I have been staying with my mother in Barrow-in-Furness
again for a few days and I am pleased to say that she is recovering well from
her pacemaker operation. She has been without oxygen for 4 weeks now as the
pacemaker does its work and she has colour in her cheeks again. It was been
good to be in a computer-free environment once again, where conversation ruled
and relaxed reading was the norm. I am not a slave to the computer but I do
idle some of my time away with Spider solitaire and Yatzi and wandering around the
quilting links I find on Google.
BUT I am less
likely to do that now as I had a fraught experience a few days ago. I was
following a link on Mosaic quilts when my computer became slower to respond and
eventually it stopped working altogether. Then a page popped up onto the screen
reputedly from the Metropolitan Police e-crimes unit. It accused me of down-loading
all manner of stuff that I wasn’t licensed for and implied that I was going
into pornographic websites and downloading criminal material from them. I was
horrified at the implications! But what upset me most was the fact that my
picture was shown at the top of the screen, a picture that had just been taken
as it corresponded with the clothes I was wearing at the time. Towards the end
of the page it said that the computer wouldn’t work until a large sum of money
had been paid and I had 72 hours in which to pay it. That’s when I smelled a
scam. But it was such a vicious attack that the whole computer seized up and
nothing would work. Looking on our Ipad, we discovered that it was indeed a
scam, and there was lots of chatter about it.
Enter our computer-whiz neighbour, who thankfully reinstated everything
back to normal. So be warned!
Whilst up north, I got my sister to photograph the box I had
made for her 70th birthday last December. I have mentioned it in a previous
blog but, at the time, I was unable to show it as I know she is a regular
visitor to my site (Hi Gwyn!). So here it is:
On the lid I have made a picture from fibres using my
felting machine. Once the colours have been laid down and blended, I added some
machine sewn lines to define the features.
Detail on lid
I have just completed a 4-week ‘Pen and Wash’ course with
local painter, Sharon Wagstaff sharon@slwagstaff.co.uk. I
really enjoyed this course and learned much from it. We started with tonal mark-making
using a permanent marker, to learn how to use the pen and to see what sort of effects
we could produce.
Mark-making
Then we drew with a permanent pen and added shading using a
non-permanent black marker. When water was added to the areas marked with the
non-permanent pen, the black amazingly separated into greys, blues and pinks. 
Permanent and non-permanent pens
We then tried a more complex landscape, following Sharon’s step-by-step
demonstrations. A non-permanent pen was used again to give shading.
More complexity
Pen and watercolour wash
I was thrilled with this short course, with what I learned
and what I achieved. Following such courses in the past, I have usually translated
what I have learned into fabric and thread. Now I feel as though I have the wherewithal
to keep a visual diary of my surroundings and my comings and goings. Sharon did
a good job!
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