More birds.

I started the week by working on the bird sketchbook, I’ve been a bit distracted since, but at least I have done something for this year’s theme. A year goes so quickly, and last year I sort of stopped and never really got into it again.

I have done some brief sketches of birds illustrated in the book 'African Textiles' by John Gillow.
For anyone near enough there will be an exhibition of bags (last year’s project) in various styles made by ‘Material Girls’ in the library Tadley (Hampshire). The exhibition will be put up today, Monday, so look out for it. There are some very well made and nicely stitched bags, so do take a look if you are local.

I did some monoprinting; one of my current favourite things using water based printing inks.

This one is pretty rough but fun, done on the back of a used envelope.

I also made a cover for my sketchbook; this bird was drawn with Derwent Ink Tense crayons on cotton and then covered with fabric medium. I then washed it to remove some of the plasticy feel of the medium, which took away some of the colour and gave a nice fresco like look. As it is not going to be washed I suppose, thinking about it, I could have just used water to bring out the colours

Christine has asked about Egyptian applique, sorry I can't get back to you, but hopefully you will see this. P150 in John Gillow's book he has a whole illustrated section on this style of applique, which apparently used to all be made in the Street of the Tent-makers.It seems to have mainly been turned hem work using figurative, geometric or calligrphic motifs. I'm sure you would find some examples on the net.