I’ve mentioned before about how I love the herringbone effect Cornish slate walls. These are in Tintagel, bordering one of the car parks.
Great pattern and texture and something I wanted to explore again.
The day I took this picture, my husband walked from Boscastle to Tintagel to meet us and also photographed a similar wall on the coastal path, his one thick with leafy blue-grey lichen which gave me the the final image for my next journal piece.
I decided to create the texture of the wall by using gesso on calico, dabbed on in three or four layers, building up the depth of the stones. This was then coloured with watercolours which ran nicely into the cracks and crevices and gave it light and shade.
Emboldened by the success of the stone effect, I decided to add a background, painting directly onto the calico with the watercolours.
Variegated green thread in random straight stitches for the vegetation at the base of the wall…
And short strands of blue-grey slubby thread, un-plyed (if you get what I mean) and couched down in little bows to mimic the lichen. It was interesting, stitching through the gesso-slathered calico!
Stuck into place in the journal.
This was so far out of what I normally do with the mixed media of gesso, paint and stitch, but I really love it – it all just worked exactly as I’d envisioned it.
Under A Topaz Sky 
Wonderful… so interesting to see the process from wall to finish!
A very effective representation.
It’s a great success, indeed! Stitching through gesso must have been a bit of a challenge, but so worth it!
so creative and so beautiful, always fascinates me your works. Thank you, love, nia
Oh this is a beautiful recreation of the lovely slate walls. Your new location seems to be full of inspiration and translation from nature into stitchery. Its all lovely.