That's Better...

...though you may not see the difference.  My sister kindly gave me some water based oil paints, some time ago, having heard me talk about them.  I finally tried them out.  I hadn't realised quite how big a difference there is between acrylics and oils, but this confirmed it.

Reader, I painted.

Boxed In I and II...and there's a lot to explore in this, for me, at least.  It's how I feel about ME: locked into a tiny space, unable to move much, or do a great deal.  The observant quilters among you might notice a resemblance to a log cabin block in the structure of the painting...that was certainly going through my mind as I was painting. 

I've never used water soluble oils before, so I tried monoprinting.  Okay, maybe not.  Each of these was made on paper that had been underpainted in acrylic.  The first one then had additional marks added, the other two were left as they were.  Don't think I'll be doing that again, though.  Not fussed about the red one, but rather like the other two, especially the second one.

The upside...I love painting with oil paint, it's thick, buttery, easy to work with, and this watercolour version is incredibly easy to clean up.  The downside, though, other than the oil smell, is the length of time they take to dry.  This is day three, and we're still not quite there...I don't really have enough room to have work lying around drying for days on end.  So the jury's out on what to do about it.  I suppose the simplest thing would be to stop painting, but I get a good deal of pleasure from it.  So I think I'm going to reserve judgement, and perhaps play with some more of my toys...I have both printing inks and a lot of pastels, soft and oil.  Maybe there's something I can do that will be easier to do and not take as much energy.  I'll let you know.

Process, Process, Process...

...oh, and learning.  The two most important things in my practice...and possibly, not giving up.  I bought some canvas boards to paint on some time ago, and they've been waiting for me to be brave enough to use one.  Today was the day.  I approached it the same way as I've approached the smaller works, and decided to use a table easel.  I bought one several years ago, when I first got ME, thinking that I'd be unable to stand long enough to paint, so... The jury is out.  I couldn't work on the board vertically, because it hurt my arms to do so.  Fine, I turned the board round.  And then, having applied the paint, I thought....that's awful.  So, given it was lunchtime, I stopped painting and had intended to leave it for a while...like a day or so... well, that didn't happen.  I went back into the studio to have a look at it and thought...it really is awful.  So, rather than binning it, which was tempting, I thought about what it was that was wrong with it.  Reader, I was trying too hard.  Instead of relaxing and letting things happen, I let my head get in the way, constantly thinking, instead of just going with the flow.  Structure wasn't right, either. The result?  Flat painting, no movement, too dark... you get the drift... but at least I knew what to do about it.

I should have taken a photo at that point, but I didn't.... so here's one about half way through redoing the green section.  It's not obvious from this, but I've extended that section significantly, and lightened things up... more interesting brush strokes, giving a bit of movement... sorry, lousy image, light behind the canvas isn't helpful, but it was the only place I could put it. 

 You can see the difference in tone and movement between the area I've worked on and that lower left hand, darker section... not quite chalk and cheese but... And then I worked on that middle section...

I'm still not convinced, but it's an improvement to some extent...the real thing looks better than the image.  And that's as far as I can go, until I can get some more paint: I've run out of the darker blues I want to incorporate in this, so no more for now.  What is particularly interesting, though, is that I'm not particularly enjoying working with acrylics.  When I started painting, some twenty years or so ago, I worked with acrylics, but switched to oils on the suggestion of my painting mentor.   Apparently it has ruined me for acrylics altogether, except for working on fabric, and possibly monoprinting.  Fortunately, I've been given some water based oils to try, so I'll make a couple of smaller pieces and see how I get on with them. 

I don't think this is going to be a piece I hang on my wall...or even keep...but I'm learning a great deal from it.  I suspect I'll paint over it, it's still not working for me.  Pieces like this can be discouraging if you let them.  It helps if you bear in mind that subsequent pieces will be improved by the learning you get from the process.  And at least I can paint over it until I'm happy.

Sharing...

...what I know, is one of my favourite things to do.  I miss running workshops, and coaching people, more than almost everything else.  I had a visitor yesterday, and took her into the studio to see the paintings and monoprints I've been making recently.  And when she asked how I made the paintings, it seemed easiest to show her, rather than try to explain.   And these two pieces were the end result, a painting, and a monoprint taken from the painting.

The paint was quite thin, so the guidelines in the top piece are clearly visible.  I'm not actually sure that that's a bad thing.  They're both interesting, in different ways.  My friend left, determined to try it for herself, which is a good thing.  The more people making art, the better, after all. 

