'A Lamentation of Leaves'

I have continued working on the dyed pieces and have probably finished for the moment.

I monoprinted using leaf shapes which I cut out of some Xerox transparencies I rescued from a charity shop; they have been so useful. I came up with the idea of cutting out a shape for the monoprint whilst falling asleep one night. Antihistamine Tablets have been giving me nightmares, but in this case seemed to help.

I then used a thermo fax screen of skeleton leaves in green to give a bit of contrast.

On the one piece I just kept adding layers and using left over paint. It easy to get attached to these pieces and I would find it difficult to cut them up at the moment.
I decided on some text and have used a quote from Yates:
‘A lamentation of leaves’
which I think is lovely and soulful. In my mind I can see some quite heavy embroidery at the base of the leaf piece. We shall see.

 I have been to some local Open Studio events, including a morning’s sketching at The Sandham Memorial Chapel, which centres on the amazing narrative paintings of Stanley Spencer; then on to a display of art/craft at Greenham Common Arts.

 I also visited the National Needlework Archives new centre which is in the same complex. I had hoped to go round the working artists' studios at Greenham but they were not officially open, a kind lady let me look around anyway. I was so struck by how the artists were working on a theme and pushing it in all directions. Working in isolation it is difficult to do that. It was v. inspiring.