As I have already stated, I do not work in a linear way, I start new ideas while I am currently working on other things, it is part of the same body of work just different threads.

This is a drawn on stone pebble encased in wool which has been hand dyed by an artisan hand dye business, I chose this colour as it is so un-natural neon yellow exploring how encasing a natural element I.e. stone pebble in what appears to be unnatural, it’s also a contrast of hard versus soft and relates to enclosing my plastic dolls in natural wool although all of these are neutral colours.

This stone had a few holes and I could have left the drawing off, the colour of the wool here is variegated but muted and I like the contrast against this pebble.

I went a little overboard here adding ears and neck but ignoring that, looking at the colour, for me it just does not work, it is too ‘candy’ ‘pretty’, I felt it was important to include this even though I do not like it at all, I feel it veers towards the are of, without being rude, home crafts? By asking why I did not like this I found out more than just dismissing it.

For me the piece has to convey my message, I find using colour difficult, in the same way I used to find drawing difficult and in this sense I hope to find my way through this! Colour has its own language, avoiding colour has its own meaning and it’s an area I am going to explore.

Having received feedback I decided to think about character, do I need to draw a face on the pebbles at all?

I put this question to followers on Instagram

I have included the screenshot of the comment although my Instagram account can be accessed from my home page. This is a recent post.

I decided to follow suggestions about finding pebbles that had texture to add emphasis of possible features but for this new piece I have used natural wool in a natural colour.

The image has a contrast of busy background, this is a sample and ideas going further are yet to be resolved.

This is not a new piece “monkey” the positioning below however is new, I often use, re use old pieces of work to inform new pieces, it has always been part of my practice.

Drawing is an integral part of my practice, it’s where I draw out my ideas, progress and finished narrative.

I draw my found objects, collected, thrown away toys, dolls, textiles, I choose these by way of serendipity. I see a narrative, it’s often fictitious, however I choose what I feel will convey meaning into my pieces.

This piece started out from the stone, (on the top right hand corner) I made several of these for a performance with the Wrexham Art school on Paris Mountain in Anglesey, I kept one back. I worked on this in my sketchbook the following picture shows the result

This is the resulting experiment, I have not worked this way before, from scratch be that it was not intentional. This piece is not yet resolved.

I was given a bag of broken plastic dolls, some had no limbs and arms and legs were missing others just had arms missing, I decided that I would cocoon these with natural wool, a waddling but also a layer to add other layers.

This is overworked and does not possess the qualities I want in my drawings, I wanted to work out how to draw Trauma this is where I am at the moment trying out different approaches, some won’t work and it’s part of the process.