nesting.................

I came across this lovely swan nesting yesterday evening and couldn't resist stopping the car to take her piccie - doesn't she look very content?

My Final Assessment Piece - Passage

Hi folks, I think I can now function in real life again, I feel as though this piece of work has taken up the last few months entirely and life zoomed by. I have attached a photo of the fabric piece on its own as a fabric wall hanging, this is made from discharged satin and chiffon and has who knows how many of those wonderful little french knots on it along with free machine quilting and some embellishments. The piece is then complete with a hanging of copper which I have patinated, stitched lots of knots on also and cut to shape. on their side, they are both the shape of shipwrecks but i prefer them the way I have shown you. I am now very glad to be finished this work and to hand it in for evalution tomorrow - woohoo - will be back soon with some work from my notebooks which built up to this piece. :0)))

What I'm working on .............................

Hi folks, I'm still working away in the background trying in vain to finish my final piece for assessment for my creative embroidery course. This is a snippet of what I am doing at present and its taking me forever. I decided to do 'some' french knots around the edges of chiffon and they have turned into thousands............................ and i am still at it a week later :( I love how its turning out but definitely need to get cracking. The background is a black satin which I have discharged and it has turned out great. Watch this space for more updates!!!

I've been Zentangled

Have you tried these yet? Check them out, they are totally addictive. I have to admit to looking at them for a very long time and any time i tried to do them they never worked and I just didn't 'get it'. However, I tried again and after watching this Milliande's tutorials I have been hooked.

Another sample

Still havn't created a whole lot so more samples. This was from the online workshop with Linda Monk and Carol McFee called Creative Surfaces (I think) - well recommended. This canvas has wallpaper, moulding paste and paint and an aperture cut out with rusted fabric at the back of it. I did like it at the time but the colours seems to bold now.

Tag Swap

This is a tag made for Chris as part of a forum swap. Chris chose Children as her theme and i do love this image of the little girl. Some distress inks and stitch with an image transfer.

Some more samples

Another few samples to show you the different textures I was aiming for :

Contemporary Embroidery Samples

These are some of the samples I prepared for my embroidery course which i am doing at NCAD in Dublin every week. I am loving it :0)) The images were transferred to the linen with Jet FX transfer paper - this is a very easy option for transferring images, I think I prefer the gel medium transfer method but these give a perfect finish, with a slightly waxy feel to them.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone - I had hoped to show you some of my current work but couldn't resist a winter walk today and it didn't disappoint, this little fellow was happy to pose for lots of photos while having his dinner.

Here are some more piccies of the frost around the garden.

I hope to be back on track showing my textile work very soon.

Drypoint

Here are some drypoint prints, some of which were monotypes I made earlier this year and hadn't used them as they were not very attractive on their own. I printed over them with the drypoint image and I like some of them a little more now. Still not sure about them but I love drypoint and look forward to doing it again. Did I mention before that I want a printing press ???? :0))) Thanks again for dropping by.

Collagraph Prints

I did these prints at a recent workshop and had no idea when making the plate what they would end up like. I enjoyed this process but only got 2-3 good prints from the plate unfortunately. These are the best 2.

I almost forget how to post!!!

If there is anybody out there still looking in on this blog - HELLO :0))))

I've been busy in lots of ways and blogging has not been top of the list lately but I am happy to say that i have FINALLY finished my City & Guilds Creative Sketchbook course with Linda Kemshall and I can definitely recommend it to anyone wishing to develop their skills. I am now pursuing another course (real life this time!!) and hope to be able to show some images of that work in the coming weeks and its on embroidered textiles so a little different from where I started out on this blog.

In the meantime, here are some piccies of my sketchbook assessment.

This was based on a heritage building in the town of Carlingford.

bits 'n pieces

Hey folks - the weather here has been fantastic some days and its hard to be creative when the sun is shining. I have a few images of sunshine, some jewellery which I made at a workshop and some paintings on canvas board with moulding paste - love this stuff. I've lots of more work started as always but should complete some more fairly soon.

I took a half day off work last week and went for a short drive to a small village called Carlingford. It is a beautiful village and across the lough you can see the beautiful Mourne Mountains.

More WIP

I dont even know why I am adding these but I have many works that are started and never get finished. They will be ........................................... someday - but not just yet, I have lots more work to start on lol.

These are 2 of 5 pieces I made while at a silk papermaking workshop last week with Tunde Toth. It was a great day and lots was learned, I just need to give up the day job to be able to complete all my creations. These are not complete by any means but just a trial of what they could be.

I'm also doing some work for Fibre in Form online workshops so hopefully I will have some work from those experiments soon. :0))))

Textile Hanging (WIP)

This is very much a work in progress at present but its a good start. Not really good to practice a vermicilli stitch on somehting so big but so far I'm liking it. I was very lucky meet a lovely and talented textile artist at Art in Action last week (Ester Kiley) and she kindly gave me a full demo and instructions on how to finish this off properly. So watch this space...... probably months down the line from now lol. I have a few more paintings complete which I will get loaded up here soon too.

more textures

I know I mentioned textiles were on the menu but I got very distracted with polyfilla, not recommended really, molding paste has a completley different texture and is a lot more durable but I like how this turned out all the same. This is a 10 x 8" canvas board, covered in polyfilla adn then Goldens fluid acrylics and gloss medium to finish. Not sure how to frame this though but I will look at it for a while and see how it goes. Its hard to capture the true colours as the bottom is more deep violet than what you see but TFL..

Textured Surfaces

How many times can you over paint a painting :0))) - I did this as part of my 'homework' for my City & Guilds but have stripped it back and repainted it, stripped it back again and again and I still cant stop. I like the overall layout but just can't seem to get the top panel painted the way I picture it in my mind........ This is a plywood box panel measuring 24"x20" , covered in molding paste and then painted with various acrylics and oil sticks. Its a work in progress as yet. I'm sure you will see it resurface again soon with some additions to it. TFL..

Textile surfaces are swimming in my mind at the moment so maybe some will gather momentum over the next week or so as I have a few workshops lined up and I will be inspired again. Watch this space..

monoprinting

As part of my City & Guilds course I had to complete some monoprints, have you tried this? It is totally addictive and works equally as well on fabric as well as paper. I can't tell you how many pieces I created as they were completely all over the floor but these are some of my favs.