Shadows, silhouettes and feathers

I am currently doing some work for Bucks Open Studios where I will be exhibiting as part of Common Thread Artists at Blossom & Grey cafe in Chesham Bois from 11-25 June.  The group was recently formed as the brainchild of Juliette Orton and comprises of artists Caroline Kirton, Jo Gill, Dhrooti Mills, Juliette and myself.  You can see more information about us via the link on this site.

My initial thoughts were of shadows and silhouettes.  Whilst at the Crafts4Crafters exhibition in Exeter in February, I did some Gelli Plate printing and created some stencils of figures that I have since developed into printed pieces, particularly when doing demos at the Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch show at the NEC in March.  The Gelli Printing was very popular and I was lucky enough to have access to AVG's big crate of goodies and used a wider range of colours and mediums than I have myself.

I have been doing some samples in my sketchbook and I liked the shadow effect of this one:

This is something I will explore further in stitch but I have gone in a different direction for now.  As you can see in the photo on my home page, I created a feather cape for the book Cut, Shape, Stitch (written by Maggie Grey, myself and Paula Watkins) and I love the shape of feathers.  I hadn't planned on going back to this shape but recently visiting the V&A I took some pictures of angels and the shape of their wings appealed to me.  It has brought me back to the shape of feathers and I am just creating some angel wings for the exhibition.  Using my favourite laminating technique of the moment, this surface was created using Panduro Snow Paint (which I love) and dyed Lens Tissue on a base of Vilene S80.

I've also designed some new feather shapes and have outlined them on the Scan N Cut which have been cut into stencils as well and Molding Paste stencilled onto Lutradur.  I'm still deciding how to use these white feathers.