New Directions...

and who knows where they will lead. This is the inaugural piece from Big Bertha (BB), my lovely printer, and it's called, 'Are We Dancers?'. It is made from Lutradur 100, silk and wool fibres, and measures 17.5" by 24"; it's great to be able to work on a larger scale than A4 with a photographic image! Although the piecemade in layers, I don't think it really qualifies as a quilt (of which more another time). The image is manipulated; the original was a picture of a crack in the floor of one of the buildings at the museum at Gressenhall, just up the road from here. I did contemplate beading this piece, but thought better of it. I think it's complicated enough without it. There's always the risk that you add too much to a piece, and distract from the original intention. Sadly, the main picture doesn't do the colour justice; the colours are very subtle in places. I hope to get a better photograph of it when the snow disappears and I can get to the gallery, where the lighting is good. The close up does a much better job of rendering the colours of the original.

As you can tell from the image, I've given my embellisher a bit of an outing, and intend to work much more with it in the next few months. I've rearranged my work space so that it has a table to itself, and I've already used it more in a week than I did in the whole of last year, just about. Which is sad, really. I didn't buy it as a toy, but other than buying rather a lot of things to use with it, I didn't make time to work with it. Now, I have a clear plan about using it, and a clear purpose, and I do feel better about it. And I'm wondering what other bits and pieces of things I'll work with next... other than BB, of course, she's an essential part of my new directions. Hope you like what you see...