Cracked Mud.

 Having removed more of the 'cracks' in the mud that I thought made the image too busy, I decided to go ahead and make a print on the painted Lutradur that I intended using for the final art work.

The piece of carving block is quite big, 21 cm x 15 cm, so I only needed to make 2 prints to fill up the A4 size piece of Lutradur. I reversed the orientation of the block for the second print and overall I was very pleased with the result. I bit too many scrapes of the carving tool showing, but I can easily remove them before the very final piece.

The June Flower Completed.

       I've added some white highlights to the petals as well as the final touches to the central area. I tried out some of the green beads that I had, but either they were too small, too large or not quite the right colour, and I didn't want to go out and buy yet more beads, so  I'll make do with these green fabric cut-outs.

                                           Backing on and the edges sealed with satin stitch.

                                                            The original Passion flower.

Flower for June.

 This is the start of the flower for June, a bright pink Passion Flower. It isn't the edible variety of Passionfruit, although it does have small green fruit which never seem to change colour before they drop off the vine.

               A bit hard to decided which petals go under which and to layer them correctly.

 Although the actual flower doesn't have a dark blue centre, it appears that way because of the dark spiky bits around the centre. Some darker dark paint shadows here adds a bit more, but I think I'll need to add some lighter touches to some of the petals too.

                   Some of the central details added, the distinctive white pistil and some anthers.

 I don't think that the yellow is quite dark enough and I haven't as yet decided whether to use beads or more fabric applique to the ends of the stamens.

Return to the Cracked Mud.

 After a very busy few days I managed to return to the carving of the cracked mud piece of rubber. I decided that I needed even more of the extra cracks, so inked in a few extras. After all, I can remove them later but I can't add them later.

                                                    All carved up and ready for a test print.

Not bad at all..............although the lower half is a bit busy, so I might remove one of the extra cracks.

A New Cappuccino Design.

I've collected photos of the designs on cups of cappuccino for some time, but this is the first time that I've seen a star. Below are some of my photos of the local designs.

                                           The strap of my camera was included in this one.

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A Seat on the Couch?

I spotted this old cane couch while out walking recently. It had obviously been covered with a piece of fabric originally, but then debris collected on the seat and whether someone actually planted things on the seat or whether they just grew, I really don't know. At the moment it's either an eyesore or something rather quirky, or a bit of both! Note the chamber pot filled with cactus in the background.

New Project.

 Having completed the work that I called 'Hands at Play', I have moved on to the next project. It's based on water, reeds and dried mud, reflecting the title of the next exhibition to be held at the Embroiderers Guild here in Melbourne. Above are some of my photographs of dried and cracked mud.

Here I've carved the outlines of the cracked mud, and have begun to carve away the excess rubber, quite a time consuming task I suspect ! I wanted to try a stamped image from this small portion of the carving, just to see that it looks O.K. A bit too similar to crazy paving I think, so I'll add a few more 'cracks' as I go along. I have drawn in a few with ink just to see what needs to be done.

The Next Flower?

 I needed an image of a flower from a garden for the month of June, so I was very happy to be able to photograph this Passion flower. This 'full frontal' is not perhaps in keeping with the angled images of flowers that I have used for the other months, so I set about taking pictures from more interesting angles.

 This shows the complex structure of the stamens, pistil and anthers, with lots of  different colours included.

                                 Another possibility, but I think that I prefer the  image above.

More Stamping.

 After a short break away from the carving tools it was time to get on with the next project. I decided to continue with the idea of using the very small musical instruments, but not to use the carving of the little guitarist. Here are the carved stamps of 2 different hands which will be part of the final piece.

 I wanted a third extended hand but this first attempt above looks awful, there is no indication that fingers are curled under at all. This needs a second attempt!

                                     That's better, a lot more shape and definition is this one.

Something along these lines I think, but this isn't quite right yet. Three of the lower partial hands are all too similarly orientated. Another try tomorrow.

Flower for May.

 Since I didn't visit any public gardens during May, or even visit a friend's garden, I decided to use my photo of the hibiscus from my own garden. Here I've assembled the various components of the flower which will be appliqued onto the background.

 The pink centre was painted and the piece placed upside down to encourage the pink colour to migrate down the white fabric.

 The individual petals were delineated with a narrow satin stitch and some creases in the large petals shown with machine stitching.

 The top of the central column of the flower which bears the stamens was worked in satin stitch.

 The stamens were add in free motion machine stitching with a very close zig- zag stitch for the yellow tips.

The background foliage in the garden was worked very roughly in free motion machine embroidery and the whole piece backed and the edge satin stitched. I wonder if I can find another spectacular flower for the June image, as it's now winter and not so many flowers are in bloom.