Deciding what to do

Our course is finished, the exhibition is up.

The small art exhibition will be on soon at The Alcove Art Shop. I have been playing around with some eucalyptus blossom pieces for that. Am still trying out some images.

I have taken some photos and fiddled with them in Photoshop. Not sure what I will do with them yet, just thought I would play around.
I have printed the photos out onto silk and then done thread painting over them but now I would like to try something slightly different.

I am thinking to paint the base fabric and then sew over it in the sort of machine embroidery I did last year (almost a year ago - where does the time go?!) in the Alison Holt workshop. It probably won't turn out all that differently, it will just be a little more my creation, rather than a photo.

I just used Poster Edges, twice. It made the background nice and indistinct. 

I am going away for a holiday soon. I will involve a long flight and then, perhaps, a long train trip. So I am trying to come up with some ideas for handwork to do. But there is the problem of what they will let you have on a plane. And how much I want to carry around.

I have played around with blackwork (just found this site with some free tutorials) in the past and am thinking of trying to develop an idea for that. So I have been tracing some photos, using a black pen to help me develop some images that I might be able to use. Or I might try some doodling patterns as I did when I did the workshop with Katherine Devine, ages ago.

Then I made it black and white, not sure why. 

I am also thinking that it would be good to dye the base fabric using eucalyptus leaves or bark, just for a different effect. So I have been researching that. The even weave fabric for counted thread work is expensive, so I don't want to mess it up. But I am looking at eucalyptus blossom ideas, so it seems appropriate.

I put the image on a light box and it is ready for me to play around with. 

Drawing class

I had to blog today, the date is 7/5/12 (7+5=12).  So here I am, with only an hour of the day left, blogging.
Fortunately, I went to a drawing class yesterday and have something to blog about.  As I may have said before, drawing is not something I would naturally choose to do.  I keep thinking that I will draw, I read people's blogs where they have made a resolution to draw every day, I think I will try that too, I don't, etc.  So I am feeling pleased that not only did I go to a class yesterday but I have actually drawn again today (more about this later).
The thing about this drawing style is that it is similar to doodling, something that I often do.  So I felt comfortable with it straight away. It does take more thought than I usually put into my doodling but I still felt that it was achievable.
The class was Learn the Art of Pen Drawing by Katherine Devine.  It was at Open Drawer in Hartwell. The class was very relaxed and we were given good instructions and inspiration with plenty of time to practise.  

The first thing we did was a basic leaf shape that we filled in with patterns.
After lunch, we did our own drawings, based on a photo we had brought.  To make it easy, we had blown up a photo to A4 size and traced the main outlines, allowing us to have a basic shape that was in proportion and was not going to cause too much angst starting up. Then we just filled in the areas with different patterns, getting the shading by the way we coloured in the patterns.  Everyone produced great work, some MUCH more intricate than others (it is going to take them hours to finish but they were keen to do so).

One of the reasons I was keen to do the class is that I have an interest in blackwork embroidery - a slight interest at this stage.  I am slowly getting around to thinking that maybe, perhaps, I would like to try some.  When I saw the ad for this class I thought I had to do it, just in case I ever decide to a) do some blackwork and b) design my own.