More animals!

I know Christmas is well and truly over now and cracker jokes aren't that great, but I liked this one because it's connected to what I do:

Why are Christmas trees so bad at sewing?

Because they drop their needles! 

😄😒

*Tumbleweed goes rolling by*

Anyway.....

I was lucky enough to get Tim Peake's book Hello, is this Planet Earth? for Christmas. I love it. The photos of Earth from the International Space Station are fantastic and may inspire some art I do in the future. The expanse of the continents and the curve of the Earth make you realise what a wonderful, beautiful place the Earth is. It made me wonder if everyone had the chance to go up into space, just enough to look back on our home planet, would it be enough to inspire love for our world and put various things into perspective? Would it be enough to see we all live on this one planet and we need to share it and look after it?

The animals we share it with would appreciate it, I'm sure. I've done a few more drawings while I've been trying to recover from my cold. 

This is a magpie:

 

Here's a snow leopard. I think they're absolutely beautiful creatures.

 

A red squirrel:

 

And here are two I drew a while ago but I haven't put them on my blog yet. A little owl:

And an avocet:

 

 

I hope you're enjoying the new year so far.  

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you had a lovely Christmas. I developed a cold on Christmas Day and my mother did on Boxing Day so we weren't feeling very festive and we feel like we hardly had a Christmas because it went so fast. But everyone is happy and safe and that's the important thing. 

For the last week I've been snuggled up trying to get better, kind of really getting into the "hygge" idea that's become popular. It's not really a new idea to me though. I've always spent time in winter being cosy indoors. Here in Wales we have the word "cwtch" which means "hug" but there's also "cwtched up" which means being cosy and comfortable, preferably by a fireside with a blanket or warm clothes and something warm to drink. That's similar to "hygge" isn't it? 

Due to this cold - and Christmas - I haven't been able to finish my Autumn wall hanging yet but I'm hoping to get back to the colours soon. I find January the darkest month of the year, especially after twelfth night when the decorations and lights have come down, so hopefully the colours of my sewing will help. 

It's lovely to see flowers out at this time of year too, not because of global warming but because they're winter flowering varieties. They brighten things up a bit. This is winter flowering jasmine: 

 

and here are some violas:
 

I love violas. Their petals look like cute little faces. 

I love things that bring colour and light to the darkness, so at this time of year - and with all the terrible things going on in the world - here's a small message to you and myself to remember that we can achieve things if we really want to, with compassion, empathy and respect. We can shine, we are made of the same atoms as stars and to quote Professor Brian Cox;

"We are the cosmos made conscious."

So:

 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you all have a lovely day.

Enjoy the simple things.

Steampunk and an anniversary.

This week is the first anniversary of the Rusty and Boots blog. It's been going for a whole year. Yay! 😊 Thank you to everyone who has read it so far, I hope you've liked it.

For some reason this year I've somehow developed a liking for Steampunk. I didn't like it to begin with; when I first heard of it I thought 'What is this?' but then I didn't really get it. The more I saw of it the more I found out and now I understand the attraction.

As I love fantasy novels and films, Steampunk kind of fits into that genre, along with science fiction, with its nature of being an alternative history of the Victorian era or a sort of dystopian time in the future where we've gone back to those fashions and to steam energy rather than electricity. 

Obviously, having begun to like Steampunk and seeing so many artworks in that style, I had to have a go at creating my own art. This is my first attempt so I'm not sure how good it is yet but I have more ideas in which I hope to improve the imagery and composition.

First of all I painted the canvas in a rose gold shade, then used modelling paste to create the cogs, which to begin with I painted gold with brown parts like rust.

Then I used puff paste on some areas.

 

I painted the puff paste gold.

 

I added some brown cogs and placed some actual cogs on it to see where they might fit in.

 

Then I decided I didn't like the rose gold colour and repainted it with a kind of old gold. I also painted the puff paste creating a rust effect.

 

I added some painted cogs then attached the real ones.

 

So there it is. As I've said, this was my first attempt at anything vaguely Steampunk, so I'm not sure of the result yet and I may change it. This is only experimenting and playing with the style and feel and as I continue on my Steampunk journey, along with all my other textile and painting ideas, you will see the results. I hope you'll like them.

Autumn Colours

Here are some photos I've taken of leaves with their Autumn colours and some work in progress which has been inspired by them.

Some lovely sycamore leaves......

Some astilbe stalks.....

Some astilbe leaves.....

Some cherry tree leaves.....

Finally, this is the work in progress I've started which is inspired by the colours of Autumn and is another version of my Wild Nature wall hanging.

So far, I've cut strips of fabric in amber and chestnut and used machine embroidery over them. There's more work on the way! 😊

Wild Nature

I don't know about you but I feel like hibernating at the moment. We had a lovely sunny day at the weekend but from then on it's been rain, rain and more rain. 🌂⛈ There has even been flooding in some parts of the UK already and the winter weather has only just begun. I send my best wishes to all the people affected. 💖 

It's not that I don't like the autumn or winter, far from it, I love wrapping up to go out in the cold then warming up when I get home. I love the colours of the leaves and seeing them carpet the garden and pavements. (You'll see my love of all this in the future when I complete other pieces of work I have in mind.) It's just that sometimes, when you get several gloomy days in a row, it can get you down a bit. 

So, to try to brighten things up a bit and bring back memories of spring and summer with their warm days and bright flowers budding and blooming, here's my finished piece, 'Wild Nature'. 

I began with strips of fabric in two shades of green, representing the order and neatness some people like to impose on their gardens and nature. (I don't really like to. I try to keep mine tidy but weeds are very welcome. They are only flowers and are good for wildlife. 💮😀 )
   

Then I sewed over these strips with decorative machine embroidery. 

 

On top of that, I layered a piece of organza which I printed with leaves all over. This kind of represents the more wild and unruly side of nature. Nature goes and grows wherever she wants to and doesn't seem to like being controlled. 

 

I then applied some hand stitching over this using organic swirls, again representing the, well, 'naturalness' of nature. 😀 Nature doesn't go in straight lines, but prefers circles, spirals and branching patterns. 

 

I also added some daisies, dandelions and forget me nots. As I said earlier, daisies and dandelions are just flowers, not weeds to me and brighten up everything. 

 

I sewed some leaves onto plain green chiffon with machine stitching....

 

...then cut them out.

 

I sewed them around the edge of the wall hanging to break up the lines that the sides create and to represent nature breaking out of boundaries that humans place on it.

So, that's my Spring/Summer 'Wild Nature'. I'm working on Autumn and Winter will be here soon (quite literally! 😀)

Remembrance

I just wanted to give a small tribute to all the people who sacrificed their lives in wars to fight for our freedom.

When people talk about "heroes" now they mean film stars or pop stars or sport stars, but they are just doing their jobs. The real heroes in life are the people who try to win peace in this world, who try to help others live in safer times and places.

So, to all those men and women who have fought for that, been injured or killed, thank you for what you have done so we may be free.