This is the whole sheet (from the photo above) manipulated in Paint.net to bring out the colours.

This is similar, but from the corner extract.


And these last two pictures are pages from the sketch book, with the whole sheet cut into tiles and stuck down onto a pre-coloured page in the book.

This is the first stage.  I used circles and arches as basic inspiration from a very elegant bridge in Seville which spans the river.   These are drawn with oil sticks.  Then the pencil was applied dry.



Once I had watered down the pencil it behaves more like water colour, but is not quite so satisfactory as the real thing.  Anyhow, I pressed on and used shapes from a colour magazine, pasted onto the coloured paper.  I applied a coat of Mod Podge over the top to hold everything down (It was getting a bit messy and was easier to apply the shapes with a brush).

Then when it was dry I cut the paper up into tiles and stuck them into the sketch book - the page has already been gessoed (to hide the recipe underneath) and coloured with dilute procion dye used as ink.

I did two pages - the one below also uses tiles of shiny paper saved from a chocolate bar.

And finally here is the first page with another coloured, stitched and snipped page on top.  I am not yet sure if this will be the permanent arrangement.  By the way the stitching is a cheap knitting 'wool' (well it's not wool; it's all hairy and synthetic, but it is fun) couched onto cartridge paper.

I have been looking back at some earlier posts and found that I had recorded in June that I was determined to try to do something creative every day.  Lately I have been failing dismally.  I have been playing host to a number of (very nice) house guests.  But they are work related so the evenings have tended to involve discussion about the day job, walking the dog and drinking wine.  All nice activities but not necessarily creative ones.

I sometimes wonder why I keep this blog, and at moments like this, when I sit down and wonder where the week has gone already, it all falls into focus.  This blog reminds me that of my creative side and provides an incentive and discipline.

And, it also makes me focus on the positives and what I have done.

More sketchbooking:



 Beginning work on In a Spanish Garden 2:


And working on the business plan for Son No 1. (not very photographic!)

I'll come back to In a Spanish Garden 2.  Mixed media (I hate that phrase actually) and a challenge to manage with the sewing machine.

There are lots of blogs out there with better reports of the FoQ (check out Steph Redfern and Linda Kemshall for instance) and my report would have been more comprehensive had I not had a camera malfunction.  But anyway I thought I would share some inspirational images (and my apologies to the artists - with a few exceptions I did not note down who you were - it was just too crowded to be so organised).

This one was an award winner by Hilary Beatie - check out her website (see links at the side of the page)

I loved the novel embellishment on this little quilt - all sourced from the hardware rather than the haberdashery store.

The photo does not do this justice - but it was a modern take on old samplers.

Another one by Hilary Beatie - one to watch!

I love this!  A knitted quilt!

It was the colours of this quilt that caught my eye.

Three more from Hilary - another award winner.  That woman has so much energy!

This gem was less than half price and is flowering it's socks off!

A heuchera and a beautiful lime green sage look stunning together

Not exactly helping, more supervising.

And a random picture of the concrete with the moss.  Surely some future stitch inspiration.