluid

Does anyone recognise this group of islands? I've just spent several days on one with my masking fluid and my koh-i-noor paint box - a long way from the grey skies of Somerset.

Last pages

I've enjoyed playing with masking fluid in this final section of my sketchbook. It's great fun to build up layers of colour a bit like you would with wax resist. My model continued to enjoy being the centre of attention although the smell of the masking fluid was not always agreeable.

Cat in a basket - above.

Cat on a sunny window sill.

Zen life drawing workshop

A wall of my drawings - a small selection produced during the Zen workshop. Notice how much interest my model for my sketchbook drawings takes in these new ones.

We were limited to six drawing implements - three dry and three wet. These were given a number - 1 to 6. The appropriate implement was used when the number was called out, taking away the need for decision-making and rather liberating.

The model posed for a series of short poses (2, 3 or 4 minutes) and one or two longer one - (10, 15 minutes), changing position after each one. Some drawings were done on top of previous one.

Drawing with an implement in both hands!

Drawing with left hand and wet material!

Holding implement in mouth!

Sketchbook pages

For all students in my Urchfont Masterclass (and any interested Distant Stitch student). I've set myself (and challenged others) to keep and fill a sketchbook before our next meeting at Urchfont in March. I think I took the easy option as my model was always available and hardly moved during the last month! I wanted to work with just one idea to keep drawing the same thing, testing my own perception and drawing skills. I was very 'rusty' initially but feel I've got into it now and just love a short drawing session each day.
Splash, the 15 year old, has kept herself tucked up in her basket on my work table by a warm radiator. The basket is lined with a plain wool blanket which created a sort of negative shape with the cat's body partially covered by an edge of blanket.In one drawings she looks an odd silhouette - more like the Lock Ness monster.
Plans for the second half of the sketchbook are to use resist methods such as wax crayon and masking fluid. .
I'm booked in to a 'Zen' Drawing Workshop on Saturday so there might be interesting developments later. Watch this space!

Finally, the middle pages!

Wishing Everyone a Happy Christmas

If you haven't had snow yet or aren't even expecting to see any this Christmas, I'll share a view of my garden at sunrise this morning; viewed as if through a shiny sphere or even a Christmas tree bauble, the snow making a magical scene in the British mid-winter.

I hope you will all enjoy your mid-winter break, or maybe your mid-summer break in the southern hemisphere! I look forward to hearing from you in the New Year and to welcoming new students on the Machine Embroidery and Creative Sketchbooks Courses we are now offering at Distant Stitch. Tell your friends to look at www.distantstitch.co.uk

Email restored

If you have sent me an email in the last few days and not received a reply, please email again. My sian@distantstitch.co.uk address is now fully restored. Apologies for any inconvenience.