Moving on

Here are 3 more natural dyed pieces.

The first two are in fact very green but my camera (or I) am not very good at representing the true colours.

I do think I belong to the group of artists who are schizophenic, On the one hand, while doing these organic pieces I am making a quilt for my spare room.

We have a lovely shop near us called "Patchwork House" As I am not a manic patchwork person, and indeed I tend to use preloved fabrics, I go infreqently and have seen it through a few owners, but there is a beautiful freshness, like Spring whenever you go in, but indeed the most significant and rewarding element is the tiny pink plastic carrier in the photo.

I am so glad that has remained constant. This Quilt has some significance but more of that later.

Inspired

This morning on a ramble through 'Blogland' I read Annes'(Wild Somerset Child) blog and realised how I had missed all my friends.

I guess we all go through periods when it is more difficult to fit it in!

However

Our group of "the Very Stuff" continues to inspire me so I have taken time off Uni, and am going to get my studio in order and 'PLAY'!

Jo (Mystory) has suffered the same fate as me, in discovery of natural dyes.........

I have been also making books and then dyeing them in red onion skins and eucalyptus leaves

The first one is full of textures fabric ready for the dyepot.

I have some drying...will post again tomorrow.

More masks

I am still doing printing for my assignment. Still Black and white but I am up to making a book for the final assignment.

Now the notion of the book itself is not daunting, but our lecturer wants us to make a book...which is not a book....or something vague like that, talk about undirected learning!?

My topic is "Masks" and I guess for me it conjures up signatures, which may or may not be in the shape of a mask.

If anyone has any bright ideas, I would be grateful.

Here are some of the latest...The second is a print in white ink on the grey muslin then sewn over a clean blackink print on paper.

.This print above was done on the 'easy carve' block...while it is as it says, I find it difficult to get a fine line..it could be a case of 'poor workman blaming tools'!

Whenever I have ink left over, I do something like this monoprint, sadly I do it without much thought and panic when the ink is before me...it is not at all thought out.

Cirque

The' very stuff' group met on Monday and our challenge was "Cirque" and this was mine.

It was such a change from the black and white I have been doing with the printing course. I am planning a series of these 'books' and they can be together like 'real' books.

I am working on' masks' and I did a monoprint yesterday which I like.

DAD

We had our first meeting of the drawing a day group...how good it was.

It was Trish, Cathie, Christine and Mim ,http://mim-art.blogspot.com/ and myself

We did a couple of drawings not lifting the pen from the paper, thought you may like to see them.

Lovely day of kindness

I had a wonderful day yesterday, as well as meeting a lovely new neighbour and having coffee with a friend, my new electrician came to give me a qote for a job and fixed my television....just out of kindness, then I went to my Computerman Matt and he fixed the computer (I hope,...... it is quite temperamental) and there was no charge.

It was all really super I also 're-jigged' the wardrobe, having been admonished by my very smart 84 year old stepmother, for 'letting myself go'!!!!!(I do think that 'puting the face on" is tedious in comparison with playing in the studio!)

Here is a little bit of colour from yesterdays efforts.

This is a painting which has been waiting for ages to be finished, but I really like it so far, despite its lack of focus, so I do not know where to go with it,.....I just 'look' at it.

Hot, hot, hot

It was 43 yesterday and little relief over night. While on the other side of the world........?So I decided to sit in the cool under the fan and work on a book for our group meeting next week. I used inks and a little stitching, I am now going to put some bleach on some and draw on more it will follow 'Murphy's Law' I will decorate until the final hour! How lovely it is to get back to colour (for a minute) in a break from printing for my course.Here is one of the last lino cuts I did on Masks. I have such a problem with the negative and positive spaces, however I guess it will come in time.