Shifting Direction...

...again.  Another mini relapse, another rethink.  As I can't work at a machine for more than fifteen minutes at a time, work needs to be small scale.  And, I discovered, hand stitch is meditative, but painting is joyful... and who wouldn't want joy in their lives?  So, another shift in emphasis.  I bought some canvas boards to work on, but I'd been reading recently about watercolours on fabric, mainly people enthusing about Inktense on fabric.  I have a few inktense pencils, and did contemplate buying blocks, but thought I'd start with what I had to hand.  I've been playing with watercolours, and remembering why I don't work with them, predominately...so maybe not inktense.  Acrylic, now... so I worked with watered down acrylic paints on a scrap of sheeting I had to hand.

Not my usual palette, but, like I said, what I had to hand.  Once it was dry, I started markmaking with oil pastels...

Oh, look...there's a figure... entirely unintentional, but the unconscious does what it does.  She looks like a dancer.  Now... as a child, all I wanted to be was a dancer.  I love dancing.  I'm married to a non-dancer, so I can't say I miss it, entirely, as I haven't danced in years...last time was possibly my son's wedding.  But this is undeniably a dancer.  And making this piece is a way of having dance in my life, probably the only way it will ever happen again.  And here she is, finished.  

She is outlined in machine stitch, with accents provided by two different variegated threads, though they read as very similar in the image.  Definitely worth working some more in this way, I think.  

I did promise a look at the finished felt piece... here it is.  

Can't get excited, to tell you the truth....but I started, so I finished.  Not worth framing.