The Sound of Stromness and Pigeons

The Sound of Stromess Fused plastic, paint and stitch 23 x 23 cm

While listening to Farewell to Stromness, thinking about a wonderful visit to Orkney last July and using only one specific piece of plastic from January (the orange from Sainsbury 40 tie handle food and freezer bags), I tried to find the sound of Stromness.  The snow is melting, the wind makes music through the moors. Land comes in and out of cloud and birds build their nests. Somewhere in my mind I am standing at a painting of a window in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona and birds sing from the canvas.

Processing and experimenting

A visit to the botanics Glasgow 23 x 23 cm
gouache, watercolour and methyl cellulose on paper with fused plastic frame

Over the holdiays I had absolutely no time to work. I did look, mess around on my new iPad and explore mount cutting with my new tool. I also made more re-fused plastic badges. On one of the early mounts, I ripped the paper on the good side of the mount and that led to me to thinking about flipping the approach to framing that I had been exploring with my fused plastic.  In recent fused plastic the inside image was stitched fused plastic while the frame was painted.  I wondered whether the reverse would be equally interesting. 

One of the highlights of our trip to Glasgow was a visit to the Botanic Garden. 

As you might imagine, I am a big fan of the work of John McAllister https://www.artsy.net/artist/john-mcallister.  His colour, the way he uses frames and his use of pattern delight me! 

So all of that together was how I began to get back to work again, a little over the weekend and more today. I can't decide if it works or not.