Tread Softly

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B.Yeats

As a member of "The Crafts Council of Ireland" (textiles) Valerie from CraftyV was asked to produce a piece relating to "Tread Softly" by Yeats. She has been working on this beautiful scarf for a number of weeks now, embossing the foot, stars and Celtic knot on the velvet and embroidering the other designs in gold, silver and green threads and silk ribbon for the rose.

You can find out more about her hand embossed velvet scarves on her blog.

Anyone Can Paint

Just in time for the Etsy Ireland Team ATC swap, here come some words of encouragement by Valerie from CraftyV:

"Anyone can paint!" Did you ever hear that and think "no way!" Well its true. It's such a relaxing hobby, great against stress - and I guess we all have some of that. OK, so what do you need to get started?

BRUSHES

Do you have some small (clean) paint brushes? If not, you can buy some cheap ones from a local art and hobby shop.



These are some of mine as you can tell ,well worked!


PAINTS

Acrylics are good as they dry quickly and you can paint over them if you make a mistake.



As you can see in the photo, there are different size tubes on the market. The smaller tubes are sufficent and last quite a while.

Main colours to buy are blue (Colbalt blue), red (Crimson red), yellow (Process yellow), brown (burnt umber), and of course white.

You can play around with these colours and mix and match - it's amazing all the shades you can make.


SOMETHING TO PAINT ON

Acrylic paper is good and comes in lots of sizes.


You may prefer acrylic board. You will get lots of advice in the art shop. After a while you can progress on to Stretched Canvas. This is what I use all the time now.

At last, find yourself a nice easy picture to follow and don't be afraid of it.


Check out more about Valerie's work on her blog.