RSPB Old Moor family workshop...

Last Wednesday I spent the day on the beautiful RSPB Old Moor reserve in Wombwell, Barnsley. I was leading the art workshop section of their "Wild Wednesday" school holiday feature, with help and assistance coming from many of their lovely volunteers.

Indoors young children and their parents/ grandparents were making decorative objects for their gardens by combining driftwood (shipped from Brighton) and branches from the reserve with various textile media. Whilst outdoors two volunteers were helping the youngsters to wrap a selection of trees using vibrantly coloured fabric, by all accounts the visitors very much enjoyed ripping the shiny fabric to make the fabric strips (it makes a great noise and is less arduous than cutting the jersey)! It was an extremely hot day but everyone did very well and produced some lovely pieces from the materials available to them. In fact, they were so good that everyone wanted to take them home rather than leave them for the reserve trees!! I did however manage to take some snaps of a few pieces....

This piece reminds me of a rain-stick, I think it looks great with the strands of ribbon hanging down (the Mother and Son team took more ribbon home so they could finish it off):

I think this piece was a bow, complete with a scoobie strap:

This is the first piece that was made and we hung it up as an example, the combination of the shiny ribbon with the silky fabric is lovely:

This piece was made by the same girl as above (and her Mum), it looked like an insect so they drew eyes on it to emphasise this. The Mum was pretty nifty with the scoobies, creating these flicked out sections!!:

A wrapped piece of driftwood with lively colours:

The workshop participants became very interested in the polystyrene and plastic innards of the ribbon reels, which they very neatly wrapped with the lengths of ribbon:

A well executed wrap of a thin branch from the reserve:
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A vibrant and feminine colourscheme:

Two boys worked together to make this one (using lots of the different materials; wool, scoobies, fabric and ribbon, and they even managed to find a purple feather from somewhere!). They hung up the piece whilst going pond-dipping and bug-hunting:

A beautifully wrapped sunshine ribbon reel:

Towards the end of the day lots of people turned to making their pieces into necklaces and head decorations by drilling a hole at the end and threading a scoobie through, this is one green example:

Lisa, one of the volunteers, lovingly made this colourful beauty. Every time I looked over at her she was wrapping away, she said it was addictive!:

The back of the same piece:

Now for the beautifully wrapped trees which looked wonderful moving in the breeze:

A massive thanks to Kate and Rob for spending the day helping with tree wrapping and a big thanks to Ryan, Lisa, Delia, John and Lucy for all of their help during the day. An enormous thanks must also go out to Julia Makin who did an awful lot of thinking and planning for the event but sadly couldn't make it on the day. Thanks guys, I hope that everyone had a lovely day!!

Some new work...

Here are some "corner flowers" and "houses" that I made last week for Flow (gallery) in Notting Hill:

It was a nightmare trying to drill on the corners of the pieces of wood, especially on the largest one as the wood was so thick! These pieces were based on the "Blue Corner Flower" I made during my MA (of which I only made one due to the challenge of drilling on the corner and not messing it up!):

The new pieces didn't quite work out the same as the original, mainly due to the white and blue colouring of the driftwood, but I was pleased with them and I like all four pieces together!

A castle on a very thin piece of driftwood:

You can't see it so clearly but I really like this piece, the stitches are quite big and chunky. The shape and colours of this piece were based on the castle necklace I made a few years ago:

A little house on a smaller, uneven piece of wood (complete with yellow birds!):

 

 

A cottage on a piece of black driftwood (this one is my favourite, I particularly like the colours, the roof and the number 2 on the door!):

This piece was based on my "thatched cottage" necklace (which I recently sent to a customer in The Netherlands and it got lost, RIP necklace):

As these pieces are much larger than the necklaces they were based on I had a lot more room to play with and so could add in extra features and add more detail.

A sneak preview......

At the moment I'm spending a lot of time thinking about, and preparing work plans for, my upcoming participation in Origin during the end of September (more on that to follow later!). Here's a sneak preview of what I've been working on the over the past few days:

I'm really excited about this piece so hopefully it will work out fantastically and thus will be on display during Origin! It's a bit of a new route for me but it's still all about colour and materials so I'm happy! I touched on this avenue a bit whilst on my MA and over the past few months I've decided that I want to re-visit it (2 years later) but this time to make it bigger and much better!!

