Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday - Totem for the Sun

Fragments

Thursday is the Spring or Vernal Equinox - this is a time associated with "The Greenman" and above is a picture that I did some years ago.

The original drawing was based on my middle son, when he was a teenager, and this son has also been on my mind these past few weeks, as his wedding takes place over the Easter weekend.

I think that part of my reluctance to be in the studio this past month is to do with my feelings around my sons wedding.

Or let me re-phrase that my feelings around becoming a "Mother in Law"!

Two of my sons are getting married this year. For the past month - I have not set foot in the studio - but I have been tending my garden like there is no tomorrow.

I love my two new daughter-in-laws-to-be. I am overjoyed that my sons are getting married and I am just so proud of all my children and their partners.

Yet somehow these imminent weddings have affected me more than I knew.
I thought I had embraced my age and in some ways I have - apart from the occasional moan about the fact that various parts of my body seem to be hurtling towards the ground - Gravity has a strange effect on the over 50's!

However at another level - I know these weddings are also a milestone in my life, and for the past month I have been in the grey time, the liminal phase of neither here nor there. Somehow, not the same mother I was - and - not yet the Mother in Law I will become.

Tending the garden has been my metaphorical rite of passage - cultivating the soil, pulling the weeds and moving stones. A way of separating from the Mother I was, actively nurturing my children (Although in truth - I have not had to do this for a few years) and moving towards the Mother I will become.

Now - I send them joyfully into this new and exciting phase of their lives, while I take my new place as the "Mother in Law"

This is work in progress that I started to-day. It is going to be composed of fragments. Fragments that I have saved over the years - from pieces that didn't work out, experiments, bits that I liked - but never got around to working into a picture.

Perhaps another metaphor for where I am just now.

Wolf Moon

Wolf Moon is now finished - in this picture it probably does not look a lot different than in the last post - but there is more stitching on it. I don't know why but all the close ups I took of the piece today showed a real haze on the layer of organza (with light reflection I suppose) - but it is not there at all when you look at the real piece. It is quite hard to photograph - which will be a problem if I want to have giclee prints made from it. (OK not a problem - a challenge!)

The full moon in February is known among other things as "Snow Moon", or "Ice Moon"
It is hard to think about a "Snow Moon" given the wonderful sunshine that we have had over the past few days, so I think the inspiration for this moon will come from the snowdrops in the garden.

Tomorrow I am going to spend some time in the studio working on this theme!

What has happened to the spell checker on blogger?
When you are dyslexic it is a real problem if it doesn't work!!

Comments Welcome

This is where I am up to with "Wolf Moon" the "mount" around the edge is only paper. So that I can get an idea of the composition of the finished work. The piece has not been pressed - so it does look a bit creased!

I am now in a position where do I .............

1) leave it as is with minimal hand stitching

or

2) Do hand stitching all over

Detail 1

detail 2
(Actually the wolf has a little bit more stitching on it since the photo)

Your comments are welcome

Sress!!

Stressed today!

I am setting up an ETSY shop for Giclee Prints of my work.

In the past I have had giclees professionally printed of some of my embroideries. They generally tended to be steady little sellers at exhibitions and fairs. However now that I am not out at shows any more - I thought that ETSY would be the way to go.

It took me half a day to get one picture up there! Not because it is hard - far from it - really the whole process seems quite straightforward. I think I was stressing too much over whether the colour reproduction of the photo was accurate and trying to get the text correct.

Phew - well one up 4 to go! Anyway I wont direct you to my ETSY shop just yet -because "Cherry Toes" is the only thing there - but I will put a link up when I get it all sorted.

Another doll

This was the only "boy" that I made!

I was trying to do a gingerbread man - but he looked a bit strange - so I had to give him "Christmas trousers" and a bow tie!

I made a doll for Judy as a PIF - and the photo she has on her blog is better than the photo I took - so if you want to see Judy please click here

The paper mountain is slowly decreasing! I want to get it done and dusted so that I can be in the studio with a clear conscience otherwise it sits like a grey cloud in the back of my mind and I get grumpy.

Happy New Year to you all

Happy New Year to you all. I apologise for not blogging for ages - there were two reasons for this.

The first was the dreaded vertigo - which - fingers crossed, for the most part is better.
I have been seeing the osteopath, and she has really helped however the process of recovering from the vertigo gave me a very uncomfortable back - so I could only be in the studio for short bursts of time!

The other reason is that I was making "art dolls" as Christmas presents and for the PIF exchange and I did not want to post pictures until I was sure that all of those dolls were in their new homes!

They did prove to be slightly more time consuming than I first thought - although they were not really very complicated - just fiddly. The hardest part was turning the doll right side out.

However - they were a joy to make!

I will post more pictures over the next couple of days - as they are not all in the "group photo"

Here are links to two more fun tutorials on art-e-zine;- for making this type of doll which caught my eye when I was first thinking about making "fairies" for my friends Christmas Trees.

http://www.art-e-zine.co.uk/teedoll.html

http://www.art-e-zine.co.uk/createdolls.html

One of my resolutions this year is to try and stay on top of "paperwork". I seem to have half a Brazilian Rain forest of papers and "stuff" to sort out. (I think I say that every year) So no studio time for me until I have made some inroads into my paper mountain.

So I wish you all a wonderful 2008, thank you all for visiting my blog and all your comments and e-mails.

Spirit of the Land - Amulet

The Amulet

Today I sold this amulet, which I created in 2001.

A lady saw this piece at the craft fair last weekend, and loved it. During the week, she phoned to ask me if she could buy it for her daughter. But when I delivered it to her today - she hung it on her wall - and it looked very happy - so I think that for now - Spirit of the land will stay with her.

Detail of the top section

Because the piece is framed and glazed in such a deep frame - I found it hard to take a picture without reflections - so I hope that the images can be made out clearly.

Middle Section

With all my amulets I do a piece of written work - and mostly people choose to read the words as well as view the picture. These pieces are enjoyed and/or bought by people who have a soulful connection with the art.

Spirit of the Land


This amulet draws on both male and female symbolism
It is a distillation of both energies
And encompasses the elements of
Fire, Earth, Water and Air.

On the copper panel is the face of the Guardian Spirit,
The “Green Man’
The embodiment of the vibrant energy of life.

On the second panel,
The copper wire
Depicts a journey.

Wherever your life’s journey may take you,
The Spirit of the land protects and watches over you.

copyright Karen Hall
May 2001

A few hours hand stitching

Only a few hours in the studio today - and this is the area I was concentrating on.

I was really pleased with this bit when I was doing the design and making the paper layers - it has gold oil stick drawn onto a printed page - which has then been overlaid with the tissue paper - so that the gold and the book print ghosts through.

In reality it does not integrate too well into the piece .... yet. I machine stitched a complicated labyrinth on top of the book paper - perhaps too complicated - something simpler may have been more appropriate. So in the few hours available today I was hand stitching this area using seeding and straight stitches - to start to blend the slightly "blockey" colours and to emphasise the outline of the maze

Does all the extra stitching make the slightest bit of difference? - I think it needs more hand stitching and it does give movement and depth.

First Blog

Thought it was time I had a web presence with a blog - so here is the first post, together with a detail of my latest work "A little piece of Heaven"

Machine and hand embroidery on layers of tissue paper, which have been painted.