Holiday hoarding

 

 

 

As well as armfuls of inspiration I've returned from holiday with bagfuls of materials. I love the different degrees of worm action in these four pieces of drift wood and I think I'll try to keep them together, not sure for what end yet though. I splashed out on a few pieces of tweed, a gorgeous sea blue-green from the Harris Tweed Hebrides , a little placemat and a fabulous piece of Breanish Tweed . I've started working with the  blue-green but I am saving the multi-coloured piece for something really special. The sea glass is actually my son's so out of bounds, but my eye was taken instead by these weathered buoy and float pieces, I love the way their colours have mellowed.

Here's a piece of the Harris Tweed, with wool covered limpet shells :) 

Barra

View across Bagh Thiarabhage, Barra

We spent the first week of our Hebridean hoiday on the island of Barra. We stayed in a little cottage overlooking Bagh Thiarabhage, which is one of those long fingers of sea that seem to reach into the island and tickle it under the armpit. We watched seals and oyster catchers and wondered at the crowds of gulls who gathered in anticipation of the fishing boats landing at the fish factory up the road.


There is a certain tension in this landscape between the ruggedness of the terrain (which can change from bog to bare rock to machir to bare sand to sea in a 10 minute walk) and the overwhelming orderliness of the croft system, which superimposed straight lines across the land and regularly spaced cottages. I think I’ll be returning to this in future prints.

Outer Hebrides (and back)

Finally made it home yesterday after a long long trip back from Ullapool after a couple of weeks on the far north-western tip of these lands. My mind is buzzing with images of stunning landscapes, plants and critters and a heavy dose of inspiration from some of the local artists and artisans. I couldn't wait to get at a block of lino last night , but could I find my scapel? No of course not, cue much swearing and procrastination. I found it today so am looking forward to cracking on with my first Hebrides print tonight :)

I had hoped to do a spot of painting whilst there. I packed paints, cut wads of my favourite watercolour paper, even stretched a sheet in anticipation. BUT I FORGOT MY BRUSHES!!! There are no watercolour brush shops on Barra. I thought the coop might have a make-up brush that I could at least daub around a bit with, but no. In the end I bought a small decorator's paintbrush in desperation but didn't have the heart to waste paper with it in the end.

Luckily I had thrown in some sewing bits and bobs at the last minute so at least I had some channel for the making urge. Lots of sketches for prints too:)

Blue-Green

I was knocked out by the fabulous colours of these banded demoiselles when I saw them dancing across the River Wharfe this afternoon. I wish I had had the video camera with me so I could share the amazing fluttering flights of these damselfly, its enough to make you believe in fairies.  

Until I saw these I had quite liked the colour pairing in my latest bit of stitching, but now it seems so drab by comparison. Ho hum. Might put some thought into a damselfly print though ...

Swedish Thread 2

I've still got my thread head on, much buoyed up by the lovely comments to my previous post and by the arrival of a small stack of embroidery hoops :)


This one preempts what I hope will be a summer holiday spent gazing into rockpools, one of my favourite past times (equal place with beach combing). I'm hoping to work on some prints on this  theme but in the meantime I've been thinking about limpets. These gastropods are soft squidgy critters in a tough conical shell and they are near impossible to remove from a rock. Amazingly they gouge away at the rock and produce a shallow depression that is "home" then range around grazing for algae and other food before returning "home". I like to think they are performing a little dance as they go, maybe a limpet dosey doe or tango. 

and from the previous post...

And the giveaway goes to....

Mackin-art! 

A big thanks to everyone who left comments, it was lovely to read such happy stories (and the odd hilarious mishap:))

swedish thread 1

During a big tidy up a few weeks back I came across this little bundle of threads, felt and woven fabric that I had bought in the fantastic Svensk Hemslojd store in Stockholm a couple of years ago. 

I hadn't attempted much needlework for a good few years so thought I'd  have a stab (literally!) at something as a break from print making.  But there was one thing I had forgotten about embroidery - it is so blinking addictive! Once I started I couldn't stop and was busy stitching away crouched over in bad light 'til gone midnight. It reminded me of the time I obsessively chained stitched an A4 sized piece until none of the fabric was visible (wonder where that's gone?). 

I had chosen these linen and wool threads with the landscape of Gotland in mind. Gotland sits in the middle of the Baltic and has fabulous sandy strands, pebbly beaches, low scrubby vegetation and its roads are line with the most fabulous displays of wild flowers. Here's the piece nearly done, just the flowers to add now.