Winter Beautiful xo

Right between the Winter Solstice and Christmas, my good Australian friend had family come visit her for the holidays.  The plan was for me to take them all out to see 'winter' on the prairie.  We've had such a very mild winter.  As luck would have it, the night before we went out had a thick fog just full of moisture in the air.  It stuck to everything, and we ended up with a world coated in hoar frost the next morning!  How lucky for the Australian visitors!  I decided Beaver Creek Conservation area would be the best since there's a lot of trails through trees there - things for the frost to stick to.  Last year we spent the morning at Cranberry Flats.

As we drove up to the parking lot, I was thoroughly fulfilled by the fields and grasses!  (You know me... who needs trees?)  The grasses and seed heads were gorgeous.  It looks like thick icing sugar dusted on everything,  People love to take pictures of this dead tree that just won't fall over.  lol

Truthfully - the above photo was taken on our way out, after the daylight had filled the air.  The first photos were so dark and so blue before the sunrise.  It was almost spooky!

There was really no colour besides grasses and the peeled back bark.  The chickadees were out full force and followed us where ever we went.  Here's my friend with her guest waiting for the birds to come and land (which they did).

It was so very fun that morning.  On the way back out, OH MAN!!  That field just made me SO happy.  ; )

Once we got to the city again, the sun came out at the sky turned blue.  The guests went out again for more photos.  It was never ended change of scenery.  It was magical.

Wonderful.  AND THEN...  my friend introduced me to some photo filtering apps. These is so great, and gives me so many ideas...

and THIS!  ...

Isn't that cool?  My husband hates it because it's a 'fake painting' so to speak.  Still... I spent hours putting loads of images through it.  My dog - trees - fields - sunsets - lakes.... so fun.  : )

I hope your holidays were lovely and memorable.  All the best to you and yours,

Australia!

No - I'm not in Australia.  : )  I am, however, working on a commission for a woman in Australia.  Oh the wonders of the internet!  She saw my blog and asked a while ago if I could do a threadpainting of a special place called Denmark.  Confused?  So was I at first.  There is a Denmark in Australia.  Here is the photo she sent along to me.

At first, I was concerned about the end result simply looking like one giant mess of threads.  She also wants a 4x6 size, which is a lot of teeny tiny information when it's shrunk down that small.  I interviewed her further to find out what parts of this photo make her fall in love with it.  What's really important to her?  I might not notice what she's noticing.  After much contemplation, I cropped it in to be a vertical piece to help show off the height of the trees.  I sketched it too to help me notice things before I start sewing.

I showed her a few crop options and she liked this one.  I also pumped up the volume of the first photo to make the greens more brilliant.  The original photo had a lower saturation.  So then I pulled out the colors...

There are some brilliant, shiny rayon and cotton Wonderfil threads, some Mettler cotton in variegated, one Sulky that has terrific light yellow highlights, Connecting Threads greens that I'll blend in, and that top grey is a 30 cent Trident bargain spool... it's the right color for the treetops as they fade into the light of the sky.  I try to stick with the good stuff, but I am picky about getting the right color... so Trident it is!

The background fabrics are on the canvas and ready to go.  There's only two - light blue and and a leaf green.  Now I wait for my kids to go back to school before I start this one because... well, you know what I'm talking about.   )  have a great weekend!  And thank you Megan!  I'm excited to try this one out.