Wednesday 12 March 2008

Frogs galore and Nefertiti!!!

Last weekend we happened to look at the pond in our garden and saw that it was heaving with large frogs. We have had frogs in the pond for many years now but had never seen this many and so big. They had all woken from hibernation and were responding to spring in the air. The pond now has a lot of frog spawn floating in it. My OH took a photograph of them and I only looked at them today. It was taken through the conservatory window so it is not so good. He didn't want to send them diving. This photo is only a small area of the pond. There were 4 or 5 times this number. I think some of them may have been visitors from next door's pond!!


I have spent this evening painting fabric backgrounds and will have to wait for them to dry. So I will post the two small pieces I made yesterday.

They too had painted fabric backgrounds. The green one was layered up with Japanese tissue paper, dyed mohair fibres,eyelash thread,gold mesh and gold tissue paper with the bust of Nefertiti drawn on it. I free machined the drawing and then partly removed the tissue paper. Some was left to look like al fresco - peeling paint. I hand stitched some fly stitches to catch down some of the loose fibres and then applied some beads. The piece was mounted on pelmet vilene and satin stitched around the edges using two threads together in the needle. It looks better in reality than the photograph shows.
The second small piece was created in the same way on a blue painted background, layered up with blue dyed scrim, dyed mohair fibres gold mesh and tissue with the Nefertiti bust drawn on it. I free machined the drawing and removed some of the tissue. I used a gold leafing pen to paint the remaining tissue then fly stitched the fibres and applied bead. It was satin stitched to pelmet vilene using , again, two threads together in the machine. I may pick off a bit more of the tissue from the face- not sure about it yet.


I stitched out a digitised motif earlier today ready to apply on another small piece. Will go now and see if the next batch is dry.

3 comments:

sharon young said...

These 2 pieces look very exciting, Shirley, I love the colours you've used, especially in the top one.
We've been hearing toads in our pond for weeks now, but no sporn as yet, we didn't have many littlies last year but the year before we had hundreds.
I've taken quite a few pics of my work with the new lens, but nothing artisic yet, wiating for some good weather.
Thanks for dropping by my blog and leaving a comment.

hippopip said...

both pieces are superb and the blue one is so regal, I love the way the faces are just outlined it gives them the look of frescoes, great work

Purple Missus said...

I'm behind with my bloghopping so started at the top and am working my way down.
WOW is all I can say. These two pieces are superb. How I would just love to see all your Egyptian inspired pieces in one place - what a fantastic sight that would be.