A fine day out on the east coast of Yorkshire at RSPB Bempton Cliffs, taking in the sights, sounds and smells (oh, definitely the smells!) of thousands of nesting seabirds. The gannets are my favourites, so elegant and striking, wonderful colours.
I’ve seen some truly amazing bird sights recently – starlings, avocets, gannets – beginning to wonder how I can get them into my textile art. Not easy, not with my usual materials and techniques… hmm.
Isn’t that a wonderful word for a wonderful phenomenon?
This week we took a quick trip to Leighton Moss RSPB reserve to catch the spectacular sight of up to 100,000 starlings swirling over the reed beds before finally settling down to roost. It’s one of the great sights of autumn/winter in the UK, catch it if you can! This site lists some of the best places.
The constantly changing patterns painted in 3D across the sky are just stunning, different ever
So now I’m wondering, is it possible to capture the spirit of this in stitch? I’ve had quite a few attempts at flocks of birds, using shadows to add another layer, but for these massive flocks it’d need to be on a completely different scale. Hmm… thousands of tiny black dots… not ideal for machine embroidery!
(one of my Flock pieces)
