Ferns and Moth

I have been buying some new materials and paper.  I ordered some beautiful handmade paper from Spain, Aquari paper.  It arrived within a few days of being posted and I have been trying it with some of my new designers gouache paint and a new brush.  It is always good to experiment and  use a different medium.  The handmade paper is quite thick and textured.  First I tried it with my acrylic ink  and  painted a single green fern, then added a Magpie moth.  The paper is lovely and I love the deckled edges.

 Then I did the five different ferns with the green gouache paint and added the moth at the bottom.
I only  bought five tubes of colour, as  I  thought that was enough to play with.   They are some of my favourite  colours, yellow ochre, sepia, primary red,  sky blue, and  sap green.  White is always useful, and especially when you are painting a Magpie Moth, so a tube of zinc white.  I know they will mix many other colours and tones.  My little ferns were an ideal subject  to  use the new sap green.  I enjoyed drawing the patterns of the leaves and mixing different shades of greens.

 The paper is very different as it is thicker.  I love the deckled edges and the handmade look.  As I had been drawing my Magpie Moth recently I thought it was perfect with the ferns.  On the first image you can also see  I rescued a nice off cut of wood, destined to light the fire, and instead  painted a moth on the smooth wood. That is three moths, each one looks slightly different as I hand draw each one in turn.  It is interesting to play around and see how other papers and materials work,  I am always learning something. The acrylic inks were used on the wood.

A little sewing for my Valentine Gift. 

Hand embroidered and handsewn  Linen teatowel by Eileen Postlethwaite  

I also made a little sewing project instead of a card for February the 14th.   The initials of our names also make the word, BE,  now embroidered on  linen,  carefully stitched with a border of four rows of red running stitch.  It took me longer threading the needle each time than actually sewing the rows.  I am afraid my days of counted cross stitch are long gone!  Anyway I used the self threading,( hurray for modern sewing machines), and made the linen into a towel.  I think it looks very old and resembles a French antique one.  I love it and we will use it.  Sewn with love,  better than a card!
The sun has been kind to us and we have enjoyed some beautiful days, still very cold but amazing crisp clear skies and a fantastic bright full moon this week.   We went for a lovely long walk across the shore and I will post my drawing of the objects I found and some of the views in my next post.  At the moment trapped in the camera with a flat battery.  So I am quite pleased to say all of the photographs here were taken with my ipad, even the sunset views out of the window. I surprised myself !

This was the view from my window last night.  The sun was just setting and the mist was creeping in across the estuary.  We had a beautiful sunny day and then moments after I captured this lovely sunset, all was dark.

 Another beautiful day here which started with a hard frost.  The geese are flying over the estuary, it all looks so lovely, I feel so lucky to live here.  Hope you enjoyed seeing the view.
Hope you are all keeping warm.
                                                                                                     See you soon.        Millyx