Here is a pic from my book of Great Works of Japanese Graphic Art by Douglas Mannering, of the famous Beneath the Wave off Kanagawa, by the artist Hokausai (1760-1849). I started a waveform many years ago when I was first doing needlelace but hadn't figured out how to finish it until I was working with this white boucle thread that I used in my January BJP piece, which is shown further below.
Here's a pic of the needlelace finished off with the white boucle thread that I used for the crest. It is crocheted then couched down as the boucles wouldn't pass through the fabric. I think I will do a bit more foam, under the crest of the wave as it looks wrong the way it is - too topheavy.
Here is a pic of my January Bead Journal Project piece, representing snow and ice and the hole I feel in my heart at the death of my dad, whose birthday is in January. He passed away late last year and I haven't felt like communicating or being creative since, explaining my absence from blogging for a while. I'm finally getting to the place where it's less painful now, and where I can "talk" to him in my thoughts, like I do with other dearly beloved who have passed.
Here is a pic of my February BJP piece, still with the "hole" at the heart, but in feeling a bit less chill. It makes me think of moonlight on water and a star in the background.
I haven't decided what I want to concentrate on this year as a theme, so I haven't done much designing. Instead, I've been looking through unfinished pieces and thinking about them, but I really want to pick a "big" subject and see how I can develop it. Meantime, I'll bead away through the months on the BJP and hope something presents itself, and try blogging more frequently, as well as visiting my favourite blogs.
Here's a pix of my March Bead Journal Project piece - inspired by fish, as Dear Hubby's birthday is the first of the month - Pisces.
Here's a pic of the needlelace finished off with the white boucle thread that I used for the crest. It is crocheted then couched down as the boucles wouldn't pass through the fabric. I think I will do a bit more foam, under the crest of the wave as it looks wrong the way it is - too topheavy.
Here is a pic of my January Bead Journal Project piece, representing snow and ice and the hole I feel in my heart at the death of my dad, whose birthday is in January. He passed away late last year and I haven't felt like communicating or being creative since, explaining my absence from blogging for a while. I'm finally getting to the place where it's less painful now, and where I can "talk" to him in my thoughts, like I do with other dearly beloved who have passed.
Here is a pic of my February BJP piece, still with the "hole" at the heart, but in feeling a bit less chill. It makes me think of moonlight on water and a star in the background.
In my previous post, there's a pic of the worksheet with inspiration pix, and you can see my initial treillage for the pansies in the left-hand frame of the triptych. As I completed the middle and right-hand frames (daffodils and iris, respectively), I realised that the techniques didn't seem to go together, so I cut out the pansies and redid them as shown in this pic. At this stage, the piece was still on the working backing.
These pix show the piece removed from the working backing, just laying on the table, and also laying on top of dark green fabric to see what that would look like. However, as the piece is supposed to represent Springtime, I chose the sky blue instead. I'm not sure I like it, but that's probably because I've been working on it for too long - I may like it again after it's been put away for a while.
