no more sleeps

at midnight we leave for frankfurt .. then to prague, paris and london ..

.. for this i will need my art survival kit .. i have included three types of white cloth because i want to do some white on white stitching .. and of course 'the journey' long cloth that i hope will be finished when i return (after one moon) .. i have one needle for stitching in my take-on luggage, i will be interested to see if they confiscate it! .. with a five hour stopover in transit, i would dearly love to sit and work on my cloth .. i will try to post while i am away....

..♥ .... thankyou to those who have looked and those who have looked and commented on my postings .. enjoy your time over december and january, whatever your faith, i look forward to taking up this thread some time soon ... peace ...♥

stitching love into it...

there is a purpose to all journeys..

that is not really the point .. is it? ..

working into this already travelled path fragments are made and pulled together..

in time....

and with love ....

beginning again

here is the start to something ..

reworking old cloth has shown me how far i have travelled on the journey ...

freyed fragments mark steps ..

running stitch and cross stitch walk over the past..

needling through the dye and paint .. repurposing the journey to begin again ...

stitching a journey

......brought up from the past, this fabric is part of a larger painting being repurposed for a journey piece...

..two pieces

joined together....

...while i am away for one moon i will work on this journey into and through an 'unfamiliar landscape'... an idea inspired by jude from http://spiritcloth.typepad.com/spirit_cloth/2009/12/recalculating-time.html

... (still haven't worked out how to make a nice clean link)..

new blue

inspired by cathy cullis: seeds ..because i have a new agapanthus blooming any day

head space

this is my creative space.. my gear lives here but i make art everywhere else but in my studio.. it is a storage place, too cluttered to make art... i make art in the kitchen, the lounge, the dining room, the garden, at the caravan, out in the countryside, in the car or anywhere else but the studio.. ideas however, do come to me sitting there.. alone i can write, think, look out the window ..these are the things i love about this room... the sun shines in through the windows during summer and in the winter ..this photo was taken yesterday morning, a beautiful summer day..

...pop over to http://kootoyoo.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-creative-space_10.html to check out other creative spaces ..

piece meal

here is my offering .. a meal for a monarch .. easy to digest and a colour to please the eye .. stitched together with nothing in mind but the joy of the senses .. the ragged edges waiting to be used as food for a new journey ..

holding between cuts

the stitches come to hold the cuts together

with

canvas and linen thread writing their way between the lines

a voyage of sorts

washed through and finished...

stitching in progress

this is a work in progress.... i have been really enjoying some stitching.. trying new stitches, using the sewing machine to make marks and filling patterns in with stitches .. i am attempting some reverse applique inspired by this beautiful work http://spiritcloth.typepad.com/what_if/2009/11/what-if-170-blurry-dot-with-reverse-applique.html ...of course, i found it extremely difficult .. but i would like to try it again ... the fabric is canvas roughly painted with yellow acrylic...

i am enjoying the process of making samplers.. maybe i will stitch them into an art quilt at some point .....

life drawing

when i told one of the students as school that i do life drawing on a saturday.. she asked, "do you sometimes draw naked people?"... i had to laugh .. she was so wide-eyed. it made me realise how innocent children are, even when they are teenagers and full of bravado.

this drawing/painting is done by drawing with crayon first, then cutting back into the drawing with white acrylic paint .. its on canvas paper and was done in a ten minute pose .. i love the immediacy of painting in short time windows .. it makes me less precious about the outcome ..

i love to draw, i always have. ever since i was a child i have drawn.. my father was an artist, and he always had something on the go .. a drawing, painting, ceramic piece .. so, now that i am all grown-up, i always have something on the go too .. drawing, painting, stitching, print.....

but life drawing is a constant .. it keeps my head above water in my busy day-to-day life as an educator .. it gives me three hours a fortnight to myself .. it gives me the companionship of people who also value their creativity .. but most of all it gives my head some space, some time to reflect and create ..