THE BEAUTY OF MOTHS

I really do adore moths!  Many moons ago when I was doing my art degree at Winchester School of Art, I found a beautiful Victorian moth and butterfly collection in an old antique shop.  A sizable portion of my student loan was used to purchase the boxes and I've been in love with them ever since.  The moths have been used for many art projects and have  regularly been taken out, pinned, photographed, cut up, had holes put in the wings, had wings ripped off and so on... I've definitely had my money's worth out of them!

I am currently working on ideas surrounding decay and repair - and so the moths came out again and I have been photographing them to support my textile ideas.  The tweed was a junk shop find and I was thrilled to discover two or three moth holes in it - strange I know!

I am linking up with Mary over at Mosaic Monday 

Decay and Repair and ICAD Cards

Once again I've had a long unintended break from blogging, or doing any arty stuff at all in fact.  I've been waiting for surgery (quite minor), and have been in some discomfort and a rather grumpy frame of mind - I'm still waiting for a date to come through but in the meantime I've felt a little enthused now that the ICAD challenge has started again over at Daisy Yellow Art.  The idea is to make a little bit of art every single day on an index card - nothing precious just whatever takes your fancy!  I must admit I've not managed to work every day but I've done about six cards over a fortnight,  so I'm quite pleased with that achievement! 

Anyway, this is what is on my desk this week for WOYWW.

I'm using these index cards as a way of jotting down ideas about a long term project I'm doing on decay and repair.

Focus On Life - Beauty All Around

Over at the Studio Sublime this week Sally has asked us to look at and capture the beauty all around us.  One thing I absolutely love is the mixture of dark, brooding skies and bright sunshine, and with the storms and weather we've been having lately it's been happening rather a lot. I captured this photograph at Lymington harbour, and added a Pixel Dust texture to it.

WOYWW #249

For WOYWW this week, near my desk but not on it, is a new wool holder - well actually it's an old CD rack that has been in my loft for quite a while - I suddenly had a 'lightbulb' moment while trying to squish some new wool into an already full drawer!  I am  rather thrilled at having them stored in colour order now!  It also means I have a home for the large linen yarn spool that's been knocking around on the floor for years!

Also, on my desk is a record of all the wools and yarns I have (still trying to decide if this demonstrates OCD tendencies!).  I attach a sample of the yarn and add the manufacturer and colour code so I can hopefully get hold of more if I need it - I also do this with rubber stamp images for angel policies, paints, inks, washi tape, ribbons etc - it's often a quicker way of seeing what stash I've got rather than rummaging through boxes and drawers!

Focus On Life - Close-up

This week at the Studio Sublime our challenge from Sally has been to explore the world around us and get really close up.  I've had a few problems getting out and about this week, or even manouvering to take a photo, as I've been nursing a back problem but I did manage to find some photos that I took a while back and I decided to play with them on Photoshop and use those for the challenge - hope no-one minds too much!

Close-up the petals look like I have over-saturated the colour but in fact they had translucent patches where the green shone through from behind - they looked like very delicate tissue paper. 

Coral Embroidery

For WOYWW this week I've been making my own yarn (or cord) for collages.  My friend Jane showed me how to make it, and I made some in a soft but deep red for the work I've been doing on coral - for anyone interested my last two blog posts are about my ongoing 'coral' project. 

 Using an embroidery foot on the sewing machine you simply zig-zag along a fairly thick strand of wool (or several strands), keeping the wool taut front and back.  It's very effective with contrasting cotton threads, or metallic threads and wools. 

You can see the difference between the thick wool and the strands that have been zig-zagged over - I went over some of it twice as I wasn't very even with the zig-zagging - but it was my first attempt!

Work in progress...

 I decided to use some of my cord in a small embroidery that is going in my sketch book. Using embossed velvet as a background, I then used machine embroidery over pieces of vintage lace and crochet, and then machine stitched the thicker yarn I'd made on top.  I still have beads to add, and probably some more embroidery and lace. 

If you would like to know what WOYWW is all about why not pop over there to see what other people have on their desks this week.

Focus On Life - Capturing Colour

This week over at the Studio Sublime Sally asked us to "capture colour in all it's vivid brilliance".  This suited me just fine, as I have a pretty vibrant project going on at the moment - in my last blog post I showed the gelli printing I've been doing around the theme of coral.  I decided to photograph some of the bits and bobs I've been using to transform them from plain prints into pieces of art.

I am loving the colour scheme of red and lilac - it happened quite by accident, starting off as red and blue but with the paint mixing on the gelli plate and roller the blue turned into a lilac colour.  

 I fell in love with these beads a long time ago and have never known what to use them for, they've been waiting for the perfect project!  I'm very pleased they work so well with the prints - a small justification for buying things I really don't need but can't resist!

WOYWW #246 - Red Coral and Gelli Printing

After a long period of artistic inactivity I decided gelli printing might kick-start me again!      I do love coral and have used the theme in quite a lot of art work over the years.  I used some wonderful coral stencils from the Crafters Workshop that I've had for quite a while but not got round to doing anything with (familiar story?), but I am also in the middle of designing and cutting my own as I also want some slightly smaller, simpler coral shapes.  

Why not pop over to WOYWW to have a snoop at other people's desks - it's fun!