New Work.

 I'm not quite sure what prompted me to start this piece, except that I already had a frame with a blue border to the matt board and so I thought that I might sew something especially to make use of a spare frame. Well, it wasn't exactly spare, I removed an old art piece from the frame that never worked very well. Here I've scanned an old piece of screen printing that again never worked, and started Photoshopping  the image. All the little butterflies are added individually to the background screen print which was originally green and red!

Here I've printed the image onto fabric and with 2 different variegated threads I've sewn random  small circles all over the area that wasn't covered by the butterfly 'bubbles'. Not sure what comes next, as I need a focal point, but I don't want to introduce another colour. Thinking........

Finished.

 I have indeed added an insect to the grasses image; the beetle is a digitally reduced print of a stamp that I hand carved some time last year. I felt that the whole picture needed more of a point of focus, particularly when I wanted to use an old frame that had a much smaller open area than the piece of textile work itself.

Here you can see the new size of the finished work, much narrower than it was originally which I am quite happy with.

Grass.

Here's another solar print that I've been working on for some time. You might remember that a while ago I had the idea of appliqueing some blue silk pieces to this background, but nothing looked quite right, so I have reverted to machine embroidering the small plants below the grasses. I'm thinking of adding an insect, but I'm not totally convinced about the idea!

Printing.

 Still some cleaning up to do here, and I think that I will invest in some new printing ink.  What I have is very old and doesn't roll out evenly at all. Some of the carving lines will stay, after all it is a lino-cut and they prove it!

A red crest yes, but what about the eye? Here are some variations that I'm considering, just click on the image to enlarge it.

Still Carving.

 I'm not sure if all the feather markings are actually deep enough to show up properly, but I'll leave them for now and keep carving.

 The surrounds looked a bit bare, so I've incorporated several leaves. I don't know what species of cockatoo it is, but it definitely isn't an Australian one with that shaped crest.

 The leaves look like Eucalypt leaves which isn't entirely appropriate with the 'foreign' cockatoo, but they do have nice shapes!

          First trial print just using a stamp pad dabbed on to see where I need to tidy up the carving.

Carving a Cocky.

 I found an image of a cockatoo that looked as if it would translate well into a lino-cut. Here is the initial drawing and I'm just beginning to cut the area around his crest.

      A bit more outlining, and I've just realised how many feathers there are to work around.

 The preliminary carving is almost finished, although there is lot more work to be done removing the background and in between the leaves. I also want to go back into the feathers are make some faint marks on them, just to make them look more like feathers and less like scales!

 I've done a quick crayon rubbing on rice paper here just to get some idea of how it might look.

Gazanias.

 I just love Gazanias, their shapes and their many colour variations, added to which they are easy to grow.

    All of these I actually grew from seed, and it's taken a couple of years for them to flower.

 Well worth the wait, as I can now move pieces to other parts of the garden, knowing if they are to go in the pink flowering area or the orange, yellow, red area.

                                                         The variations are amazing!

                            Even the less striking markings are beautiful when seen up close.

                                  Perhaps I need to grow more seed for even more variations!

Museum in Visby, Gotland.

 These ancient stone markers are in a small but interesting museum in the town of Visby, on the Swedish Island of Gotland. The interesting thing about the photo of a boat above, is the striking similarity between it and the images of boats seen on monuments in ancient Egypt.

 The carvings have worn away with time, but the more important ones have had a bit of paint applied so that the images can be seen. I love all the people in this boat with it's single large sail

                                               A lovely collection of patterns on this one.

                                           Some reindeer perhaps and a wheel like symbol.