Sharon Boggon has started a new challenge for the new year - Take It Further.

January’s challenge was to either use the colour scheme suggested or the concept - for January this was someone you look up to. The colour scheme and the wording immediately sparked circus thoughts - looking up to the trapeze artist (!) - there was a nice deep purpley colour that would work well, but I needed more reds..

So then I moved on to people, I actually look up to - my parents were pretty high up the list. My mum is always telling me to aim high, so when I came across the English bird of prey centre when looking for D’s birthday present - I put the 3 ideas together.. Something you look up to, something inspiring..

You’ll need to click on the image to see it properly

The other part of the challenge I really wanted to explore is the concept of taking it further - while this is only a small piece, it’s my first design using silk shading. I used single strands of DMC cottons to ‘colour in’ the hawk.

The February challenge is of course up and running already and it is ‘what are you old enough to remember?’ At the moment I’m leaning towards something sea related/inspired - if you look at the colour pallette there are blues and sandy colours. As a child we used to take the caravan to the seaside for the full 6 week school holiday - it seemed like forever.. I’ll let you know how it works out!

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