A First For Everything

This is a first in many ways.  To start with it's my first blog post that isn't about gardening or cats, secondly it's about my first piece of textile art, and thirdly it's the first time I've shared anything arty that I've created with anyone.

Back in January I bought a couple of books about textile art, and for the last few months have been fiddling around with various techniques and materials, but last week I decided that I had to bite the bullet and actually try and create something.  So here it is: (you'll need to click on the image to enlarge it to see it properly)

Seascape

It's abit of a mix of techniques.  The background is painted silk dupion, the sand and rocks are layers of tyvek, bondaweb and painted organza distressed with a heat gun.  The sea is layers of shot organza and painted bondaweb, also distressed with a heat gun.  There are beads in the sea and the sand, with gold hand stitching running through the rocks.  I used 3d medium, painted with pearlex, along the shoreline and gold markal paint to highlight the rocks.  Finally I added dangles of frayed silver thread to the sea to add movement before distressing all the edges with a soldering iron.

The most important thing is that I really enjoyed doing, and already have some ideas forming for other ones, which will keep me occupied during the dark winter evenings when I can't garden.