I am very much wanting to do a textile piece that relates to the erosion of bedrock under a glacier ...as you do! This is a sample piece that uses foam blocks to print the pebbles, watercolours for the colouring and both hand and machine stitching. I'm envisaging felt pebblles being incorporated too, and maybe some layers of transparent or translucent fabric on top too...it's got a way to go, but it's a start!
After walking along Whitbarrow we popped into Latterbarrow. This small reserve was a riot of late summer colour. It was good to see so many butterflies - especially the Brimstones.
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| ..and a Comma. |
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| ..and Peacocks... |
It was great to see these on Whitbarrow Scar the other day....so a few more photos!
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| and that beautiful underside! |
We try to pick our days carefully, depending on the weather, so as we drove over Shap and through a drizzly Tebay Gorge we did wonder.....But it dried up as we headed south and when we got onto the top of Whitbarrow, it was a scorcher! A glorious walk with lovely flowers and butterflies. The sky hinted at thundery showers, but thankfully they didn't materialise.
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| Whitbarrow... |
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| Walking up through the woods the Broad-leaved Helleborines were bob on! |
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| Broad-leaved Helleborine flower. |
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| Up onto the Scar top, where the Dark-red Helleborines were over, with just dried up petals left. |
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| Carline Thistles and below. |
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| Looking back ... |
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| There were lots of Grayling butterflies on the wing. |
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| The sun came out .... |
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| Looking into Central Lakes. |
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| Harebells.... |
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| Nice limestone pavements and grykes. |
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| With the heat, limestone, flowers and butterflies, it was reminiscent of Spain. |
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| The beautiful High Brown Fritillary. |
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| A very fresh Red Admiral. |
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| Just lovely! |
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| I do like Harebells! |
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| ... and back to the beginning. |
Following our visit to Shetland and particularly Fetlar, I decided to attempt a Red-necked Phalarope glass wave... Click here for the blog on the day. Now the Phalarope was a long way off and obscured by lovely lochan vegetation, so the piece had to feature Bog Bean, Horse Tails and Marsh Marigold. When I found myself cutting glass rods up to form the lines in the Horse Tails I wondered why I do this to myself! Anyway here is the piece - over all I was happy with it - slightly disappointed in the fact that during the firing process the beak of the bird had drooped a little but hey ho! I'm certainly not making another one and from a distance it looks great! I also liked the slightly geometric grid effect of the verticals for the Horse Tails and the horizontal lines for the receeding layers of Bog Bean. Somehow this reminded me of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's designs. The Bog Bean was challenging - fiddly to do, but may evolve into a larger piece at sometime, as it is up there in my favourite plants ...
