A walk along the canal

On Wednesday we went for a walk along the Stratford Canal from Bearley to Stratford upon Avon.  We were supposed to start at Wootton Wawen but we couldn't find a parking place.  I was pleased because it cut a bit off the length of the walk.  It was still 6 miles along the canal and a mile to get to the bus in Stratford and from the bus stop to the where we had left the car.

We had lunch in a pub.  Last one for a month as we're now in lockdown again.  It haad clouded over when we came out.  I took the next two photos into the sun so they are a bit different!

My promised post on reviewing my journal and what to include for 2021 has been postponed until Tuesday.  Walking got in the way of my reviewing!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Almost normal!

We did it!  We went out for a walk along the canal to the pub and had lunch.

I didn't take my camera with me because we've done this walk so often and I have so many photos from the walks.  However we realised we had never walked it in July.  So I used my phone but I'm not totally thrilled with the quality of the photos.

 It's still July but the Hawthorn berries are already reddening ready for Autumn.

It was lovely to get out.  I had been a bit nervous about it.  Not because of the virus but because I haven't been out of the house away from where we live since March 23rd.  We have walked around the area we live but haven't driven away from here.  Well, Roger has, but I haven't.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

It's finished!

I have finished my final piece for the Master Practitioner Module 2.  Sadly it's not a great photo.  The piece is based on a walk along the canal.  You can find out about the sketchbook work and samples here.

Now to start Module 3.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Recording the black & white walk

Last time you will remember that I showed the photos from the walk I did from Kingswood Junction to Lowsonford.

The aim of this sketchbook exercise is to draw what you saw as you walked.  I didn't particularly want to draw things so I filled the pages with text and stencilling. I own a lot of stencils and I thought this would be a great way to use some of them.

The next activity was to isolate areas within the drawings to make 'tiles' which can then be made into stamps.  To be honest using the stencils made this part of the syllabus a bit difficult.

I was reading Jean Draper's book, Stitch and Pattern, where she suggested drawing a stylised leaf and making patterns using that.  I drew a stylised Hawthorn leaf as I had seen Hawthorn  hedges all along the side of the canal.

I made a sponge leaf, 2 funky foam leaves and 2 lino cut leaves.  These are the stamped images.

I made these into digital stamps and spent quite a lot of time producing pages of various versions of repeat patterns.

The spaces between the printed leaves interested me and I traced that and made another set of digital stamps and printed out repeat patterns for my sketchbook.

I also made yet another set of funky foam stamps using this shape.  I printed with a variety of the stamps on fabric.

The first set or prints are with Formusol - a discharge paste - which removes the colour from black fabric.

The formusol was spread on some plastic and then pressed onto the fabric.

White acrylic fabric paint on black fabric

Black acrylic fabric paint on white fabric

I have lots of ideas whirling around in my head but need to settle down to making 12 samples as a way of working to my final piece.

In the meantime I have a Jean Draper 3 day workshop to attend at Bobby Britnell's studio and a one day with Caroline Merrell.  This is on experimental inkjet printing learning how to transfer my favourite images that I have taken onto silk and then proceed to add fibres to nuno felt.  I will of course be using a photo from my canal walk, to use as one of my samples.

There will of course be blog posts to let you know how I get on.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Walking in black & white

The theme for my photography group this month is black and white photos taken on a walk.  This fitted well with my Master Practitioner course where I had to use photos of a walk.  I'll show you my sketchbook next time.

I walked from Kingswood Junction to Lowsonford where I met Roger.  We had a pub lunch and then he walked back to Kingswood Junction and I picked him up.

The South Stratford canal is renowned for its barrel-roofed lock keeper's cottages.

It also has split bridges so that the rope from the horse could go through the middle and not interrupt the journey of the horse-drawn barges.

 

I really enjoyed the walk.  I took a great many photographs and it is interesting to compare these black & white ones to the numerous colour ones I have of the same walk.  We walk it quite often!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice