Town and Country #2
Following on from my post on 23rd November I have now come to the 'country' part of this theme!
I recently visisted Bolton Abbey in the Yorkshire Dales with a dear friend. It is a place I used to visit very often but, since my children were born I have only visited a few times. It is still a place that I find very beautiful I always come away feeling refreshed and recharged.
Again, I was immersed in enjoying the day and all the location had to offer and didn't manage to record anything in my sketchbook, but I did get some good photos. It was a particularly clear, crisp, sunny day.
The atmosphere couldn't have been more different to that in London!
Cool fresh air, warm sunshine, quiet and open spaces.
Even though the architecture is monumental stonework it is all softer; the colours are warmer; the shapes rounder, the incomplete nature of the ruins blending into the surrounding countryside all helping to create a soothing, safe and mellow atmosphere.
I spent some time inside the Priory Church which has beautiful thirteenth century windows with, Pugin designed, 19th century stained glass. As mentioned earlier it was a particularly sunny day and the sunshine coming through these windows was casting amazing pockets of colour across the body of the church onto the opposite wall.
These patches of colour, echoed in more muted colours outside in the mosses and lichens on the stonework, combined with the blocks of stonework are inspiring me towards a double cloth design.
Woven in soft, fine wools, in a block threading allowing solid areas of colour to stand out from the more sublte, homogenous whole with areas of textured yarn (ie, boucle or mohair) to add interest.
The colours would reflect the warm, natural colours of the stone and wood with small areas highlighted in the slightly brighter (but not vivid) purples, oranges, blues and greens of the stained glass, lichens, sky and grass.
I would have to wait until sampling had started before deciding whether both Town and Country could be combined into one collection, or even together within individual pieces, or whether the contrast would be too stark.
I can see common elements that could be used within both schemes to tie them together, so we'll see!!
