Before and After ....

Finished at last .....

Just to recap, this is a picture of the silk painting I did at the end of January, in a Workshop with Barbara Weeks.
Here it is finished. I must admit the pictures don't look that different, but if you click on them you can see the extra stitching of the trees, two colours , and all the stitching and blending in the 'reflections'. I've even hand quilted around the moon! It is 14" x 21" finished.

Here are the other two pieces for the Kindred Spirits Calendar 2011. This one if February...

and this one is June. Very painterly aren't they - must be all this watercolouring I've been doing lately!
Am just putting the finishing touches to my pieces for our next Exhibition at Okehampton Museum at the end of April (mounting them on frames actually!) There is a great Preview in the newest edition of Popular Patchwork, under 'Out and About', that Vinnie arranged.

The Goddess of my Garden - a Bottle Doll

I belong to a Doll Group called Dolly Mixtures (as we all make a mixture of very ifferent types of doll). We meet every two months and in February we made bottle dolls. I should have used paverpoll as it sticks anything to anything and you can obtain fantastic textures in layers, all at the sticking stage. I didn't have any so I used pva, as I did last year when covering a wooden lamp base.
As you can see, it is rather flat, but the wine bottle has a nice wonky neck which gives it a bit of attitude. I used paper, laces, leaves and scrim etc. then painted it with gesso. If you use paverpoll you don't have to use gesso, as it paints over extremely well. I took the doll to class in this condition.

The lady encouraging us at the meeting provided us all with a face she had made from Fymo using a mould. This is what my doll looked like when I got home, having painted her first with dark brown all over, then adding various shades of green, and some metallic.

Once home I added some hands (not too sure about those!) finished her face and added a lot more paint in various layers until she looked okay.

Decided against the hands, but used some leaves instead (up her sleeves) and added her collar of

fungi that I picked off the treetrunk in my garden. Believe it or not, these are not painted, they are the colour they have acquired during the winter and match perfectly. Last autumn when I picked a few, they were silver grey!

The Goddess of my Garden is now complete (I think).......

If and when I made another one I will use a perfume bottle. They are a lot smaller and some of them are beautiful shapes that would lend themselves very well to this sort of thing. I might even buy some paverpoll!

Till next time.....