Standing still

or should that be still standing?

I'm back (did you even notice I'd gone?)

Well, since my last post I've been to Scotland and Scarborough, and done some reorganising of crafty stuff (I'm sure it multiplies when you're not looking) with the aid of a new shelf unit. I've also done a little bit of creating (not much); a couple of basic cards, played with a canvas and then gessoed over it, and then there's this, which is my homework that's due tomorrow.

Once a month at the Cubby Hole there is an art class. We're mostly all self-taught, so it's handy to pick up some of the basics we've missed. Everybody is working at their own speed, and aiming at individual goals. We started with an ideas sheet on landscape, and then narrowed it down to a specific idea. Mine is standing stones (now there's a surprise).

The last couple of sessions have dealt with texture, and my task was to produce a textured stone. The background is acrylic on canvas and is there purely to carry the focal stone.
The focal stone is gesso on paper. The gesso has been layered to build up the texture. The circular texture at the top is produced by stippling the gesso to produce air bubbles which then collapse. The dark brown slash was produced by building up a line of gesso, several times over. The granular effect below the line is salt sprinkled into the drying gesso. Once dry it has been coloured with basic watercolours, and then smudged with a charcoaled finger to highlight the texture.

Once it's been shown off tomorrow it will be on the way to a friend as a house-warming gift.

Hopefully I'll get round to visiting everybody's blogs soon.