Reeds in the Mist

Recently, I've had my head down finishing my Geo landscape pieces and any thoughts of progressing new work had to be put aside. I've got a number of ideas 'brewing' but they all need developing before I can put dye to cloth and so I have gone back to some work that I had to put on hold. 

This piece was inspired by a photograph I saw in an exhibition. When I created the reeds they were too dark and too samey, so I decided to discharge them to add variety to the colours and add some texture.

I obviously wasn't expecting the discharging to give me the results that I wanted because I started another piece in parallel but I did like the effect of the discharging and so repeated the process on the second piece. Once I was happy with the reeds I used soy wax to protect/mask the reeds whilst I developed the backgrounds.

Strangely, I've only just realised the number of similiarities of these pieces to my Barge in the Mist piece. Similiar in that it's a view of mist over water and with the focal point on the horizon but there is one key important difference; the 'Barge in the Mist' was inspired by my own photograph and the 'Reeds in the Mist' was not. I have become increasingly aware that I enjoy making work which is inspired by own experiences. I think I will be using my own photographs from now on. 

This week the Knitting and Stitch Show opens in Harrogate and I will there to Steward in the Hue gallery on Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday. I'm hoping to get a little bit of free time to buy some threads to start stitching. Now which one will I choose to stitch? I know I won't be doing both.