Winter Wonderland

I met up with my arty friends today and we decided to go for a walk in the winter wonderland. They say we are in for the big melt soon, so we thought while it was looking so pretty we would go out.

I took these photos with my mobile phone, but I'm quite impressed; the mobile is just a cheap one so I was expecting them to be as good as this.

Tortoise Embroidery

Take a stitch Tuesday has started again which got me thinking ...I never did show the finished embroidery I was working on last year. There were a number of TAST 2012 stitches used in the piece, which I posted about as I did them. I started the piece as a painting on fabric, then did a lot of freehand machine embroidery mainly on the grass but also on the tortoise and flowers. The picture directly below was taken after I had first started on the hand embroidery.

The entire tortoise shell is covered with beads, sewn on.

I also added beads and sequins to some of the flowers.

Click on the images to enlarge.

I didn't show it before Christmas as it was a gift for my daughter.

Frog Crossing and Fabric Designs

I've been meaning to show you this since last year, a frog crossing. My sister saw this in Suffolk and thought I would like it.

Below are some of my fabrics that are now for sale on Spoonflower [the link is on the right].

This is the eight inch fabric swatch I got from Spoonflower - the pattern was inspired by tiles I saw at the Alhambra, Spain

And this is what it should look like it in repeat [minus the text of course]

another swatch - this one developed from a painting where I had used a handmade rolling stamp

and the repeat

another swatch - this one was to coordinate with my frog fabric which also has spots on a mushroom

and the repeat

another swatch - I altered an old doodle to enter the competition 'stars and stripes'. I had a doodle of striped stars which chopped around a bit.

and the repeat

Snowman

It's been snowing this weekend and I couldn't resist making a snowman. I found a big shell for his nose and marbles for eyes, dead plants for hair and arms.

Embroidery to Printed Fabric?

Do you remember this painted and embroidered piece I did last year?

Well I thought I would have a play around with it digitally to make it into a repeating fabric with a view to having it printed at Spoonflower.

This is the first one I did, single repeat

and this is it as a repeating pattern

Another one using a different part of the original fabric, single repeat

And the repeating pattern

And number three, single pattern

And the repeating pattern

Click on the images for a better look.

I can't make my mind up about them, I quite like them but I don't know that I like them enough to have printed. What do you think?

Update - Recycled Wipe Project

Continuing with the recycled wipes project - I last posted about this on the 4th January. Since then I have stamped on it with handmade stamps which I posted about on the 1st. I also did some hand embroidery, running stitches. I don't think I will do any more on it, I'm still not that keen on it.

Grotesque

I created this one on my Galaxy note. I started with a photo of a grotesque that I took in my friends garden, the original is shown below. I traced around it with the pen, but it is quite tricky to get an accurate line [or I need more practice]. I think I used an oil paint filter on it with extra alterations on top.

Faux Books

I have a book case which has some metal trellis at the sides and the books are difficult to get out [probably not meant to be a book case] so last year I made some faux books out of polystyrene. I covered the front and parts that could be seen with paper. I found some images of books, altered the shape where needed and printed them on the ink jet. Even though they were coloured I painted over them with a thin coat of acrylic. From a distance they look like books, but if you removed them you would find that they are strange shapes! They also help to keep the other books from falling over.

Woman and Bear

I did this digital collage a while ago, I was saving it for something, don't know what.

The image of the woman and bear, yes they were together was from a book I have - Women Archive Pictures. The background was a photo I took of a gravestone and graveyard.

Pages from sketchbook 26

I've had my mum staying this week so I've not got much to show you. These are pages from sketchbook 26,

most will be used as backgrounds. I added faces and buttons to the picture above digitally, I used a biscuit cutter for the body shape to draw around.

Vintage Hats & Ephemera

The ladies with the hats and the spring opening card below are images from the Graphics Fairy. The envelope above from .., and the rose was a photo I took.