I told her, during the session, that the thing to do was to trust oneself, and trust the paint ( I should have said, trust the process, but hey...).  And interestingly, when going through some old journals, looking for some notes I made for a possible book (didn't find 'em), I found this.  'There is something about just letting the paint be paint... that it will ultimately be part of a landscape is irrelevant.  Work it as it needs to be worked and it will come together eventually, and you will have what you will have.'.  Which is really what I was trying to say.  At least I'm consistent: that must have been written at least ten years ago.  It works for fabric, too. 

A Timely Reminder

Facebook has its uses.  Today, it reminded me of the original photograph that the manipulated image came from, the one I used as the basis for a painting here.  And it seemed only fair to use it as the basis for another painting (as you do).

I started with a sketch.  I've gradually accepting that sketching is the best thing to do in these circumstances: it lets you become familiar with what's going on in your source material.

So far, so boring.  Decided that I'd started too far along, so the line down the far right is a reminder that I need to pay attention to the balance.  What I ended up drawing on the paper as the basis for the painting, looks slightly different.

More of an interpretation, here, transferring what I learned from the sketch, onto the paper.  And here's the end result.

I like the rich paint on the far right, and the textures... lots of stuff going on.  Not at all what I'd planned...but then, it never is.    Not sure if this is the 'right' way up...

There's more movement, this way up: did try it the other way round, but it's very, very static that way, don't like it as much.  Decisions, decisions...

And then there's the obligatory monoprint...gotta use up that paint...

I like this one.  It's on paper: the ghost print is on Evolon.

Looking forward to stitching this one...but I like them both, probably more than the painting... which I suspect tells me something.

Painting

I've been trying to get back into painting for some time, but a whole range of mental blocks and self criticism was stopping me, not to mention the thought that I might not have enough energy to do so.  I've been sneaking up on it, though...bought some canvas boards, got a wee bit of paint for my birthday... and the final kick up the pants was a conversation with my friend Alison, who said all the things that I would have said to someone in that situation... and I thought, sod it, why not? 

The real block is about representational drawing and painting, so I thought I'd warm up a bit with some abstracts, my comfort zone.  I usually start with nothing, other than a blank canvas or sheet of paper.  That's not always the best way to go, however, particularly if your inner critic is perched on your shoulder, giein' it laldy, so... Since I'm guilty of taking hundreds (literally) of source photographs, sometimes playing with them on PSP, and then doing nothing with them,  I leafed through my images and found this one. 

It was a photograph of a bench, believe it or not, or a part of a bench, the seat,  made from a beautiful piece of natural wood.  As you can see, I played with the colour and contrast quite considerably, but if you look carefully, you can still see the grain and a few cracks in the wood.  As a painter, I'm not interested in making a copy of what I see : that's what photography is for.  \(Come to think of it, that's probably part of my block with representational painting...but that's another story altogether).  There are lots of different ways to use a photograph as a source: I meant to write a book about it (should I?), but thought I'd just combine a couple of them.  One is to pick up the colours in the image, and combine them in a different way, and the other is to look at the underlying structure of the image, and use that as the basis of a new work. 

There's a lot going on in this particular image, so I simplified it quite considerably.  I don't usually draw as the basis of a painting, but it seemed like a good idea, so...

The lines basically delineate three main sections in the image, with a bit more detail.  I used the lines as guidance, not gospel, and ended up with this...

As you can see, I've changed the orientation.  If you compare it to the original piece, it uses several of the colours intrinsic to it, but not in the same balance.  The lines have disappeared, though if you look carefully, it does still divide into three main sections.  I can see there's a lot I would rework, if it had been on board, but I probably won't on this, because it's on paper, which doesn't support layer on layer of paint terribly well.  It's fine as a first attempt, though, and I think it will be worth making a version on board, eventually.  I'll probably make another few sketches on paper first, though, just to see where it goes. 

I took things one stage further on another, smaller piece of paper.  Again, it started with lines :

No real resemblance to the image this time, just the basic idea of curved lines, and a using up of the paint from the first piece.   And here's how it ended up...

Different palette, this time, to some extent, but similar approach.  And, as before, I prefer the other orientation...

Thinking about it, this refers back to the grain lines in the wood.  Overall, I'm really pleased with these pieces, they're a good start.  I've remembered how much I enjoy painting, and why I prefer oils (though I'll probably stick with acrylics).  I'll definitely take this forward...but not today... I've used up all my energy... knowing when to stop is A Good Thing.