A massive thanks also has to go out to Coats who have agreed to sponsor me with lots of their lovely Anchor stranded cotton skeins for some new pieces that I've been working on for Origin. I can't wait to finally get stitching after lots of planning, stripping wood and research!!

Mood photographs....

This is a massive back-blog that definitely spans the years!

I have chosen these photos purely because I like their mood. This might be because they remind me of nice times or just because I like the photos, I'm not sure, but I hope that you like them too:

A rosy sunset viewed from the top of the peak in Hong Kong after having a delicious dinner with the girls from Texprint!

I have no real memory of this photo other than it must have been a boat we travelled on whilst in Hong Kong! I love the lights and the colourful bunting.

One of Hong Kong's very many tall buildings. I think I like the limited colour scheme in this image and the green foliage in the foreground. I guess I also like the atmosphere of it being night and there being lights shining! It seems slightly tropical.

The above two images are both from the Isle of Wight (one of my favourite places; memories of childhood holidays and tasty doughnuts!). I like the random nature and the angles of the hut over the shore and find the second photo scary but exhilarating! I also like the mottled sky.

The above three photographs were taken when I was in Belfast on textile business and went on a boat tour of where the Titanic was built. From what I remember it was a slightly sombre trip, slightly eerie thinking about what happened but the area was very beautiful in a strange way.

This photo was taken in Southbourne, West Sussex. It's a lovely area on the coast and if you look closely you can see the masts of lots of boats. I love the "dink-dink" noise that they make in the wind. I think that I may have a thing about the sky...

The above three photos were all taken in and around Como. I think that I love water too.. 

Taken on a boat trip to see the Forth of Firth Road Bridge (?!) just outside Edinburgh. If I am correct though then this is the bridge for the trains? I like the muted colours and really bright sky. The reflection of the bridge is pretty fine too.

Taken just outside the Notre Dame in Paris at sunset. I love it that there are loads of people milling about, just taking in the atmosphere in front of the beautiful Notre Dame up on the hill (the view is gorgeous from here).

Another Isle of Wight special. It's once again the colour scheme that draws me to this photo, I love the bright red against the very moody grey sky alongside the old style of building.  

This image is quite freaky. It was taken on one of my numerous train trips doing research for my major project on BA. It looks as though the landscape is moving both left and right at the same time whilst a very small area of the ground is actually in focus! I just like the movement in this image.

Corny I know but I like the birds on the wire; another train photo.

I've forgotten the name of this area in Sheffield but I think it might be the Peace Gardens. Either way it's a really lovely area of Sheffield city centre with grass for people to sit/ lie on and a big water feature for children to play in on hot summer days. It goes up and down at random times, often catching people out! It's just got a lovely atmosphere and is a wonderful place for people to sit and enjoy their lunchtime or day.

Reflections and mirrors...

Mirrors....

Another back-blog!

When I lived in Como I used to love coming across these large convex mirrors because they usually give you a view totally different from the one that you see in front of you:

 

This photo was taken in Brunate, which is situated high above Como town. I would often take myself off walking around Lake Como and on this particular day I decided not to take the funicolare (the "hillside trolley"), but instead to walk up the hill. Bearing in mind that it was a very hot day and there was no actual path that I could find to follow it ended up being a bit of a disaster. I had to scramble up through thick forest on the very steep hill and past angry, barking Alsatians! It was all worth it in the end though as the view from the top was always so beautiful. (I got the funicolare down!!). I like the fact that I am in this picture because I can remember how absolutely exhausted I was at the time!

This is the view from the top of Brunate, looking down past the funicolare into Como town, and below it is the view when you are just about to make it back to Como:

More mirrors...

Reflections...

The next two photos were taken in Belfast Zoo, with the first being a favourite:

A train journey from Sheffield to Loughborough (looking like it might start to rain!):

And when I got back to Loughborough it was raining! (the reflection of a barrier in a puddle on the way home from the station):

Finally, an Isle of Wight reflection in my sunglasses: