A step into the surreal and reviving the forgotten.

I was pottering around the other day on a rare occasion of having a bit of time to hand, oh how I love that feeling and having the time to think and let the mind wonder. I had caught up on all my jobs and had spent a couple of days creating a photo book of Barcelona, which I had thoroughly enjoyed doing and I wasn't back to my other job until later in the week. With this time I began to think about some of the work I had started or maybe re-developing some other ideas when I remembered about a piece of forgotten embroidery I'd started way back in Feb/March last year.

I had torn an image out of a magazine that documented the demise of an old building in America. It had caught my eye because of the colours within the image and also the way it had deteriorated. I did a drawing and used mixed media to get across the textures within the image and had thought there was more to be done with it. So I had started this embroidery. However as with some things it got put aside, partly because I'd got stuck on an element and partly because other work called. It then languished in my sewing cupboard for months, until this free day I had.

The images below show what I managed to do in the process of a day and a bit. I had discovered a technique through a friend and I had been wanting to use it on a project and why I had not thought of this particular piece at the time I do not know. Anyway thanks to that I've now filled in the main image and now need to embellish it's surroundings so it's not floating on the cloth alone.

 Copyright Ballistic Owl 2013

Copyright Ballistic Owl 2013

Perhaps as well I'd been inspired and reminded of it by our recent visit to Dali's Museum in Figueres. These images are from the museum and show Dali's most popular surrealist style of morphed images and distorted objects. Perhaps in my subconscious my clock was sitting and just waiting for the right sort of inspiration to revive it.

 Dali: self portrait with grilled bacon.

 Dali: Two bedside tables and a bed ferociously attacking a cello.

 Dali: scene with his famous distorted clocks.

I loved our time at the museum and discovered that Dali did so much more than just the famous clocks and alien creatures. He also painted in a more classical style and enjoyed optical illusion imagery which makes the viewer stop a while to discover more. 

Well I'm not promising optical illusions, but I will work into my clock piece more and enjoy a taste of the surreal world.

Creative spectacular

Happy New Year to all my fellow bloggers and followers! I hope you all had a great festive period and are now raring to go and be creative in the year ahead.

Christmas time for us, as with many people is a busy time and we piled on the miles as well as a few pounds as we travelled the country seeing our family and friends. Now I'm home and the clothes have been unpacked and washed it is time to turn  my creative head on and get some drawings and ideas flowing.

It was a significant birthday for me just before Christmas and as a real treat we flew out to Barcelona for a week and had a fantastic time. I've loved Gaudi's work ever since our art history lecturer did a presentation on him and have always wanted to go and see it all for real.

My poor camera and probably poor husband were taken all round the buildings that I most wanted to see. For me it was a feast for the eyes, everywhere you looked there was an interesting piece of architecture or a fascinating detail. A VERY small selection of my photographs are below.

 The Passion facade at Sagrada Familia

 Casa Batllo

 Ceiling in the living room at Casa Batllo

 Gorgeous windows at Sagrada Familia

 Chimney on Palau Guell

Surreal art at the Dali museum

So now with renewed creative vigour I have tidied my table in the studio, so I can actually work on it and will put together a mood board and start drawing. I have been so busy on the run up to Christmas with my other job that Ballistic Owl and my drawing have been a little neglected, but I will redress the balance. After seeing all the spectacular work of Gaudi and his sources of inspiration I may even visit some old favourite topics with renewed enthusiasm and I'm itching to get started.

I also have a bundle of fabric that was printed last year for the embroidery show and I'm now gathering thoughts as how to use it and then hopefully sell the finished article. So any suggestions as to what I could do with it would be great.

So if you are ever stuck for a holiday destination and you've never been to Barcelona, I would highly recommend it and make sure have a big enough memory card in your camera!!

More than just a doodle....

The other day I received and email from Amazon recommending a book. Sometimes I take a further look at these suggestions other times I don't. This time the book in question tweaked my curiosity, it was "One Zentangle a day: a 6-week course". I thought mmmm what's this then and took a peek and then researched this interesting idea further.

If you Google Zentangles loads of stuff comes up from books, images to YouTube videos. First called Zentangle by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas it a form of drawing that you can get lost in completely!! Their idea is start off with a small square of good paper and draw a string (line) within the square. This string can be as simple or as complex as you like and then you fill it in. The idea is that you let your mind relax and fill in the shapes with whatever comes to mind or maybe it's something nearby. The Zentangle is not really supposed to be of one particular thing, just a patchwork of drawing thoughts I like to think.

Now at first I thought this is just like doing a continuous wiggly line like I did as a kid and filling it with colour. You know those loopy pictures you used to do? However this is a bit more than that, if you look at Google images people have done some amazing things. There are some ideas of what you can fill your spaces with and some websites have special names for certain patterns and instructions on how to do them.

However for me I just wanted to come up with my own and just let my creative mind wonder and enjoy the process. The images above are of my versions and as you can see I couldn't resist adding a bit of colour! The top one is complete and I've just started with the bottom image. It's great to take some time out of a busy schedule and relax and be creative just to be creative, who knows what may happen to my little patchwork of thoughts drawing.......

My owl collection

Next to my desk is a shelf unit which groans under the weight of all my sketchbooks, files, journals, books and paper. It is also the place where I place other precious things such as china cups, special edition golden syrup tins and now my ever growing collection of owls!

The owl cushion was the first resident and I bought it on a craft stall in Richmond from a lovely lady. We found the brass bookmark in an old bookcase we bought. It's delicately embossed with the "Owl and the pussy cat" in their boat and the first verse of the poem and I love it. The jade owl was given to me by my in-laws from one of their trips abroad. The pink felt owl and owlet was from my sister-in-law. The glass owl was a fantastic TKMaxx find and was on my stand at the NEC in March alongside his blue friend, who is on the mantle piece downstairs. I also have a lovely owl pin that is on my coat given to me on my graduation by my Mum.