More Simplicity...

is sometimes the only option.  Take a look at this...

The eye reads it as a landscape...and the stitch supports it, small and narrow at the back, wider and larger at the front, to give a dimensional effect, and some random stitching in the 'sky'.  I had intended to add some applique, to suggest a standing stone, but actually...it's fine as it is.  I did try the applique, and that was fine, too, but different...and I prefer this version, so here it is.

And you may remember, I cut a piece of cloth in half, here, and created a landscape with it.  I struggled with the second half of the cloth...and in the end, added an orange circle, to give it a focal point....and struggled some more.  In the end, I took some blue thread, and stitched it randomly...

It's a landscape too, I think: a very different type of landscape, much more abstract, no apparent horizon line...but nonetheless...  The dark marks are closer to a dark turquoise than you see them here, but this was the best I could manage, so... I'm still not sure about it, but the stitch has improved it, somewhat.  In this, the actions I've taken are simple, the piece itself, less so.  But I rather like it, nevertheless.  Who says simple has to be the same every time?

Somewhere...

...over the rainbow... well, okay, it's pink.  But somehow this naive-ish piece makes me think of rainbows.  You may not agree, of course, and that's fine.  I rather like it though. 

It started life as an exercise in mark making on a piece of pale green sheeting.

When I picked it up to add stitch, I decided to cut it in half, because, whilst each half is cohesive enough, there's not a great deal of cohesion across the whole thing.  I think it was a decent decision.  And, the human mind being what it is, it tried to make sense of it.  The first half doesn't actually make much in the way of sense: there's not a motif or shape to rest your eye on (which was really what I was going for in the first place).  The one above, though, does read as an abstract landscape, and I'm happy enough with that.

Now to tackle the other half.

Total Coincidence.

Artists get really irate when they think that art is being bought 'to match the sofa'.  Surely, they say, there must be more to it than that... and usually there is.  Every so often, however, there's a coming together of art and environment....as in our downstairs loo... yes, that's right...   Several years before we left Norfolk, I made this painting, 'Impasse'. 

I have no idea where the idea came from, but in my head, I have a whole story about what's going on, and who these people are.  I have a fondness for it, even though it's completely unlike anything I've ever painted, in many respects.  Until now, though, I've had nowhere to put it; it is a strong, vibrant piece, and it just didn't sit well anywhere in the Norfolk house.  Here, though, as you can see, the downstairs loo is grey and white.  I added red towels, to brighten it up a bit (it has no window, so relies on artificial lighting).  Bingo! Finally I had a place to put it.  It works quite well, I think. 

The texture doesn't show up in the overall image, so here's a close up.  Texture is a recurrent theme in my work, whether textile or paint. 

This is acrylic, I think...it's so long since I painted it, I don't really remember sigh... really should keep better records...

More Lessons From Cara.

The family came to visit this week.  Robin had an interview, I'm in bed, and we had a variety of people coming to the house, and needed someone able bodied, just in case.  I asked Cara if she would like to play with Granny's Magic Crayons, and she enthusiastically agreed; apparently the brush is magic too, but that's another story altogether.  The crayons are watercolour, which is what makes them magic, and she got to draw in Granny's sketchbook, which is special all by itself, apparently. 

She started with a flower, clearly feeling that some sort of a nod towards representational art was required...

...and told me that the shapes round the edges were petals.  Well, of course they are.  And that's where it started to get interesting, and she started having fun.  We worked out that you have to press quite hard with the crayons, and not use too much water, or you don't get good colour out of it all.  Oh, and you can dip the crayons into the water and get a really satisfying line.  And off she went.

I really like these.  They're spontaneous, bright, good fun.  Above all, Cara really enjoyed doing them, and that's what's important for her.  For me, though, I got to wondering about fun.  I enjoy making what I make, but I do get wound up about painting, still.  There's a small girl in me going, you're really bad at this, even after all this time.  And it's all so serious, deep and meaningful.  Sigh.  What about joy? 

So, after she had gone, I thought I'd see what spontaneity felt like, not to mention looked like.  Well, it didn't look like this....

Far too much thinking, not enough playing.  Worrying about meaning, balance and all that sort of stuff, despite myself, turned it into something stilted.  This was a bit better...

Still a bit stilted, though.  Too busy.   And then I thought about the way  I warm up in my sketchbooks, by scribbling...a version of taking a line for a walk.  And something clicked.

