Grevillea

Grevlliea flower
close up

These are a couple of shots of another flower to study.

Bottlebrush

These are the pics of the bottlebrush study. I used loops of rayon thread for the emerging flower stamens, wrapping the thread round a paint brush handle. Then I slid it off and carefully machine stitched it before it unravelled. The background it a free machine quilting design from Dijanne Cevaal's booklet. She has some useful ideas when it comes to filling in backgrounds.
More flower studies to come. I'm really enjoying these.

Banskia

This another amazing flower of the Banskia. I 'll have to investigate it's proper name. It's different to the previous one I had looked at. This one is in full flower and where I took this photo the parrots where stripping the flowers for some succulent bits. Lots of the flowers where on the ground so I picked up some to study more closely. There were several discarded seed pods amongst the flowers.

Amazing Bottlebrush

Blooming Bottlebrush.
These flowers are fascinating, I'm going to sketch them and use them in another textile panel.

Emus

I just had to stop and take a pic of these emus among the flowers. There were about six of them quite close to the road.

Nuts - Gum, Hakea, Banskia

I have been drawing some of the nuts and seed pods in my collection and have started a series of textile panels. I have an exhibition coming up next April, yes it's a long way off but with Christmas approaching and overseas visitors etc. time will get away with me, so I wanted to make a start. If I like the ideas as they emerge I'll include some in the exhibition. The pictures here are a sample of what I've been doing so far. After the intial sketch, the drawing is transfered to fabric and stitched. I have used a combination of coloured threads, acrylic paints and guilding creams.