Gazing into space....

Lots of gazing into space this week. I could be accused of not doing anything but in fact I am working through ideas on what may be my next piece. Occasionally I jot something into my sketch book. An idea is definitely brewing and I am making preparatory moves.

I have worked out some proportions in my sketch book but I still needed to make a visual to confirm that proportions look okay. A simple newsprint cut out works just fine.

This is just one side only of the house image, it gets mirrored on the other side. I have sinced trimmed the left side (in reality the centre).

On another level I have, over the last few months been knitting a charity blanket from my own surplus knitting wools, and those donated by others. This finally got finished and I delivered it to the local Women's Refuge on Monday so that it can be passed on to a family in need. I have enjoyed working on this commitment as it is a pleasant thing to do while watching TV in the evenings, and in other relaxing moments. Years ago, in another life when I was doing embroidery, I always had some hand stitching to do, but not now and this is a very satisfying replacement.

Quiet weekend

I had a fairly quiet weekend here after having finished my latest piece. The final presentation of this piece will be decided sometime in the future, no rush to make a decision, it can wait. I plan to take it off my wall today and place it out of sight.

In the meantime I have been working on my annual major sort through and tidy up, of some of my stuff. It is spring time here and I seem to be hard-wired to do such things at this time of year. I will blog about some finds in the near future but in the meantime.....

Karen made a great comment on my last blog when I showed my completed piece Connections. She stated that she didn't always like what I was doing while I was working on it, but that when it was completed, she thought it was great!

I confess similar sentiments while working many of the stages a piece goes through. I do start with some sort of plan but this somehow moves over and I soon find myself going with the flow following each application. This allows me to concentrate on the unexpected, and to develop everything to a (hopefully) successful outcome.

I appreciate that this is not at all how we are meant to do things, but it is how I work and it keeps the piece alive, and challenging. I often describe it as painting oneself into the corner of a room, and then having to get out of it! The frustrations and love/hate relationships with a piece are part of the journey. I am stubborn, get bored very easily, so this way of working works for me.