I really shouldn't have added the water; it dulled down the colour quite considerably ( two primary colours equals a secondary; three plus, equals mud).  Still, it's spontaneous, undeniably, and above all, it's fun.  One of my favourite art quotations comes from Picasso: 'It took me four years to paint like Rafael, but a lifetime to paint like a child'.  I hope Cara will put up with me until I work it out a bit.

Getting Lost...

or at least, mildly confused, has its compensations.  For me, at least, it was the view.

We had pulled off into a cul de sac to get our bearings.  Views like this one are very common in Central Scotland, swathes of flat land leading to gentle hills.  Mountains are around, certainly, there's Arthur's Seat, for example (well, okay, that's an extinct volcano), but mostly, there are soft, rolling hills everywhere you look.  And cottages, nestling into the slopes.

I was intrigued by the house at the top of the cul de sac, too.

I've found myself taking a fair amount of photographs of buildings, recently... the house at Callendar Park, the stonework of a commercial property, and eyeing up several more.  Perhaps it's because we've had so many problems with our own, brand new house.  Or maybe it's just harking back to when I originally learned to paint; one of my favourite paintings from that time, was of an old cottage in a field, not far from here, come to think of it.  I feel a hankering to make paintings like that again.  It's funny, the things our unconscious suggests to us.  I can't imagine making textile work that's representational; many people do so, but it's just not my style.  It's not my usual painting style either, come to think about it...but it's not completely foreign to me, so perhaps...

Facing Up To Things.

Today is likely to be a day of bits and bobs.  Not every day can witness significant process in whatever projects you're engaged in, and I suspect the closest I'll get to progress is finishing the binding on the ME quilt, and even that may not happen, given what else is going on.

As you can see, it's nearly done, and would have been finished yesterday had I not run out of steam. I'm pleased with the fabric I chose for the binding (we discussed it elsewhere); it works well.  The main task for today, though, is this.

Yup, more boxes (there's another two in addition to these).  My original intention was to have a summerhouse, rather like I had the Little Green Shed in Norfolk, albeit on a far smaller scale.  That would let me paint without making a mess in the house.  And here's where the facing up to things bit comes in.  You'll know from posts elsewhere that I tend to paint on a large scale.  Standing up.  Occasionally throwing paint.  And that's not going to happen: I don't have the energy for that kind of thing any more.  And that was a difficult thing to admit...yet another activity cut from my repertoire, and there's a very long list of those already.  This one, though, is particularly difficult; it's very close to my heart.  I used to say that I made textiles because I couldn't paint, and art textiles were the closest I could get to it.  And then, twenty years ago, I discovered I could indeed paint, so continued with both activities, in parallel.

The reality of ME, though, is that you can only do so much.  Cutting lino blocks, and having to admit to myself how little I can actually do, forced me to look at painting.  It's physically demanding, much more so than the kind of textile work I do.  I have the nasty feeling that wet felt making will have to go, too, unless I can find a willing slave to do the hard work.  Yes, I can use the embellisher (peeking out from behind those boxes).  I can even do wet felt in the washing machine, I suspect.  But it's not the same, and some half measures just aren't worth doing.  And I do have a good deal of fleece...sigh.

I do have a compromise for painting, though.  I'm going to do more mono printing, that most painterly of printing disciplines. I can do it sitting down, and I'm happy to print on a small scale, where painting on a small scale just doesn't feel doable or right; it doesn't fit the things I want to express.  Of course,  I may try developing the mono printing, and find it doesn't work for me either, in which case, I have a lot of paint to get rid of.

Dyeing, on anything other than a small scale, is also likely to go.  I'm not sure about that one, to be honest.  It makes sense to stop dyeing cloth altogether; just setting up to dye is tiring, much less moving things around.  I could dye thread (yes, I know, I've said I would never dye thread, too fiddly etc...), and that's something I really need to think about.  I seem to spend quite a bit of time searching for thread in particular colours, and not finding it, so it would be a useful thing to do. 

Will anything else have to go?  I'm not sure.  If I can sit to do it, and do it in short bursts, it seems to be okay.  Cutting fabric is difficult, because you really do need to stand to do it (trust me, I've tried).  Hopefully, though,  I'm now at the limit.  And there are quite a few things that I believe I can do, without aggravating the ME too much.  Which is just as well, really; every time I abandon another discipline, it feels like I'm cutting out a piece of myself.  ME might easily be described as death by a thousand cuts... but I'm trying not to come over as feeling sorry for myself.  Okay, maybe just a bit.  I grieve my life, and that's unavoidable, it would seem.  Eventually, there will be art about it; right now, it's too much to think about, too painful, too raw. 

I'm a naturally positive person, but I'm clearly not managing it today.  Normal service will be resumed, etc.

Oh, Wow!

It was just a plain brown envelope.  And then I opened it, and look what was inside...

Threads from Stef Francis...thank you, Stef, they're wonderful.  I really did look at them and say, 'oh wow'.  I bought them really to go with one of the pieces I showed you earlier, Borderlines, the piece with the textured paper.  That wasn't to hand, but these were.  Firstly, the piece I showed you yesterday:

The brown is really strong against that print, and I'll use it on the marks.  The orange, not so much...but it is a gorgeous thread.  And then there's this, which I wrote about here:

Now, I wasn't intending to put much in the way of stitch on here, but looking at the way that thread sits on this piece, I'm now not so sure... perhaps a stitched border round the very edges of the piece...perhaps more... I don't know, but I'll be having a good think about it.  I rather wish I had more of that coloured evolon; it would be interesting to make a pieced top from repetitions of this 'block'.  Life isn't like that, of course, but I may well follow through on this idea once the workroom has settled down a bit. 

And talking of the workroom...the shelves are now where they're meant to be, though I'm still working out what to keep, where.  I promised you a sneaky peek, and here we are...

Thread and fabric mostly along the long wall; paint, drawing materials, feathers and other embellishments tucked away in the corner.  The painting will go up in front of my sewing machine; it's a calming image called 'Goddess'.  My rulers will go up on the walls, too, and doubtless a couple of framed textiles, eventually.  What I don't have, is a design wall.  I had one in Norfolk, and rarely used it.  I did contemplate a blind on the front of one of the bookcases, but the boxes stick out too far.  Besides which, most of the work I'm likely to be doing in the future will be small scale, not much bigger than a napkin.  So I'll be doing what I advise my students to do:  stick it on the floor, and stand up...if you're careful, stand on a chair...just don't fall off.  Or, more likely, I'll take a photograph, and contemplate that.  Works every time: it's the distance that's important.

Things are coming together, finally, both with the work and the room.  If only I could find a new body...

Seeing Things

Pondering what to do with this piece of dye painted cloth, which I found in the wooden chest upstairs.  Not long before I moved, I did some dyeing with my friend Clare Hedges; she dyed some warps for her loom, I stuck to cloth.  She wrote about her day, and what she did with the warps,  here; I love the braid she made from them.

But I digress (so what's new, huh?). Like the photograph I showed you on Monday, it made my heart sing when I found it, a combination of the brightness of the colours and the movement in the piece.  I'm not sure about the orientation, though... this feels 'right', but landscape is not an orientation I usually use.  So there's this...

..which looks to me to be promising, too, but with a different feel to it altogether...it feels as if all the marks are trying to escape out of the right hand side of the cloth.  Turning it over, as we did above, somehow grounds the movement, almost literally.... it becomes an abstract landscape of sorts, in my head, at least, albeit with a lot of sky, while the top piece feels as if things are completely air borne.  I wonder how many of you can see what I see...or indeed if you see anything at all.  You can let me know; that's what the comments are for!

It's tempting to simply iron the cloth, and leave it as it is, as a painting.  I won't, though, because I think it needs texture, and leaving it flat just isn't going to work for me, whichever orientation I end up choosing.  That said, if I ever get a painting studio, this will be used as the basis for a painting or two on canvas, complete with texture.  So...stitch it is.  I think.  The other option, of course, is to cut it up and reassemble it... not really an option I want to take with this piece, because it feels like either way, it has a coherence, a meaning, that I don't particularly want to disrupt.  There is, I think, another similar piece in my stash, however, which would let me explore that particular avenue.  And if there isn't, I can always create one....eventually.  It's an avenue that would let me have lots of small pieces, or a couple of medium sized pieces, with the chopped up bits reassembled, either on their own or with other fabrics.  As squares or rectangles, they could become the heart of a log cabin type construction.  Really, the permutations are endless.

Which is why the post got the name it did.  I see things in this cloth.  I see meanings, and I see opportunities.  So far, I've described at least six different ways of approaching this cloth... as two different types of painting, two different types of stitched piece, as two or three different types of pieced work (okay make that at least seven).  Picasso said, 'Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working'.  I believe that the process I've just described, is more or less what he meant.  So the next time you 'just don't feel like working', or 'aren't in the mood for working', or however you describe procrastination to yourself, just go look at a piece of cloth, or a painting, or a photograph.  Challenge yourself to find as many options as possible in it.  And then...just do it.

Breaking It Up?

Isn't she beautiful?  Femme En Blanc, by Van Gogh, painted in 1890; that's all I know about her, factually at least.  However... I've recently discovered online jigsaw puzzles.  Yes, I know, it's taken me a while... but it's a lot easier doing jigsaws online, than it is to spend time and energy trying to persuade the cats not to bat pieces all over the kitchen floor, or across the table, or, indeed, to sit square in the area I'm trying to complete.  This way, Mollie simply sits on my knee and goes to sleep...

I've been mostly making up jigsaws of landscapes (there doesn't seem to be a verb to denote this...to jigsaw?  to piece?  to assemble?), but this lady caught my eye.  Harmless piece of entertainment, I thought.  Wrongly, as it turned out.  This particular jigsaw was quite difficult to assemble; all the bits looked the same.  What I discovered, though, was that assembling it taught me a great deal about Van Gogh and how he used paint.  Yeah, okay, I knew that already, intellectually.  I've stood in front of several of his paintings, and thought about how he moved paint around, how he added marks to the canvas.  Somehow, though, piecing together disassembled brush marks really made me think about them, almost to experience them, though without the mess of actually painting (we're in a new house, of which more another time, and I have no painting studio as yet...hell, I have no studio set up at all so far).  It also allowed me to appreciate the tonal subtleties of the piece.  Tonal subtlety isn't really something I've associated with Van Gogh... I was wrong. 

There's also something about looking, and looking carefully.  There's nothing like a jigsaw to make you really look at what you have in front of you, and reach an understanding of it.  No, that bit doesn't fit there, but it does match the colours... not there, either...but  there, it fits.  No matter how good we think we are at observation, a jigsaw makes us better.

This exercise in proxy creativity also made me think about my own painting, and drawing.  I make marks similar to those black, semi abstract heart shapes at the bottom of the canvas, in paint, dye and stitch.  Mine tend to be rune-inspired, or Celtic in origin.  Maybe it's time I did more of that kind of loose work.  And those are important thoughts, at a time when I'm really not sure where I'm going, what I'm going to do next, at a time when I have to recognise, once and for all, that my energy is severely limited, as is my space, so even the huge cull I had before we moved here from Norfolk was not severe enough.  I feel I need to get this last cull right, even although I know that getting rid of things is not the end of the world, as things can be replaced at the right time, the time when you actually need them, instead of hoarding them against a future that probably won't ever arrive, certainly not in the form you expected.

So, there you are.  Creativity, learning and reflection encouraged by the simple act of making a jigsaw.  Which artist will I study next...?

... And The Heat Goes On...

and on... and on... and I do know it's unreasonable to complain about it... but hey.  The Shed remains oven like... though it wasn't too bad yesterday, when I managed to get a reasonable amount done.  I spent the day painting, something I haven't done in a while, and finishing off most of the prep work on some altered books; there are still two remaining that need finished, but the other three are ready to be worked in.

I'm still exploring the 'Linescapes' idea, as you can see from the images that follow;

This is an A5 image, mixed media.  I like the energy in it; if they could move, those curves look as if they would be travelling at speed...   Robin calls it the desert piece.  Which was followed up by this;

This is a small board book, with its pages sealed together, giving the piece a three dimensional feel.  I'm not so keen on this one...these lines feel too thick, and too far away from each other, too regularly spaced.  Interesting, though.

And finally, this one, the best of the three, I think, Strata.

This is on a canvas board, and I think it shows some potential.  Again, it's mixed media; acrylic paint and oil sticks.  I like the texture of the overall piece, and I need to think some more about how to use textures in this series.  I had initially wanted the lines to be raised in some way, which is fairly easy to achieve in textile, but needs a bit more thought in paint.  Looking at this, though, I like the overall texture.  It's reminiscent of one of the first trial pieces I made in paint, which I didn't photograph, unfortunately.

Finally, I did some work on a small piece that I was not happy with, and it has ended up like this;

About six or so inches square, on board, it's called 'Dawn In The Summer Garden'.  Very gentle..and possibly not quite finished... oh well...back to the drawing board...