Wherever I go if I spot rust I have to take a photo, just have to. If the rust is portable it often comes home with me to my garden (ask Hubby, he does most of the carrying). We managed a few trips late this summer and here’s a roundup of my rusty haul.
When I move on from my white work perhaps I should move to rust.
It was a bright clear day, it was early and we didn’t need to wait for our teenager to emerge, the day was ours. We shot across to Bempton Cliffs as quickly as we could and were mildly surprised at the numbers of people who’d beaten us there!
We go every year to see the sea birds nesting. There are thousands of gannets and kittiwakes not to mention guillemots and razorbills plus some puffins, fulmars and even a few tree sparrows around. The kittiwakes were the only ones we saw with eggs in their nests. I didn’t take photos (no camera) but spent my whole time just watching and abosrbing the sounds.
Walking beyond the sea bird colony viewing areas we continued along the cliff and I was struck by just how much red campion was in bloom.
I used the camera on my phone to take these pictures, even though I couldn’t see what I was taking thanks to the sun on the screen. Isn’t it wonderful.
Our next stop was only a few miles away at Filey where we planned to take a beach walk out to Filey Brigg and also indulge in a fish and chip lunch. You can imagine how delighted I was to discover large areas of rust on our beach walk.
just loved all the circle patterns on this one.
I took so many images.
The majority of these photos were taken portrait style but when editing I found I preferred many of them landscape.
Did I mention I took a lot of photos?
The last set of felt work I did focussed on the tree of life and my next set is going to focus on rust. I love rust, can you tell?
I’ve already begun some dyeing experiments using rust and I’ll show you those in a later post. After Filey we stopped off at Nunnington Hall on our way home and saw these splendid chaps in the gardens.
They were of course very noisy, they always are aren’t they.
No females around so no displays 🙁
Tempted to make my next work all about peacocks but looking at the evidence above, I’d better stick with rust.
Rust and beach glass are two of my favourite things and I’ve wanted to do something with them for ages but it’s been the usual procrastination and claiming I don’t have time. Although, to be fair, I have attempted a piece of art with the nails previously but, it didn’t work out as I wanted.
I began by collecting my materials – rusty nails left behind by the builders, beach glass and florists wire.
Wired the nails into a circle.
Wired on the beach glass and just kept going until it looked right. I did try a few beads as well but they weren’t sufficiently translucent to sit happily alongside the glass.
Now I’ll keep spraying daily with water until the florists wire has rusted to match the nails. It’s not love but I do quite like the finished item and at least perhaps it’ll spur me on to try more.
I’ve had a fascination with rusty metal for quite a long time. You only have to ask my husband – the times I’ve had him carrying back large items from beaches and country walks. It looks fabulous when installed in the garden and it’s been in my mind for quite a while to produce a series of items inspired by rust.
So when I saw this mage and re-discovered this small piece of rust it seemed time to make a start. It’s probably not the most successful piece of felt I’ve made but it’s a good start to get me working on the subject. I envisage that I will work in both 2D and 3D and want to attach pieces of actual rust to the finiished felts.
The fabric pieces are crystal organza which gives a lovely texture when felted in and the curls are dyed teeswater. I wanted to get not just the colours but texture as well. In future I think I may use cut back techniques for added texture and depth. Not sure if I should stitch into it, what do you think?
We had a lovely day on Saturday at Formby Point. It was fine if a bit cold and we had soup and sandwiches in the sand dunes before commencing our beach combing. It was a fruitful day with several pieces of rusty corrugated metal, pieces of rusty pipe, shells, feathers and rope found and brought back with us.
I’ve got a bit of a thing about rust so I was very pleased to find the metal pieces. The solid rod will be used to suspend a wallhanging based on rust. Little pieces of the corrugated metal will be used on the hangings themselves. The rather lovely piece (longer than shown in the picture) with the triangular sections is to be mounted on the wall so I can use it as a trellis support for sweet peas.
A friend suggested mounting one of my surplus birds onto a piece of driftwood which the stump post most definitely is not. However, I think the post will look magnificent with a bird sat atop it. It could be quite awhile before it dries out though. I’m so lucky that my family, far from minding my obsession with beach combing, actually join in with me.