What to do on a rainy Bank Holiday?

Looking through my camera's memory card, I realised I had not downloaded the photos for April. Thought it was a good activity for a rainy day. Had also promised myself to work on the journal quilt for May. So after a final tidy up of Sundays activities, I set about perusing the photos.

Quite odd..... lots of them were recording spring, and the primary colour of yellow. We had travelled down to Hampshire and into the depths of Wiltshire and into Gloucestershire. Here is a small summary....... notice the yellow!

That's enough of the photos ( do not wish to bore you into a melancolic state). There is artwork and stitching to come......... I promise.

So sketchbook time and permission to play with the colour yellow. ( all my photos have been put into a file called "yellow" now) Have decided these sketchings will go into my textures sketchbook for using in my textiles ------eventually!

This page is thick layers of oil pastel and then swirls scraped with the back of a paintbrush, inspired by the gorse bushes from the photos taken whilst driving along the A34.

This page is inspired by the yellow fields of that bright smelly stuff you find all over England now. Whatever happened to our traditional crops? I suspect there is some EEC subsidy to grow this stuff. Most people I have talked to hate it with a vengence. I heard recently that they are now making substitute fuel for our cars from it........ is this the organic world gone mad.

My little sketch above shows the bright yellowof the crop ...with tyre tracks......a picture of the future? Someone please tell me this is not going to happen.

The next page in the sketchbook, plays with colour here I have used acrylic paints, bright yellow and 2 shades of gold. Dabbed with a large paintbrush.




Same colours here as the last image, but have been inspired by the perspective of the Photo of the M4 motorway with the yellow blur of a field at the point. Let the stitching work commence.......

Do you work in a muddle as well........seems to be the only way I get anything done!

Did a quick line drawing of the daffodil and digitised it on my Bernina software, this was stitching away whilst I was doing the colour work. I think modern technology is wonderful...... the machine embroiders whilst I do something else! Just like the dishwasher works for me!

This was stitched with gold on the bobbin and yellow thread on the top, onto bright yellow felt.

Then of course, there is the journal quilt, I made quite good progress on this,( felt, transfer paint, embellished fabric, embroidered organdie and lots of layering) thought I would depict the green fields of England turning yellow, in part due to this new crop. Its not finished yet............ but then there is always tomorrow ......if it rains again. The sun is out now....................