Saturday 7 April 2012

A lingering lurgy

or too much on my plate? I don't know but the result is not a lot to show for my week ;(  I guess we did have our first two room B&B - lots of prep ( tidying away stuff that should have been done earlier) & I did have a craft fair to get ready for, it was only a small one but it's got to look good still. It went ok, well, 3 cards, miserable weather & lots of families out for the egg hunt. But you've got to try.  I didn't do any demonstrating as my buddies dog had been up all night ill.  Wonderful setting on the green outside Rag Tag tho, so I didn't feel despondent, I felt I'd done my bit, i love the atmosphere. I do what I do & I enjoy it & I guess it's a question of getting it to the right market. I was asked by a customer would I take a workshop in Uist, the Outer Hebredies, so that was good....would I ?!

welcome to my new follower by the way, if you comment I'll visit but I can't see a link ;)



 my little treat -  £4 from Rag Tags 'second chance rail' How could I not? These are the color of my bridesmade dress from nearly 25 yrs ago, still love it, along with the turquoise that i also had in very small doses. To avoid the veiny look I lay on the floor & took this, very good for the abs, too;) My family think I'm completely mad but there's a certain freedom in that...



One of the stalls was lovely knits & tweed & tartan by Alison (sorry, don't know her last name!) who I regularly meet at craft fairs & I was picking her brain. I've been asked to make some tartan cards to add to the range I supply to Isle of Skye Candles, wonderful smelling shop & they've just won  best new Scottish company at the Scottish Variety Awards, brilliant ;) I think this kind of tartan  is what they're thinking of, traditional, classic. But how to interpret  it in my style?   Then I found this what I would call  creative tartan (scroll down a bit in the link).  Wonderful!







It's got me thinking, I love Maryanne Pollock's work, from what I can find it's her old work - we all move on I guess. I also saw somewhere quite thick paint laid down, lots of colors & then scored thru with a comb & then again at right angles - I think it's in the above link. I'll do some of that, but given the time I had I tried this above. With the idea of cropping to this below. Or something....



It needs a lot of work. The colors were a bit shocking but they're growing on me, hah! One of the books I borrowed from Lesley was Jan Beany & Jean Littlejons exploring color books - purple & yellow...(it worked for them!) So I went for it & added orange...

the Middlest was horrified & told me to go back to my blues & greens!



for example

 

I had fun....! & I will work out some traditional ideas too ;)

Happy Easter!

21 comments:

Julie said...

Fabulous shoes and they look very elegant too. I love the orange colourway, it's wonderful and lively. It pays to shake things up a bit sometimes. x

Anne Huskey-Lockard said...

LOL! I have done the SAME THING to photograph shoes! (so thankfully, I'm not nuts, and neither are you)
They are lovely~~beautiful ruby slippers.
Have a good weekend, or perhaps it is mostly gone over there now? I can't keep track of the time difference.

XXOO~~
Anne

sweetypie said...

wow emma, love those shoes......

Carole Reid said...

Take it from me.....you are not mad Emma! We are artists and love colour and shoes! Have a lovely Easter.

Katie said...

Happy Easter...kick back in your new shoes and feel good about being a little lazy today. :0)

ju-north said...

Happy Easter! Love the purple and yellow!

Dorothy said...

Enjoy your shoes, they look great.Happy Easter and I say go girl and enjoy the colour. We often see all these colours in garden and they look mighty fine.

Fenland Textile Studio said...

I love the shoes. Happy Easter x

Jill said...

The shoes are beautiful, just lie there and admire them for a while. As for the tartan, there is nothing wrong with a bit of orange to stir things up a bit.

Anonymous said...

I've really enjoyed reading your post Emma (after some disappointing/sad news this weekend) and as a consolation, my sons have KNOWN I'm totally mad, and have been for ages - when I did my City and Guilds they used to say 'more playschool this weekend then' lol. ;-)

artymess said...

Love the oranges .....and the shoes yummy ...xx

Parabolic Muse said...

I love the top one. I was in a class with Misty Mawn at Artfest and she told me something I never knew. That my problematic pages with red and orange on them would be saved with a little purple. Purple! I said, you've gone round the bend. (In my mind.) But, no. She had it right on.

Hope you feel much better today!

Jan said...

I must say you have lovely slim ankles and the shoes look great on you. I am always drawn to orange so I love your orange piece here. Fun looking work you continue to do. Wish I could come stay in your B&B.

sue said...

Ha - am so going to use the "avoid the vein" technique - would it look odd if I did it at the beach? Hope you are on the mend and I must say _ I like the bright colours - perhaps it is a southern hemisphere thing?

Suztats said...

Hope you had a lovely Easter, Emma. It's fun trying new ideas out, I think. I like the wilder colours in your plaids better.

Heloise said...

Great orange tartan. I had a bridesmaids dress about the colour of your shoes when my brother married around the same time. Really hope you are feeling better.

Iz said...

Wow, those are gorgeous shoes! And stick with the orange, what do they know - it's great! What a brilliant idea, painting tartan. I always know I'm on the brink of a great idea when the family start rolling their eyes in disbelief - so you carry on with your ab exercises and orange paint!

Linda Vincent said...

I LOVE the shoe photo (what a bargain!)
....looks so professional! You should be a model :-) (Although I think actually I have the face for shoe modelling, ha-ha ;-)

Good news re: the workshop...well done you.
Hope you had a lovely Easter.
Hugs
Linda XXX

Anonymous said...

Fantastic modern take on the tartan - love these patterns!

Living to work - working to live said...

I am suffering serious shoe envy - oh and I like those 'mock tartans' as well.

How did an English Textile artist end up on Skye by the way?

Robin Mac said...

I am doing some blog catching up - just love those red shoes, even if I can no longer wear anything but laceups, sigh! Your tartans are fun looking, I am sure you will work more on the purple and orange one. Congrats on the workshop on Uist - oh how I would love to visit there again, we had such a wonderful time. Cheers