Much Room for Mushrooms?

If you’ve seen my social media posts, you might know where I’m going with this. Last year I had a bit of a mushroom phase, which I like to think was like Picasso’s pink and blue periods. That’s what I like to tell myself, anyway!  :D  My mother asked me one day if I’d seen this particular group of mushrooms growing nearby, so I went to look and took my camera with me. This is what resulted: lots of photos of cute fungi.

 While I’m on the subject, did you know that mushrooms are only the ‘flowering’ part of the fungi? Most of it is underground in vast strings of interconnected webs and are mainly found around trees, especially in a forest. As you can see, these were surrounding a tree stump. Fungi is useful to the trees because it connects them to each other and helps them to communicate.

I know that might sound hippyish, but it’s been scientifically proven that trees communicate with each other. If one is being cut or eaten, it releases chemicals which other trees pick up and they react to it by producing another chemical to make their leaves taste worse. At least that’s what I remember from watching a programme on it! They communicate in a similar way through the fungi, so it’s like a symbiotic relationship.

Nature continues to amaze me and the more I learn, the more I think our ancestors were right that there are spirits in the landscape; i.e., more going on than we think.

Anyway, I was inspired by these photos to draw this, a sort of whimsical, fantasy art picture where the mushrooms in the middle are feeling a bit hemmed in.

That turned into a painting:

It is now mounted and available in my shop.

I love fantasy art, especially that of Alan Lee, Anne Stokes and Lisa Parker. I’ve been thinking about trying some myself, particularly after joining in with the Drawlloween challenge last year hosted by Mab Graves on Instagram. I really enjoyed it and surprised myself with what turned up on the paper. I’ve also begun to like whimsical art, so I think I’ll be doing more of this, trying to stretch myself into new areas. Here are a few of the artworks from the Drawlloween challenge, as I didn’t post on my blog during that time. Some of them need more work and improvements and I may do better versions. Let me know what you think. 

Cat Nap 2

Continuing on from my last post, I’ve taken another of my ‘Cat Nap’ drawings and developed it.

This was the original sketch:

And here is the watercolour I did:

I’ve printed it on fabric and now it’s ready to be embroidered.

As it’s Valentine’s Day today, here’s a photo I’ve taken with a rose and a heart shaped stone I found a long time ago.

The book is a volume of Welsh poetry and these particular poems are about love, “Serch” being a Welsh word for “Love”. There’s also “Cariad” which means the same thing.

I’m really enjoying watching the Winter Olympics at the moment. I watch it every four years. I’m not a huge fan of much sport, but for some reason I love this, particularly the snowboarding, the luge, the skeleton, the bobsleigh and the speed skating. If I were younger, I might have a go at one of these. Maybe.

Love to everyone, have a lovely day.

A Mini Wallhanging

I was really tired at the end of last week, so missed a blog post. I didn’t want to write anything I could come up with just to post because if I’m inviting you to read my blog, I want it to be good enough for you.

So, here, at last, is something I’ve been working on.

To start off the new year, I’ve gone with something small and gentle as an easy project to get me back into my work. (I needed something easy; after the holidays it’s been difficult to get back into everything, even though I really want to get on with my textiles.)

I’ve made what I’m calling a Mini Wall Hanging because it’s quite small, only 12.3 cm x 14.9 cm (excluding the hanging ribbon). It’s an image of a hydrangea flower to presage the coming of Spring.

Here’s the finished thing.

And here’s the process it went through. First, I stamped an image onto fabric and coloured it. Then I put it on a backing fabric.

I added some stitching around the edges and some beads…..

…and sewed it all together.

I’ve also begun a personal drawing project where I’m hoping to do a small drawing or sketch every day for a year. This was my first one, a couple of toadstools. The fairy hasn’t arrived yet!

And here’s a cat.

I’ll (hopefully!) be posting my daily drawings on my Twitter and Instagram accounts, which you can find here if you wish to:

 Twitter

Instagram

I hope you’re coping with the cold weather. I am, just about, although I actually like cold, frosty days; it gives me the chance to layer up with warm clothes and scarves and enjoy being cosy. Also, the coldness now makes us even more welcoming of the warmer temperatures in Spring when they arrive. I hope Spring also comes with more energy for me.  

Speaking of warmer weather, this rose has been flowering all Winter. It doesn’t normally – an effect of global warming do you think?

The blooms haven’t lasted very long though. They’ve been withering at the petal edges and turning brown fairly quickly, giving a lovely wabi-sabi effect.  

I’m just about keeping on track with my aims for January with the drawing and plans for my textiles, I just hope I can keep it up. Do you have any goals for this year? I’d love to hear them if you do. For now, enjoy the weekend.

30 Days Wild Days 11 & 12

Day 11

I've created a Wild Work of Art for day 11 of 30 Days Wild. I see at least one coal tit flitting around, so I thought I'd paint one.

I painted it with acrylics and gave it an abstract background representing leaves and trees around the bird.

