My view for the day.
Of course I wasn't going to do the usual painting thing! So I loaded up the sack trucks with a yellow box of stuff, including beach shelter, table and chair, quite a few threads and some silk cotton mix fabric.
The weather was forecast to be changeable with thunderstorms and it was! Very!! I even took a quilt to wrap up in as, after spending many years lurking near water in it's various forms, I know how cold it can get. If you are with me on Facebook or Instagram you may have seen the video of one of the downpours we had. I was so relieved I had shelter! The thunder and lightening was a little scarey especially with carbon fibre rods holding the shelter up but John mentioned that any strike would probably go to the pylons in the next field first. I just trusted his judgement!!
Anyway there was about 25 artists in all and the majority survived to the BBQ at the end of the day when the sun came out and everything was lit beautifully.
Some are so well equipped they bring frames to pop their creations in!
Just to the side of where I sat was a little inlet full of lilies that slowly opened through the day. Had the sun been out they would have done it rather faster no doubt.
I had finished my first piece and still had about an hour to go so did a quick stitch of that view too. These are the results, mounted and ready for framing.
You can also see them in the picture above next to the five little black framed pieces by Stephen Bithell.
I was really rather proud that I could actually Plein Air stitch and I had lots of wonderful comments through the day. The best was a nice gentleman who came back and said I had inspired him to try something different.
If I am invited again I would most certainly do it. I may even try something completely different!! But still stitchy of course.
I've noticed more and more there is a huge drop off of people commenting on blogs. Not just mine either. I do wonder sometimes whether this is down to other social media taking over (see above comment about FB and Insta!!), content of blogs or the way they are now presented. It's so easy to just read the headlines and not bother interacting now! Anyway, I did have a conversation with myself about carrying on but I've come to the conclusion that I mostly do this for me, like a diary, and sometimes being able to refer back to a post has been quite useful especially as I'm not a diary keeper. I will keep nattering to myself for a little while longer anyway.
