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Not much time to be creative today but yesterday was great - we got marooned on our hill. It rained and then froze solid and the roads were like ice rinks, so we decided to leave the food shopping and have a lazy day. I started to look through some books to stir up some design ideas.
Wessex Textiles, the group I belong to, is exhibiting at the Knitting and Stitching shows this year so I needed to get going. We decided that, rather than choose a single inspiration, we would celebrate the fact that our individual work is so varied and call our exhibition Not Set in Stone. We will all work to our separate themes and mine will be called Inscribed Landscapes. Some of the work I've been doing on the Australian rock art will be in it and, thanks to yesterday's browsing, I'm going to have a Buddha or two. These are also rock paintings, from the Chinese province of Xinjiang, and I've worked on them before. Always good to stretch a design source to the max.
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I have an idea that they might be heavily machined faces, sort of wrapped around and slightly above a base - in this case a map of their location. Started on that already using my lovely Mulberry Silks threads. I'm doing some of this technique - see above - in Italy when I teach there in May.
Today I sneaked a little time to do a pastel drawing of a Buddha face in close up. White pastel on black surface and then a litte colour. I used tinted charcoal pencils for the details.
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Having seen an amazing exhibition by Julia Polonski which mixed pattern with drawing, I stamped over his face with Distress Ink and a rubber stamp with a wheel, which seemed fitting.
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Then a little more pastel to merge it in.
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Hope to use the Christmas break to get on with this so might have some stitching to show you.
In the meantime you'll be glad to hear that we did eventually get to the shops and have a massive turkey and all the trimmings.
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Have a wonderful Christmas - see you later.
9 comments:
Glad you weren't marooned before your Christmas shopping, and I love the map and those silk threads are just wonderful. Can't wait to see the progress of what promised to be a fantastic piece of work. Have a lovely Christmas - I have a list of creative things I'd like to get on with but just can't seem to get started. Maybe after Christmas.
the map is just fantastic - I am so impressed at how focused you are - this weather and Christmas send my mind to mush!!! - have a great Christmas
I'm flat out trying to get all the Christmas stuff done Maggie let alone to start thinking about a new project.
Now I know why I admire you so much-it's because you are so focused.
I hope both you and Clive have a wonderful Christmas with all the family-don't eat too much but enjoy it just the same.
Excellent drawing Maggie. Have a very Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas Maggie and Clive - cheers Dale and Ian - from not too hot downunder to hopefully not too cold upover
Many "Happy Whatsits" to you too LOL
warm wishes from Western Australia
Britt :-)
Wishing you a belated Happy Christmas, and hope you had a good and healthy one with lovely presents. I got everything on my wish list - including Stitches, Straps and Layers, which looks wonderful. Love to you both x
Hope you had a wonderful Christmas Maggie and lots of time to stitch!
Belated Christmas wishes, Maggie. You've been an inspiration as usual, throughout the year. Thankyou and a Happy New Year to you both.
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