HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy new year to you all and I hope you had a good time over the festive season.

I thought I should start the year with a catch up on the latest drawings in my sketchbooks. 

I have finally completed no 41 which I started in January 2017 with these drawings from some photos taken while I was walking with Justine in the Surrey hills in November last year.

The ground was littered with red and gold leaves and the fallen branches silhouetted against the sky were very sculptural, making lovely frames for my photos.

While I was in England my middle granddaughter Steph who is studying geology at Cardiff university showed me some photos she had taken of microscopic sections of rocks. 

I couldn't believe the colours and patterns that appeared.

I asked her to email some to me as I was inspired to try and draw them with a plan to later turn them into embroideries.

I had a lot of fun on the rainy winter evenings using water soluble pens and crayons in my square sketchbook.

As the patterns are very intricate it was very hard not to get bogged down in the detail but I managed to get looser each time I tried a different one.

They look like planets spinning in outer space and as I have just re-discovered my grandmother's black velvet shawl I'm planning to use it as a background when I start the textile versions.

And maybe they lend themselves to some free machine stitching embroidery. 

I'm enjoying my new found love of hand stitching so much there don't seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything!  I've got a bag full of felting supplies waiting to be tried, my ongoing family tree portrait project and a head full of other ideas so I will never get bored. 

We're off on our travels soon and I've already packed some fabrics and threads as well as my sketchbook and pencils to keep me occupied in the winter sun of the Canaries so look out for my next blog when I hope to have some new things to share with you.