Pasture management systems no.1

This naive style landscape explores the use of fences to subdivide pasture land. Pasture management is in my farming background, partly from having owned a sheep and cattle farm, and partly because I used to teach it at part time courses for an agricultural college. This is what is called an extensive system, where animals, let us imagine sheep and cattle or sheep and goats, live in the same field all the time, but each field only has a small number of animals. Its advantages are that there is less movement and therefore less stress on the animals, and the water supply can be rationalised. It is the least labour intensive method, and a system that has been around for hundreds of years.  The disadvantages are that the grass is not utilised to its maximum, as some will be trampled and not eaten, animals can pick out the tastier grasses and leave the ones they don't like, and parasites will be more difficult to manage.

But enough of that! This is not really what I wanted to make for my final challenge, which is a detailed portrait of some refugee women and children in a camp in Pakistan. A fence is in the foreground.  It will take me at least another month, though I have done all the preparation. I was just too busy at work to have the time.

This second choice combines elements from the first one in the fences series (green) with elements from the art deco one. It intrigues me that we can assemble a limited number of 'marks' and shapes, and yet we find them convincing as a landscape.

Dawn patrol

My ideas for extreme fencing settled on the most unfriendly fencing you can get, razor wire. I was able to get a few source photos to give me ideas, and this one had a strong idea of Notan, so I used dark wire on the light half of the background and light wire on the dark half. I wasn't sure if the quantity of wire would seem overwhelming, but it turned out fine.

I played with the idea of just having an abstract based on the coils of wire, but it seemed to need a context.  I  made up a silhouette of a soldier, but I didn't want him to look threatening, so I put the gun onto his back. The metallic black thread really catches the light, which you can see in the close up.















 I was really fortunate to have a small piece of surface designed fabric in the right colours that turned out really convincingly for the soldier, conveying his face and camouflage clothes.

The background fabric was painted with thickened dyes, as illustrated by Laura Kemshall in a recent DMTV show.
After I had completed the barbs, which took many hours, I felt the lack of colour made it seem more dismal than I intended, so I added a turquoise thread inside the border, and some Inktense pencils gave me the dawn glow.

Without this challenge idea, I would not have thought of this interpretation of fencing, as it seemed initially very negative. However, I am really pleased with how it turned out.

Apologies to Monet

About 3 years ago I did a batch of hand dyes with pleating and dropped colours, and got several pieces I really liked but have never used. This green challenge gave me the chance to use one of them. It is whole cloth apart from the appliqued fence and birds.

Several things contributed to my inspiration. Firstly, I had photographed some canola fields near a river some years ago, and played with photoshop to give a crosshatch effect, which I intended to stitch one day. Secondly when I created the gate and the fence I immediately thought of Monet's magpie, even though his painting is of winter. Thirdly, going with the impressionist ideas, I chose the red poppies, which often spill at field edges - again a reference to Monet's poppies at Argenteuil.

I played with some more realistic sketches, before settling, as I usually do, on a simple graphic design. Size is 24 by 19.