I finally completed the three remaining large compositions for my four seasons project. They are all 41 x 31 cms – the size of the khadi paper I used as the base layer. Once finished, they were mounted on white card.
A little book for trees
I made this book by printing and stencilling colour and shapes, mainly circles and diamonds with some freehand monoprinting, on to an A 1 sheet of paper, then tearing the sheet into pages which I then bound into the book. Laura Kemshall did a video on this some weeks ago and it certainly gives an interesting canvas to work on. I spent a while wondering how to take it further, then decided to explore the shape of trees and leaves. I used collage, more printing, drawing, real leaves and also cut away some of the original shapes to reveal the underlying page. Here are a few of the pages.
Four seasons book
I have just been doing an online course called Pathways and Wanderings with mixed media artist Roxanne Evans Stout which I found full of inspiration. I produced this book on the Four Seasons. First I used a combination of watercolour paper and Khadi paper for the pages and to give more substance to the Khadi paper I brushed on a layer of gesso. Then I collaged all the different items until I was happy with each page.
5th Scroll Book
I made this one to take to a friend in Kuala Lumpur on my forthcoming visit. My indigo dyed fabrics, cotton and silk.
A fourth scroll
I went to visit my son in Hove a couple of weeks ago and wanted to take some stitching with me so a scroll book seemed the perfect choice. I cut out the pieces before leaving, attaching them with a narrow length of bondaweb along the edges. I got quite a lot done there and finished it on returning home, adding beads and mother of pearl buttons, more hand stitching and some machine stitching. The buckle is also mother of pearl. I wish I could always take one of these to stitch while travelling, but it’s not possible to take needles when you only have hand luggage on a flight.