PLAYING WITH FELT

Just playing around with needle felting! A lesson in how not to approach a piece - no plan, no design, just wanted to play with a felting needle. Put a bit of everything in and then free machined over the top. Learnt a little more about how my sewing machine behaves with different types of fabric though. I think it might be a whale :-)

HARBOUR AT COVE

Two tiny cottages overlooking the small harbour at Cove.

LOST AT SEA

This monument, depicting women and children watching and waiting for their fishermen husbands, brothers and sons to return to harbour, commemorates the loss of 189 lives to a huge and violent storm off the eastern Scottish coast in 1881. There are three identical statues located in the three villages which lost sailors. This one stands above Cove harbour, a tiny harbour tucked beneath the cliffs.  It's a very moving statue. The storm claimed four of Cove's five boats and 11 of its 21 fisherman.

TEASELS

Beautiful dead things. Look at all the wonderful textures. I wish I had a macro lens!!

EXPERIMENTING AGAIN

I've been playing around with my heating tools again!

Recipe:
Take a layer of acrylic felt
Cover with a layer of nylon organza
Follow with a layer snipped up bits of nylon organza in different colours
Cover with a top layer of a different coloured organza
Heat together round the edge with a soldering iron
Attack liberally with heat tool

And, hey presto, it all melts together prettily (or you may think messily!)

The focus on the photo is rubbish because it's so dull today that I had to open the aperture right up to get enough light in.

DRY STONE WALLS

I took these photographs of dry stone walls during my holiday and then pasted them into my sketchbook and extended them using Caran d'Ache Neocolor II water soluble wax pastels.

FISHING BOATS 1

More from Dunbar in Scotland. This was the inner harbour. I love the colours on this boat - true complementaries. Reminds me of the days when Gulf used to sponsor cars at Le Mans and the Porsches were painted in their corporate colours of orange and blue.

FISHING NETS

Colourful fishing nets and buoys at Dunbar Harbour in Scotland.

DIVING GANNET

This gannet was diving in the harbour at Dunbar in Scotland. I spent a long time just missing him but finally got him as he went in. The gull watching him was a bonus!