My most recent find was this lovely mug! I fell in love with it as soon as I spied it on a stall at Tynemouth market last week. It's a Hornsea  mug and was designed and screen-printed by John Clappison back in the 1970's. I love the simple style and the combination of colours and also the humour of the design. All the owls are wide awake apart from the one on the left who is fast asleep, which I thought would be me! It is a very welcome addition to my owl collection and I will look out for more owl things and maybe some more Hornsea pottery as I love the style as it reminds me of my childhood and the herb jars my Mum had.

Is there anything you like collecting?

A feast for the eyes.......

 Fromental's Head Artist Master Wang, who travelled from China. Image from Decorex Int 2012 

Linwood's new collection launch. Image from Decorex Int 2012

Decorex 2012 was fantastic! I had a great time wondering around and gathering inspiration and enjoying all the new collections and a catch up with friends over a coffee or two. My bag of show catalogues was rather heavy by the time I left on Monday evening.

I would say one major highlight was watching the talented Master Wang hand painting delicate paper panels. Fromental had flown him over from their studio in China, where he is the head artist. Over the 4 days of Decorex Master Wang  painted these panels for a silent bidding auction to raise money for the Maggie's cancer centres. I was fascinated by the delicate lines he could paint with quite a large Chinese brush and loved the soft colour palette, the birds and the blossoms.

Linwood also had a great stand which was full of interesting props to display their new collections. Art house was my favourite collection, drawing inspiration from train routes, retro letters, script and tea cups. Postal prints was the other collection I rather liked, with date stamps, post marks and copperplate writing as it's theme.

All the rug companies had lovely rugs on display and the theme of traditional with a contemporary twist was very much in evidence. 

So my little head is buzzing now and full of inspiration and beautiful patterns that I could develop mmm.

Above is an eclectic mix of images taken in my favourite museum the Victoria & Albert.

I love the V & A and always make time for a wonder round when I'm in London if I can. I find even though I've been a few times now, I still see new things and always come away feeling inspired and contented. I even managed to squeeze in a visit to the cafe and have a pot of tea and a slice of cake yum!

I spent ages going round the Islamic section and took lots of pictures and particularly liked the turquoise pieces, with their intricate scrolling and layered patterns. Some of the embroidery from the same region was also gorgeous, like this floor blanket the detail was incredible and  so delicate.

I found a bit of Art Nouveau too, very reminiscent of our time in Paris. This was a window grill from a building that has sadly been demolished. I love the flowing  lines and the colour is gorgeous too.

Old labels and postal marks are very much in vogue at the moment and I loved these labels from an old box that contained fabric pieces.

The last image is of a Chinese shawl, which was quite substantial in size and was said to have been used to decorate a piano. I stood and studied this piece for ages, the detail in it is incredible and the typical boating scenes pretty. Every last stitch was perfect and the graduations on the flowers was beautiful. Perhaps I should try some on my latest embroidery piece.

Another gallery I managed to squeeze in was the new jewellery section. This has pieces through the ages and is for anyone with a magpie instinct as it's VERY sparkly. Unfortunately photographs were not allowed, but I loved the Art Deco pieces and also some filigree jewellery made from iron and steel, who would have thought such delicate pieces could be made from those materials. Some of the collection can be viewed on the V & A website if fancy a peek.

So with a head full of inspiration I better get creating!

Mr Ballistic Owl finished!

I've had a lovely few days finishing off Mr Ballistic Owl, found it really relaxing sitting embroidering and half watching half listening to the tv or radio. All I have to decide now is what to make him into, a cushion, a piece of wall art, a framed picture or a quilt.......? A friend suggested making a quilt and having it as a part of that, I quite like that idea. I found an article in an embroidery magazine about journal quilt, maybe that's an idea to pursue mmmm .

A journal quilt is where you create a section of quilt every month and it reflects what is happening to you that particular month or how you feel, a favourite find, the topics are endless really. Then at the end of the 12 months you stitch it altogether and there you have it, a year of your life in stitch fab! I'm not sure I could stick to one a month as work keeps me pretty busy, but I may give it a go and use Mr Owl as my first section.

The journal quilts of Liz Brookes are a good example of how they work and she has added a description for each one: http://www.lizbrookeward.com/journal-quilts.html

A bit of stitching.

You may remember that a while ago I had a fantastic afternoon making cyanotypes. Well since then they have been sat in the studio waiting for something to happen to them. There are a  few that I think I'll leave as they are, as they're so pretty anything more on them will distract from that. There was one however that I thought needed something more, attempt number one was to machine stitch an image over the top, but that looked hideous especially as my machine skills aren't too hot!

However attempt two has been much more successful and much more me. I've over printed the cyanotype with my lovely Ballistic owl and now I'm merrily hand embroidering details and adding embellishments. It's a work in progress, but here are a few snaps of what I've enjoyed doing so far on sunny afternoons and cold draftee evenings.

I've added white blossom using a very light cotton so you can still see the cyanotype print through it. I also used one of my favourite stitches to outline the petals.

Lazy daisies are fun to stitch and I decided to add beads to the centres for a bit of sparkle.

As I'm stitching the pattern is growing organically. I've a rough idea of how I want it to look, but I want it to have a natural flow so nothing has been planned and I'm not working to a design.

I'm always on the look out for new stitches to learn and I enjoyed this woven stitch that can be used for leaves. I think the variegated cotton adds lovely dimension to the stitch.

It's not finished yet so I'll have to grab a few more embroidery hours, but I'll post an image when he's done. I'm still trying to decide what I should make it into, perhaps a cushion?