Work table lines

Gathering my thoughts and painting more roots.

Root marks

Root drawings to record the stems and grasses in my garden

More detailed sketchbook 'thumbnail' studies and photos

then worked more freely using wax resist and inks

Rooting around

I was initially drawn to flower heads in my current foraging in the garden - buttercups, dandelions, roses. Now I thought I'd look at the compost heap. I'd previously buried scraps of fabrics there and used them a few months later, washed of course, in some textile experiments.

Placing a string of different fabric scraps into the compost heap

A few months later.

Washed and layered

My latest forage into the compost heap gave me some lovely roots - at the end of buttercup stems I think. These were washed to remove the soil.

Noticing how beautiful they were, I thought to feature the roots as you would a bouquet of flowers and stuck the stems into the end of a spool of thread - leaving one on the table as in a traditional floral still life.  

I was intrigued to arrange the roots to form a flower head above and also realised I had a spider - [re Louise Bourgeois?] below.

Now to paint my roots! (reading too many Facebook pages of people's hairdressing plights during lock-down! )

 Hedgerow drawing with inks

 Painted roots with touches of pale lemon to echo the hedgerow drawing behind.

Stitching and Rooting

I was pleased with the eco printing results onto concertina'd paper - beautiful and subtle effects from the initial bold red petals.  A few thoughts add to their story with stitched additions.

Pressed buttercups and other dried stems secured with stitches to echo the buttercup prints.

Loosely couched threads to echo the rose petal shapes - used thread that wrapped the folded paper concertina that picked up some of the rose pigment.

Fine dried stems stitched with 'crows foot' stitch to echo rose thorns.

A different way of using my garden flowers - mashing and boiling to reduce to an ink 

Buttercup ink makes a very subtle but beautiful colouring. I foolishly let it boil too long so the liquid became cloudy.  

The cotton organdie fabrics below were coloured with my buttercup ink.

Ready to make more ink; this time with rose petals. 

Starting to chop them into bits and noticed how they changed as they dried the following morning. 

Hope the colouring strength hasn't weakened!

Loved the effects made at this stage when using a circular cutting blade to chop the petals. 

Getting re-acquainted

It's been several weeks of 'lock-down'. I am enjoying walks from the house, building up my post-op fitness as well as discovering new walks and hedgerows of my neighbourhood. Also appreciating the garden and details not noticed before such as bare roots found in the compost heap -



and the way I can use flowers for more than their visual beauty. Boiling a handful of buttercup flowers to reduce to an ink.



The resulting colour is soft but stronger than in the photo below.

Also printing with leaves and petals onto paper and fabric.

Prints made between the folds in a concertina'd paper strip. Folded paper was put under a heavy weight for 24 hours. Red rose petals, buttercups, yellow rose petals, dandelion leaves.

Now where was I?

It's been a little while since I last posted here, but have been working away during 'lock-down' which coincided beautifully with my convalescence from heart surgery. So lots of time to gently reflect and to take a look at my close environment. Before I post more recent work, I thought I'd look back at recent work to pick up the threads of thought.

Pebble husks' - heated (re-cycled black bin liner) plastic around pebbles When cool, a slit was made in the plastic and the pebble slipped out, leaving the empty plastic husk. The pebbles will be returned to the nearby beach along the Severn Estuary.

More complex 'pebble husk' forms made as before around beach pebbles using strips of old packaging plastic, decorated by mono-printing, machine stitching and marker pens to echo the idea of feathers - connecting with the way that sea birds are effected by discarded plastics along the seashore.