Struggling

I am struggling at the moment. Ever since returning from London which is about 5 weeks now, I have been dithering.

In the hope things would begin to gel in my mind with some reflection as I made stitches, I restarted an embroidery I began a few years ago which was part of the TAST challenge where a single embroidery stitch was explore on a weekly basis. To be honest the reason it was not finished in the first place was because I was not happy with it as it had no direction. So do a directionless piece to find a direction was probably not a good move. 

I have done a couple of paint outs with the Austin Plein Air Group  over the past month which I have really enjoyed. It helps the weather has been not be hot so far this year, staying in the  high 70’s and low 80’s (25c -29c).The more I paint on the spot, the easier it gets but I have still got a long way to go before I will feel confident doing it. I really need to go out and draw more, like I did last year.

As I have somewhat arbitrarily decided to go back to the fiber side of my art, I decided I have to learn more about the process. So I purchased 3 dvds by 2 great fiber artists, In Motion, In Stitches and In Motion where Jan Beany and Jean Littlejohn guide viewers through various ways of using new modern products with traditional and non traditional embroidery methods. Their sketch books were amazing and I would love to just see a DVD of them sketching.

I made the following piece using one of their methods.

At the moment I have no idea what to with it but I love the fragile lace like quality of the fabric I  made.

So that brings me up to date. In the meantime I have rearranged my art room yet again. I do this when I am struggling with my creativity.  It is now very well organised for a few more months. I have also taken down all the old painting I had on my walls I read somewhere that having old work around stifle your creativity. We will see

Daisy the cat exploring her new space

The fabric in the picture is what I am toying with at the moment. I am considering going way back to to my beaded dolls but this one would be more sculptural and my other line of thinking is clowns. All whirling around in my head at the moment and no firm ideas.

the desk where I am currently sitting. No horrible drop sheet on the floor anymore.