Mandalas or circle drawings, and even the circle in general has always interested me. The way a centre radiates an energy bubbling with growth and reaching out like a web, but sometimes contained within the line with no beginning and no end. Even when the centre is merely a point or dot, it holds an enormous potential energy. There is so much to circles.

The plant is a banksia. This is an Australian plant species which combines whaky, edgy elements with elegance and sophistication. A pretty difficult act to pull off. Serrated leaves, sometimes huge powerful brush like flowers and seed pods that look like eyes…hence the story of the Banksia men.

The charcoal drawing by Kathe Kollwitz I find enormously emotional. See some more drawings here. The charcoal medium lends itself to sensual and emotional responsiveness but here the subject matter does too… mother and child. It’s so wonderful and I’ve not seen any other drawings by anyone of such powerful heart expression. In my view art, and music, create a shared human language to make a physical representation of what we can’t explain in ourselves.

Post update 12 March: WOOPS – apparently this isn’t motherly love at all but vampire love! who would have though. Please excuse my ignorance as I thought it was a mourning photo. How wrong can you be.

Lastly, Starry Night by van Gogh. A famous and very well known painting but one that uses a very limited colour range but achieves a mood very strongly.

Our challenge is to examine an image provided by another and create the design brief for a weave textile.I’m excitied about the challenge.