MAGIC MOMENTS

Newly emerged dragonfly

Newly emerged Elephant Hawkmoth

Feeding orphaned hedgehog on goat's milk

Orphaned blackbird

I'm here and waiting!

More foxes 

Fox in winter - acrylic painting 3' x 3'

'Spirit of the Birch Wood'

Loomed fox head mounted on a silver birch log. 

The base is decorated with beads and a carved wooden fox bought in Japan

Sometimes I use a brush instead of a needle ....

on a box canvas:

A small acrylic portrait of an adorable Australian puppy

A large acrylic painting of 'my' foxes

or on a stone:

This one is life-size - we call him 'Livingstone' our trompe l'oeil cat

MARCH BEAD JOURNAL PROJECT PIECE

Mad March Hares

We have a saying in the UK 'mad as a March hare'. It derives from the behaviour of hares in their breeding season, which starts here in March. They appear to box each other and jump in the air. If you get up early, you might be lucky enough to see them leaping about in a meadow. I've only seen hares 'boxing' once and that was a long time ago.

I've used 'boxing' hares as my theme for March but, being a geriatric martial artist, I've changed their sport and awarded them both black belts! I've tried to represent the idea of the Vernal Equinox (20th March this year) by balancing day & night, sun & moon, silver and gold. The sun and moon designs on the hares' bodies were influenced by Huichol Indian beadwork.

I made a lot of mistakes along the way. Painting the cotton with acrylics and not washing it out (as I've done previously to get a lighter effect) made it very difficult to get the needle through. Fabric paints would no doubt work better, but I wanted to use what I had to hand. I should also have painted the shapes of the hares black before beading them. The gold and silver beads look different on the dark and light backgrounds and the hares look a bit transparent. There were all sorts of other little problems, but I won't draw your attention to them! Hopefully I won't make the same mistakes again.

The beads I used for the edging are from a broken rope of jet beads that belonged to my great-grandmother. I hope she would be amused that I've recycled them in this way! 

FEBRUARY BJP PIECE 

Phoenix

This piece has been great fun to do.  The background is a piece of old cotton painted with acrylics. I washed most of the paint out again to leave a smoky sky. I roughly sketched the shape of the phoenix and the points of the flames with a washable quilting pen and then sorted out a palette of beads. Once I'd done the bird's head and added the jewelled collar, the rest developed as I went along. The bugles and daggers seemed made for the wings and the tail feathers grew after the legs had been done. The flames are a gradual mixture of golds, oranges and reds using beads of varying sizes. The tail decorations were made  separately by threading bugles on to wire and fixing a flat paua shell bead at the end of each one to pick up the colours of the body. With a thick needle I made 5 spaced out holes near the base of the tail and threaded the pieces of wire through and secured them together at the back. The rim of multicoloured beads was added after stitching on a backing piece to cover the mess of threads!

Slightly tongue in cheek symbolism - I can imagine myself as the phoenix rising from the flames of a tough few years. The bird also represents me trying to fly almost exactly a year ago! I stepped out at the top of the stairs in the middle of the night thinking I was going back into the bedroom - we now have a night light on the landing! 

January Bead Journal Project piece finished!

If you look closely at the fourth branch down on the right side you can spot the pale green 'spirit' bead - there's always one!

Teasel Project

I know I have too many projects on the go at once, but I keep getting ideas!

Last year we had a fantastic crop of teasels and I decided to record the wildlife that used the plants as a home or a food source. The flower heads in summer are very pretty so I also had a go at painting them with acrylics on a box canvas. I just happened to have some green and mauve daggers which went perfectly with the flower heads, so I stitched them onto the canvas. "Why stop there?" said Archie. "Why not bead some of the wildlife you photographed and stitch butterflies, bees, ladybirds etc. etc. onto the canvas as well!"
Like Archie, this is a long-term project and I'm adding beading to the canvas bit by bit. So far I've finished 3 butterflies, several ladybirds and a great-tit, which obligingly came for a drink from the teasel leaves in the summer. (I have enough material also to do an autumn/winter picture with spiders, flies, more ladybirds and some goldfinches which came for the seeds - but that will have to wait!)

On the left is the painting before I got carried away. Below is an enlargement of part of the canvas decorated with the butterflies, ladybirds and the great-tit. I hope to add a few more visitors, but it's starting to look a bit crowded already. Hopefully I'll know when to stop!

The bird was embroidered in 15s on ultrasuede and lightly filled. For the butterflies (green-veined white, peacock & comma) I used all kinds of beads in my stash and some sequins. The amber 'jewels' which form the bodies of the peacock and the comma were rescued from my friend's discarded sandals!

       The ladybirds (2-spot & Harlequin) were created with small beads and wire and I also lined them with ultrasuede.

All the designs are my own and are based on my own photographs. Please respect my copyright and credit me if you wish to reproduce any of my work.