Category: Travel, Art & Photography

The artwork is now completed, framed and hanging in my Mum’s dining room. The sky was a bit trickier to do than the mountains; I had to scrap a couple of completed sections because the balance just wasn’t right and the fabrics I picked were too dark or too light, or too shiny and reflective. At this point I know better than to go, oh no that’s not too bad, it will do. Gut instinct is always right and must be obeyed!

I’m still a tiny bit irked that the original artwork I based it on turned out to be AI-generated, but I’m very happy with the final result. It was also wonderful to have a creative project to sink my teeth into and I’m already thinking of what I could do next.

I missed a few weekends here and there, especially with my overseas trip, but I used the Christmas break and lack of beach weather to complete the mountains. I’m ready to move on to sky and clouds, which will be fun as they’re not as angular and I can experiment more with the fabric textures.

I now finished the mountains in the foreground, and it’s been a fun and smooth sailing so far. This artwork is one of my more structured pieces, a bit like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with little room for experimentation. It’s a more rigid process perhaps, but I also find it quite soothing. As always, no matter how much leftover fabric I’ve got, I still need to make trips to the fabric stores for more shades!

I’m finally starting a new fabric artwork after nearly five years, probably my longest break yet thanks to the lack of inspiration and motivation. Another more positive reason is that ever since the pandemic I feel like less of a homebody on the weekend, and prefer to spend much more time outdoors even in winter months. Still, I look forward to a big new project I can really sink my teeth into.

It’s meant to be a companion piece for the abstract sailboat artwork I did for my Mum a while back, with a similar style and palette of vibrant colours. I’m basing it on this mountain landscape pic I found:

Now that I traced it, the final version is supposed to look something like this, although as always I expect I’ll have to simplify it during the process: