I felt like a bit of sewing and stitching so I converted my painting area into a sewing corner this week. At the local library, I discovered an inspiring book by Abby Glassenberg called Artful Birds (here's Abby's blog While She Naps ). I think this book has been around for awhile but it's quite new to me. In this book a UK textile artist was featured Abigail Brown. Abigail's little soft sculptured birds are incredible. I was super keen, so got going this week on a little wren. I thought it would be great to use recycled and remnant fabrics. I added a lot of really messy hand stitching when I added individual feathers to add to its handmade charm. I've just finished her this afternoon and caught her checking out my strawberry plant.
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| "Little Bird" Remnant fabric, thread, felt, recycled polyfill, wire, floristry tape. Carolyn McIntosh, 2012 |
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| Little Bird checking out our strawberries in the backyard |
This week I also messed around with watercolour pencils and drew an image of a willywagtail. It's no masterpiece but it was fun to play around on paper. I've been mostly painting with acrylic and collage on canvas so it was fun to return to pencil and paper.
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| Willywagtail Mixed media (Aquarel pencils, ink pen & pages from reader's digest book) |
I recently indulged in one of my obsessions - rummaging through an op shop. I always feel good about shopping in an op shop as you are recycling and also donating to a charity when you make a purchase. I found a couple of old Reader's Digest books for a mere $1 each. The pages were nicely yellowed with age. One book contained some great images of reproductions of pen and ink drawings. I felt a little guilty tearing them up to use in my work. You can see some of the pen and ink image in the foreground in the collage above.
There's a resident willywagtail in my backyard who loves to torment our dog. Our dog gets extremely upset that the bird dares to fly into her yard! The willywagtail seems to enjoy flying in and out of the garden chirping away as our dog barks at it. It's quite entertaining to watch whilst reclining, sipping a cup of tea on a sunny afternoon.
