Textile art influenced by other media.

When I tell people that I am an artist and they ask me to describe my art, I am usually stumped for an answer.  The trouble is that I am drawn to all types of art and love learning a new skill.  I started out wanting to specialise in oil painting but kept getting side tracked.  I get some sort of comfort from the fact that really famous artists like Picasso tried lots of media, but I still feel like I am not a real specialised artist a lot of the time.  Looking at my output over the the last few years though, I realise that despite the sidetracks, I am a mainly a textile artist, since the other media that I experiment with - collage, paint, dye, draw, dolls, embroidery, crochet, knitting, book making, print - usually end up reflected in that main area. 

 

 

The above two details are from the start of another piece of slow stitching, so far using some of my rust dyed fabric, some found lace and Vietnamese silk yarn.  It will be interesting to find in what direction this piece of stitching takes me.

We have had a bit of a domino effect of ill health in the family which has put me out of commission in blogging for a while, but although I did not have time to write, I kept creating.  I finally finshed my quilt, which used print, paint, embroidery and dye on fabric:

And took a break from stitching by doing a bit of paper collage.  This little diamond finch is an addition to my finch series:

This piece is very much detested by one of my grandsons, Mr. Three, who wants me to destroy it.  He thinks it is is evil:

so, I don't think I'll show him the start of my "Las Meninas" series, which my husband has called "your monsters":

I finally got round to framing this piece of embroidered indigo dyed fabric by stitching it on to a painted canvas:

 

Lastly, I bought I few of these little leather bound booklets earlier this year

 and keep them in a bowl on my coffee table.  Visitors are invited to join me in doodling in them and mark-making, using black pens.

 I think I love the little mermaids drawn by my granddaughter, Miss 4, best: