Summertime, and the Living is Easy

The weather’s been fantastic this week, so I’ve been out and about quite a bit, spying on ducklings, sitting on rocks lapping up the sun, and playing with paint and gesso as a resist (I’ll get back to that later) on the balcony – which I finally managed to scrub clean on Saturday. I need more flowers, though. Something that pops. Something deep red or purple. I’m thinking geraniums or dahlias. My ankle is a lot better now, so my spirits have lifted considerably and I’ve snapped out of the lethargic state I’ve been in for weeks. I’ve even been to the gym. Phew, it feels good to be back.

I haven’t done much textile work, though. It’s been too hot, and who knows when we’ll get a hot spell the next time. Better enjoy it while it lasts. The forecast says it’ll be cooler by tomorrow. But I have done some thinking about Franka. I’ve finished defining all the lines by now and she’s been hanging on the wall in her usual place, where I’ve studied her from time to time. 

Franka in her current state. I’ve moved the left border a bit, and I’ll also move the text down a bit when I make the template for her thought bubble.

My first plan was to use appliqué, like Pam RuBert, but I’ve come to realise that I’ll have to use a combination of appliqué and reversed appliqué. The black ripples on the water would be quite laboursome to cut out and sew in their right places, so I’m thinking that I could cut away the ripples and all the other design elements from the ‘water fabric’, and apply that onto a black foundation. The ripples would then be formed by black gaps in the water fabric, and the rest of the design could be appliquéd in the other black gaps. In theory this seems to be the right way to do it, but I haven’t yet made the water template, so I don’t know yet what difficulties I’ll encounter. I started with the flower and fish templates today. This is what they look like so far:

  

Some of the elements are tiny, so I’ll have to think about that. It may be that I paint them in with the help of a stencil and opaque paint, instead of trying to cut them out in fabric and sew or glue them down.