Abstracting the landscape - Drumburgh III

Following on from my visit to Drumburgh, I decided do some more abstraction work in order to find inspiration for a final piece. The colours ended up rather yellow - I had intended for a green gold and purple, but actually I like the bright yellow as it is very 'not me' - well it was! 

These are not supposed to be finished pieces, but I'll select small parts to further develop...

Likewise, but using tape to define the areas...that are then cut up. 

Below are selected pieces that may generate a final piece...or I may just keep reworking them. 

Christmas wrapping paper

Well that was a bonkers idea ...hand printed and painted wrapping paper - it can't be that hard! Well it wasn't too hard, but it takes care and much time ...cutting the block, printing, drying - where do you put it to dry? ...and then hand colouring - packaging and keeping it safe. Definitely a two person job ...thanks Tom for all your help! We now understand why hand printed paper is so expensive and sold in such small amounts online! We will be taking orders per metre...at a price of £7 per metre with 5 free gift tags per metre. Looking at it, each metre would wrap four presents as the paper is 75cm wide. It is very nice! 

The lino block...

Hand printing ....

Hand coloured .....

Hand finished with gift tags.

All wrapped up! 

RD Glass ...

 ...another splendid session at RD Glass. Roxy continues to allow us access and use of her studio...so today I wasn't sure what to do; I ended up making three different pieces using new styles/techniques ....I'll be interested to get them back and see how the results influence future works. 

The photo isn't square on - so everything looks a bit skew...but I enjoyed 'making this up as I went along' ....

A glass rainbow hanger and to the right, a seashore made of glass powders - it'll be interesting to see if  I have put enough powder on, how it spreads and if the colour is strong enough - fingers crossed! 

Christmas lino cuts

Wow - what a good session we had at The Old Crown in Hesket Newmarket this week! Here are some photos of the results - interestingly, now that the weather is cooler, people are preferring to use softsculpt and are getting excellent results. 

I love the colour used to print these! 

Simple, bold designs work well.

Clear, sylish designs ...

When you advise not to try to cut words ...brilliant!

Classic design! 

..and a lovely sense of movement! 

Dove Cottage

 Following all the 'Moss Huts' workshops, it was great to be able to see our work on display in the centre at Dove Cottage and to see the work of the West Cumbrian Carers.

The modern 'Moss Hut'. 

Our exhibition space. 

Tom and I focussed on changes in avian fauna over time and the hope that rewilding gives us. 

My nest based on my safe place ...Islay and inparticular Ardnave point - using found objects from Islay.

...and other nests...

Eycott Hill Nature Reserve

 A while back I made a fused glass wave of the mountain pansies at Cumbria Wildlife Trust's Eycott  reserve. I've been waiting for a day with no wind, sunshine and one that suited me on which to photograpah the glass in situ - yesterday was that day and it was so calm I could even sketch outside too! 

Mountain pansies.

The glass before firing. 

In situ after firing. 

Field sketches that will be used to inspire studio (kitchen table!) work. 

Abstracting the Landscape - Drumburgh II

One of  the other techniques I used was to paint a background in acrylic before arriving on site and then adding crayon /oil pastel to the background once on site. This means the pictures don't take long and if it's cold you can minimise time outside - being as I was in a hide this wasn't a problem! Once again these form part of the reserach/planning for a larger finished piece by recording the colours and atmosphere of the place. 

Abstracting the landscape - Drumburgh I

Finally, some time to myself to carry on with the online 'Abstracting the Landscape' course that I am doing with the Newlyn School of Art. I really enjoyed it and hopefully will work on these field sketches to produce a larger scale piece....these are  the predominantly black and white ones - colour to follow in the next blog. 

The first technique if to lay down a grid of masking tape, ignore it and paint over it with a variety of different black marks....as below. 

You then remove the tape to reveal images that are more dynamic and expressive than they would have been if you painted within a box. 

You can then work infrmed by individual areas to develop further work. 

This one was one I didn't mask as i really liked the technique - especially using heather and rushes as 'brushes' to mark make. 

..and I couldn't resist adding some colour!