These are the drawings I did to practise getting the bird's shape right.
I also tried drawing a blue tit while I decided which one to paint.

I love drawing and painting wildlife and nature but I never know if I'm doing justice to the beauty of the real thing.

Day 12

My parents have a rose which is about the same age as me. It's a pink flowering plant and blooms every year about now. The buds are opening but I noticed that one of them has developed into a white flower instead of the usual pink.

You can see the usual colour of the rose in the flower next to it. They do have whitish centres but not white petals.

This has never happened before and I don't know why it's happened now. Why do plants suddenly develop a different coloured flower? I think I need to do some research to find out. If anyone knows, please do tell me. This is a new discovery for me and has really surprised me.

Experiment with Eco dyeing 2

First of all, my 30 Days Wild pack has arrived.

It's got wild flower seeds, stickers and a poster to record your wild adventure through June. All you need to do is one wild thing a day throughout June, bringing yourself closer to nature and wildlife. It can be as simple as looking at which wild flowers are growing near you, watching the birds, finding out which insects are in your garden or local park, or you can try creating a piece of wild art using leaves and twigs or whatever you find. I'll be trying to do something. I see birds and bees quite regularly in my garden, so I'm kind of already 'wild' anyway! 😉

After my experiment with eco-dying and trying to get prints of leaves on fabric, which didn't really work, I've attempted it again.

This time, I put red onion skins in the water:

I collected some leaves from my garden, not taking too many from each plant, and spread them on the fabric:

Then I rolled one lot of fabric around a piece of branch and tied it with string. Another lot, I folded and secured with clips and string:

I immersed them in the red onion skin water and then simmered them. They're out of the pot now but I'm going to leave them for as long as I can stand the anticipation before unrolling them (which will probably only be until I finish writing this. 😁 )

When they're untied and properly dried, you'll see the result. It'll be really disappointing if there's no colour or anything on them.

Anyway, while I wait for those, I'm doing some other things and here is one of them, some sketches for a project I'm thinking of doing with hares.

Butterfly Nature

I don't know if you've noticed but I sometimes flit like a butterfly between my works in progress. I've had to leave this work for now because I need more supplies to complete it and haven't had time to get them yet.

I kind of like working on several pieces at a time though as it gives me a break to work on one instead of another for a while. It also allows me to be flexible; if I'm feeling tired or something, I can work on easier things like simple sewing or drawing, like this, my drawing of an ocelot:

If I'm feeling at my best, I can work on more complicated things like intricate sewing, painting or detailed work, this painting for example:

Then there's all the other stuff in between for when I'm feeling in between. 😄

If you remember, I carried out an experiment with rusting fabric last year (you can see my post by clicking HERE) I left it for a while to decide what to do with the fabric I'd coloured with the rust and now I've carried on with it. Here is the result of the rust dyeing:

I've added a rust heart to one of the fabric pieces using rusting powder:

And this is how I've sewn it so far (complete with pins holding some of it together 😊 )

I've printed a key onto fabric which will be involved in some way.

I'll show you the developments as they come.

I found this in my garden the other day:

I love the shape of it. It's only a little piece of faded plant but I find it really beautiful. Maybe it'll end up in a piece of work. 😉

New beginnings

We’re in the second week of February already. Do you think this year is going fast as well? 😉

I’ve begun a new project:

You’ll see what it is soon, for now it’s a work in progress. Maybe you could try and guess what it is but it might be quite obvious by its shape.  😊

Speaking of beginning new things, did you make new year’s resolutions? Have you kept to them? I don’t make resolutions, I gave it up a long time ago because expecting to do something new in a new year never worked for me. I try to practice mindfulness (I say try because I sometimes forget 😃 ) and I love the idea that comes with it that every day is a new beginning, a time to start again with whatever you intended to do. Even every hour – or even every minute – is an opportunity to begin again. It’s kind of like saying if you’re having a bad day, take some time out and start anew. It’s something I try to keep in mind if what I’m working on doesn’t seem to be going as I thought it would.

I came across this poem recently. It goes along the same lines of taking each day as it comes and I thought I’d share it with you:

Write it on your heart

that every day is the best day in the year.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day

Who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in.

Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;

begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit

to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,

with its hopes and invitations,

to waste a moment on the yesterday.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

So if you’re annoyed or down about not sticking to resolutions, don’t be. Have a break and begin again tomorrow. Don’t be hard on yourself. 😊 I think I see Spring as more of a new beginning than the new year as Spring is when nature is waking up and the plants really begin to sprout new shoots.

The winter flowering jasmine and violas are still going in the garden, providing lovely colour and the primroses are blooming:

My mother’s camellia has blossomed like mad:

I’ve done some quick sketches of the blooms:

And also of some mini daffodils:

I hope to involve them in my work at some point, a painting maybe, or in some textiles.

The camellia always flowers in January and brings beautiful colour to the grey days. It also seems to attract blue tits. I’ve seen quite a few pecking at the centre of the flowers but I don’t know what it is they’re after. Part of the flower? Insects? If you know, do tell me!  J