Cow hair balls.

When i came across this barbed wire fence, i was immediately drawn to the little balls of collected hair that the cows had rubbed off. I had previously in my project been experimenting with wool and making my own felt- as they were a good representation of sheep- animals- so fit in well as a material to use in my work combining nature with non natural things- e.g the dye used to colour the wool i bought to make my felt. I also made some watches- that was a representation of the busy lifestyle of the city, out of felt. And experimented with displaying it.

The combination of these reminded me of felt balls. I wanders how effectively it would look if i made my own version with colourful felt, and if it would still convey and intrigue despite it visually being colourful felt. Would i still achieve the beautiful 'natural accident' features that attracted me first to the fence. And also made me realise that i don't need to buy materials to work with, as it would be a different and interesting challenge to try and produce work with a collection of sheep wool or cow hair.

Painting trees.

I have been playing with the idea of working further with trees, i have already produced work to hang on trees and played about with the different textures of the branches, trees against the fabric and colourful decorative and busy shapes withing my pieces of work. But i want to connect more with the trees, and find a more satisfying way of dealing with combining my work into the forest, and make it feel more natural and less fixed and static.

Considering painting the actual trees has crossed my mind, mind you, I'm sure if there are any rules against this sort of activity, but i have come across some examples of when this has been successful. Some examples were taken at Transylvania's street festival, part of Leonardo DA Vinci UK artist exchange scheme. Although the tree's here are not painted in much detail, more of a decorative pattern, similar to the colours and shapes withing my tree-banner pieces. It's still effective despite there not being much going on, only stripes of colour.Combined, and with the natural surroundings, it does the painting justice and its succeed as a piece and somehow looks natural within the landscape.

This painting has concentrated more on an actual image, rather that crating a colourful scene. I like the way it's small, so makes you have to make the effort to go up-close to the tree to appreciate the painting, and also how the painter has made use of a small crack in the tree as the outline of the beginning and end of the work.

I have also been trying to get images of faces to react with the surfaces of the trees, i dealt with this by mono printing the faces, so it was a simple, sketchy linear line, colliding against the crazy shapes of what you can consider to represent hair/thoughts of the 'person'. This did work in a sense, but i felt the images of the faces needed to be stronger, achieving this may mean attempting to try again with a different media..maybe sewing the face or painting it so its more of a stronger image, rather that it fade away among everything else that's going on around it.

I do think the colours i choose do work well with the rough, brown tree skin, but as i work in delicate detail with my stitching, it sometimes seam's like there's too much distraction away from the effort that's been put into the little things that you may not notice looking from far. Maybe i like the idea of having to make an effort to look harder rather than take it for what it is in the first glance. I also like the contrast not only between the colours , but more obvious, between the straight line's of the tall trees and the curly, busy all over the place shapes that seem to run against the natural pattern of everything of its surroundings. I will continue to work like this, and look more into the rule book about painting and decorating trees.....!

Trwyn Gwil.

From my original idea - swapping aspects of the city and the countryside, swapping they're surroundings and experimenting with producing objects that are made out of material from either setting and place them in the different environment, i have been producing watches out of materials like wool and using traditional sewing methods to represent 'the city'

and also combining aspects from the country. I thought it would be a good representation as it's about time, and also an object that everyone seems to have, and can also represent the aspect of money and expensive accessories that people seem to find important when living

in a city.

When looking at the countryside and more rural spaces, i noticed a big difference in the priorities that people have in both places,

especially when looking at the farming industry. Most of the population in the country is animals. I began by documenting both places with my camera i came across allot of intriguing things in both places but i naturally found the rural spaces of the landscapes in wales allot more ascetically pleasing, personally. And i seemed to come across allot of amusing natural forms, beauty and shapes that i found intriguing, and the fact that it had all happened naturally made it more special than a beautifully built building in the city center, although i also appreciate the skill and effort of architecture in my own way too, its just that i find it as too much

of an 'average' thing that i consume everyday, as i spend more time in the city.

I am now in the process of trying to bring all theseideas together to pursue in organising and co working on this project with Lois Nansi, we both have similar ideas and our work seems to concentrate allot on our welsh background and nature, friends and family. I now need to concentrate on producing pieces of work that combine my ideas, maybe concentrate more on the 'nature' side that the city side, and also considering how my work can work in a gallery space. We bot also want to host this 'exhibition' in a public space in Wales if possible as we think it might appeal more to a local audience, and also i want to experiment more with exhibiting my work outside, in a forest, and taking it further than i previously have.

my work on trees.