Looking Through

Thanks so much for all the lovely comments about the garden. We have worked hard on it and, considering the weather, it's come on very well. I just said to Clive that we worked to a budget when doing up the house but the garden happened in dribs and drabs. I bet if we add  all the garden stuff up it would be a real shock.

Enjoyed the Festival of Quilts and it's taken me a week to get through all the work that piled up. It was good to see so many mates and the two talks we gave were very well supported with enthusiastic audiences. Next year (if asked!) I must give some consideration to the fact that there are a lot of non native english speakers in the audience.I am hard enough to follow on a normal basis (give it a quick zap; add a squooze of that) and had to translate a few bits afterwards.

I have been following up some ideas from my holiday sketchbook. I am hooked on the idea of 'looking through' - in particular places seen at the end of dark streets, or looking up to features above the normal sight line.

The piece above is an initial pencil sketch - a quick drawing following on  from a photo. Did this one on the boat.

When home I printed out the pic and tore off the edges so that I could draw on into it.

Then I stuck it on heavy water colour paper and worked out at both edges. Working quickly and trying not to worry too much about perfect perspective.

Smudged the pen a bit (to hide a mistake!).

I like the idea of a coloured centre fading away to black and white. Plan to do more and work towards turning it into stich. Perhaps a heavy machine embroidered coloured area fading to greys and then monochrome.

The original idea came from a book plan I drew up last year. The book was to be called 'Your Cheating Art' all about using computers, photocopiers etc as a base for art and design. Might still do that book one day.

Must go as I am expecting Fiona and her friend Sam (who does the products section in WoW). I have devised a quest for the children (started life as a Treasure Hunt) in the wildwood at the end of our road. It's all about a wicked wizard who has captured three grannies. If it works I'll tell you why it had to be grannies.