ATG Landscapes

Last year I joined in with a Seasons themed series of workshops at Littleheath Barn.  This year the theme for the Art Textile Groups is Landscapes.

Liske introduced us to various drawing and collage techniques.  I used photos of canals for this session.

I looked online for photos of people's work that I admire and I hope will provide inspiration.

We did some mark making and I used photos of the coast as inspiration.

In our latest session we started with painting dye and paint on fabric.  I worked on this piece of scrim laid over silk noil.  However I didn't much like the colours and wasn't inspired at all.  This was mostly because I was still confused about which landscape I was concentrating on - rural, coastal or urban.

After discussion with a friend I took her suggestion of concentrating on coastal.  When I turned the fabric the other way up I can see how I can make this coastal!

I then started working with my favourite colours and back in my comfort zone.  This was mark making on silk noil.

This was using up the paint with torn paper and a dry brush.

I used dye on this piece of silk noil.

I prefer the back of it.

It will be interesting to see how this develops next year.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Choosing a word for the year

I don't usually write about my next year's word this early in the year or do I mean late!  I quite like to reserve the big reveal for the new year.  Although when checking out the links below I found I'm not always consistent.

I have been choosing one word for the year for a while now.  You can see my words here:

Restore 2011        Focus 2012

Present 2013        Participate 2014

Thirst 2015     Purpose 2016

Connect 2017   Gratitude/Thankfulness 2018

Commit/Commitment 2019

So, on to 2020.

Looking back at the words I have chosen or have chosen me I can see some sort of link - apart from Thirst - which was a bit of a disaster anyway!  But probably at the beginning of every year the goals I set are very similar and at the end of each year I find I haven't really achieved them.

In light of the above quote - which is reminiscent of the one: If you keep doing what you've always been doing, you'll keep getting what you've always been getting, what road do I need to take in 2020.

What goals should I set for the year?

What do I want to see more of in my life and how can I work towards that?

My friend Valerie has made a great video about how she chooses her word for the year.

I'm not really quite so purposeful as Valerie.  Nor do I include God and prayers in my decision making as she does.

I tend to think about choosing a word a lot.  Last year I had a short shortlist of possible words but this year I have really only had one.  And to be honest I couldn't see how it would work with Bible verses as the word doesn't exist in the Bible (I know - I've looked!).  I looked at synonyms and that didn't throw up any help either.

And just as I was going to give up on this word, I suddenly thought of the passage in Ephesians 6 about the armour of God.

The next day on my Facebook Newsfeed I saw a link to a project in Australia which talked about this word.

Can you guess what has chosen me?

It's (drumroll please): resilience

I wondered though about my previous words and decided that really I need to have an action which might provoke me to do something positive.  So my word(s) for 2020 is

be resilient

There's a couple of weeks left of this year to sort out how I'm going to record this - if at all.  I'll let you know what I decide at the beginning of January.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

My journal for 2019

My word for 2019 has been {Commit} or {Commitment}. In my first post this year I listed the things I felt I needed more of in 2019:

• Read the Bible more frequently
• Pray more regularly
• Trust God more
• Move every day (walk, exercise etc)
• Create everyday
• Finish things

Did I succeed in including these things?  Yes and No.   I don't necessarily do any of them every day but I have managed to finish things, including my A-Z journal.

 Let's look at my pages for 2019:

There were so many photos that I think I need to write another post about finding a word for 2020 rather than including it here.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice