Post holiday blues

The trouble with having a good holiday is that you don’t want to return to the humdrum of everyday life, work, the dreaded HW, etc.
In an effort to counter this growing feeling of malcontent, we went to one of our favourite places on Sunday, the Arundel Wetland centre. As those of you who visit my blog regularly will know I have a thing about an artist’s installation there known as an obscurer.
I have briefly explained what it is before but didn’t have any pics to illustrate my explanation. So this time I tried to take some, not an easy task in the pitch black inside a structure that resembles a tepee, (my apologies to the artist).





Anyway the structure sits in the middle if the reed beds, which this visit were at full height. At the top of the installation is a hole and inside is a mirror, which reflects the surrounding reed beds and as the sun moves in front of the clouds a moving picture slowly forms on the floor in front of you. It’s pitch black inside so you have to let your eyes adjust before you see something. It’s a very basic form of watching a video, but this is real time and you can hear the rustling of the rushes and the occasional passer by (whom I was preying would not be tempted to come in and spoil my reverie.)



I tried several times to capture a photo of the reeds, but eventually gave up and hit on the idea of drawing them in the dark. It was a wonderfully therapeutic experience, I tried to follow the flow of the reeds as they moved, and by the very little light that was admitted I looked, just occasionally, to see if I was staying within the circle of the reflected image.



When I’d been in there about 15 minutes I decided to come out into the world again, as a mother and toddler were on their way in, and found a quiet seat to record my feelings. It really was a lovely experience, I can totally recommended it to anyone who lives nearby.

We’d gone into the centre early, as usual, and by about 11.0 it was filling up so I decided to wander back to the sanctuary of our camper, but not before I’d taken a couple of mandatory textile/pattern shots.


This lovely waterlillly was past flowering but left this wonderful seed haed behind.


This female pheasant was so close to me it would have been rude not to take a pic of her lovely feathers.

Once back in my portable studio I set about following up on the piece I’m working on for my C&G, hmmm!!!! Yes I have restarted the course after about a 6-month gap and am determined to finish by Xmas. There I’ve made the commitment in public, so I will have to follow through.



This piece is my attempt to be a little less constrained in my approach to my work, but when I looked at it the next day I vowed that this would be the last time I tried to follow this route.

I will blog the assignment later this week when I’ve collated the WIP, and also assessed whether I’m on the right track (for me) or not, and you'll be able to see this sketch book page in context.