Summer Nights

While wandering round my local DIY store recently I discovered some new style paint sample cards, and they looked perfect for little pieces of arty crafty stuff!   Laid out in colour sequence they were totally irresistible to me!  

Working on my theme of the summer garden at night, I thermofax printed on them, used Infusion powders on clear texture paste and stitched velvet flower buds on top.  I wanted the effect of twilight sweeping over the garden, so I smudged the Infusions with a baby wipe, which I then didn't like as it just looked a mess, so that's why the other two look 'cleaner'!

 I forgot to initially coat them with clear gesso, so some of the texture paste flaked off - I quite like the effect though!

And here are the cards on my work desk!  I chose some lovely rich shades of red for Christmas, the blues for the summer night garden, yellows for spring, and a few pales that were actually to help choose paint for our dining room walls!

I'm linking up with Jan this week (who is doing a superb job of being Julia) for WOYWW.

Midnight Garden Sketchbook Pages

Some pages from my Midnight Garden sketchbook.

I photographed some of the pages with a large and beautiful, almost black butterfly from my collection of old dead ones!  It reminded me of moths at night. I especially like it against the vivid blue of the cyanotype backgrounds.

I am linking up with WOYWW - click on the link to see what other people have on their desks this week.

Midnight Garden

Some sketchbook pages on my desk this week, for WOYWW.

The theme being the garden at night - one of life's pleasures is sitting in the garden as dusk falls and seeing the changing colours and shapes, the moths and  other creatures that appear - we have a hedgehog that has been visiting us over the last few weeks - and even the scent of some of the plants seems to intensify later in the evening!

Night Garden

I love my garden in the late evening, when the sun has gone down and the scents are often at their strongest.
                                                                                     

   I've been using fresh foliage picked from the garden for making cyanotype sun prints, then screen printing with beautiful, creamy Jacquard textile paint, 
and lots of machine and hand embroidery - and there's lots more still to do!

Heuchera flower sun prints with printed seed heads

Printing over the marks left by teabags!

I knew moths would have to sneak in somewhere!

I'm linking up with Julia over at What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday