It is a kingfisher !

My home has a small garden and behind it as is very common in the Netherlands is a sluit, a small canal. Here we regularly see moorhens, herons and the occasional duck.

As winter tightened its grip, my husband, the photographer, reported seeing a kingfisher on the opposite side of the sluit. 

I was a little skeptical, not possible here in Rotterdam, minutes from the highway and the metro.  Once whilst canoeing a quiet Yorkshire river and once in the depths of a Canadian national park , I have seen these beautiful birds. 

Well he is a photographer , so he did what comes naturally and he photographed the little fellow.

 What wonderful colours, and what is so interesting that he is perched just outside my back door.  I am quite amazed.

Block printing

Well after the random uncertainty of mono printing, I have to admit block printing suits me better. It's not that I want complete certainty and I certainly like variety, but it's just more controllable.
I made three blocks based on the shapes in the deluge. I choose, a swirl , and geometric pattern and a series of curving lines. 
I made the blocks with PVA glue on heavy cardboard. This had the disadvantage of when dry it wasn't completely level , some of the lines printing with different thickness, but I liked this effect and the more I used them , the more this evened out.

Here are my blocks after use.

I  made some backgrounds- inspiration the deluge of course.!  And printed over the top using my blocks.

I really enjoyed the random printing , but the regular one one a bit too stylized for me and not is easy to be completely regular , when you had blocks of different sizes.

Overall I would choose the random one as giving the best effect.

Looking forward now to doing some printing on fabric now.

Lucky Legs

I married into a family with lucky legs . So the family joke goes, lucky they don't break as they are so thin. I do not share this physical attribute, my legs are more sturdy , good walking legs with robust ankles and calves - I'd like to think.

So faced with the challenge of making a pair of felted slipper boots, as a Christmas present I knew I had to make the ankles roomy - I just didn't realized how roomy. So I did all my calculations, made wide looking ankles,and set off.

What a mistake.!

There is quite a lot of work in a pair of felted slipper boots and I was about halfway though  when I split them into two , and realized that it was looking unlikely that I could get my feet into them. I tried stretching and felting simultaneously, in the bath with my feet in as far as they would go , but it was no good.  If I couldn't get my feet in would the recipient be able too. Did she have lucky legs?   I did not think so. Though related the lucky legs genes did not transfer to her.

It was so impossible that the only solution was the slash the boot down the foot not once but twice.  I could get my feet into them now , but they did not look so good. In fact I was not happy with them at all so unhappy I am not going to show you a photo.

I have today tried again with ankles that are significantly bigger than at my first attempt. It has worked. My feet slip in easily. Suitable I think for all ankles styles and shapes. 

Only task now to deliver next weekend as a very late Christmas present. Hope it's appreciated.

The Printing Press

The printing press was invented in 1440 in the Holy Roman Empire by the German - Johannes Guttenburg, according to Wikepia. That is a very long time ago.  I wonder if Johannes had the same problems with printing that I am having? Interestingly print and stress are the same word in Dutch -- Druk-- . Very perceptive of the Dutch.  

 This is the problem. I need to using mono prints , in Black , white and brown, to make A4 prints onto A2 Paper inspired by the Deluge from Leonardo de Vinci. Well, there is a very fine line , between no paint at all transferring from my A4 sheet and a big blob transferring . Timing, amount of paint, pressure are some many factors that determine if it is a sucessul print , that Johannes was a clever man I think.

 Timing and the amount of paint seem probably the two most important factors of determining  between a dot and a blob, and I can't control either. I put my paint on using an old ice-cream plastic spoon. Scrap it up and down , and print.  Quick Quick or its dry before I try. I quickly learned, one colour at a time , or it just looks like sludge.    With this technique and your eyes half closed the print  does kind of look like rain. 

 Swirling is even more difficult , as it closely resembles a blob in the first place. So I am using a cork to spread , as it is a least round to begin with ,and thinking to creep up on beautiful swirls , by a gradual build up . This of course requires , lots of drying time , and it hard to know when to stop, another print here or there , might just make it a master piece or a total runination. 

Why am I doing this. I am not sure exactly but I am at module 13  of by ArtyBird course, I am sure all will be revealed by the time I reach the end module17.   I think it all to do with control of design processes, or in my case lack of control and I have to say I am enjoying it loads.

Here it is.

The question is , is it finished or does it needs a another blob or line?

The perfect storm

January is here.  Gone are the bright orange and blue sunsets, and the warm sultry skies. Bad weather has taken its place and not just ordinary bad weather but a deluge.  I am now trying to draw very bad weather using Leonardo de Vinci Deluge as inspiration. What a good match for the grey January skies, and the current  lashing rain and the gale force winds.                                                       


Options for drawing are extensive as long as they are black . Felt pens, charcoal, ink, pencils , paint . I can ever add water and smudge it all.     

I would have never thought I could draw anything , but I found I can make black marks on a piece of paper. I can draw straight lines , swirly lines, and make shade and dark. I can use candle wax to keep part of it white.  Then the only snag here is  I can't see what part.  I add water and turn it all grey and then I can imagine the rain lashing down outside and the rough sea beating on the shore. Grey on grey, and black on black- all a bit of a scribble really.

Perhaps I can imagine the perfect storm 

Mekong Memories

Well I am coming to the end of 4 months of sunsets which has been really enjoyable. Now it's crunch time I must bring  together the dying , the painting , the felting, and the monsters.  In one big picture.

I have at least one limiting factor that's the size of my table. It's actually pretty small , but the biggest I can fit into my little attic felting room. Ikea best. So my big picture is limited to the height of the wide of my table , because I cannot look at it sideways and make sense of it. And even with this size I have had to gaffer tape two sheets of bubble wrap together. Big enough I think !

I want to incorporate every fabric and stitch I know. Over kill ! I know  Less is more maybe....

Planning is required. I am an bit of a planner at work , but a hopeless planner at home . I get carried away and ignore whatever little plan I ever had. 

I forget I am supposed to photograph every stage

I forget which fabrics and colours I had planned 

I forget where things were suppose to go

and I use what comes into my head. 

 

This piece requires discipline ! so I make a plan and a picture of the final idea. . Do I stick with it ? Mostly , just a few elements of artistic license, small developments and enhancements.  Is this allowed - I hope so.

So here is the final piece

 Did all the planning work -  I think so. 

To me its very evocative of the Mekong , where of course  it all started.  Of the colours in the sky , the swirling heat and insects, water everywhere in sight, the bright coloured temples  and the smells.  It makes me want to get the incense out.

Making monsters

That's what I have been doing all week, making felted monsters!

                       

I have lived in the Netherlands for more than 3 years and I have a long way to go before I am a fluent speaker.  Some Dutch words  just don't stay in

 my head, and other I can't forget.

MONSTER is unforgettable, it's translation is simply - sample. 

It's far more dramatic a word to me than samples, far more exciting, and definitely the right word in this case, for my monstrous felted monsters. 

I have been incorporated threads fibres and fabrics, ranging from silk to linen into small felt monsters . Some are from my dying and some yarns from my extensive knitting yarn stash. I have been trying out the impact of lying the fibres in different direction to find it really makes a massive different.  To both the final size of the felt monster and to the threads and fabric , which are either pulled in two directions or just one.  Both directions gives a more compact and effective monster.

Thread on the surface are my favorite effect. You can see here the way the silk threads concertina up , the wool sinks into the felt and becomes blurry and the cotton thread looks great like waves on the sea.

So now having finished testing, there nothing for it I have to make a final sunset piece how scary!