Yesterday's piece before stitching.

Inspiration among the sunny dunes

This is the completed sample from the workshop I did with Jean Draper at the K&S show.

The rather garish colours were the choice of Jean's cleaner who helped her to put the packs together. Not my choice so I have attached the piece to a strip of old pelmet vilene, covered it with expanda print, zapped it with the heat gun, covered it with gesso, ink and spray paint and it is now drying and looking very different. I will post more photos when the sample is completed.

We have had two beautiful days so I have been out and about looking for inspiration for Textile 21's next exhibition entitled 'Recollections'. I was inspired by Jan and Jean's work at the K&S show. Whilst playing golf on Saturday, I saw some good ideas and so I have been back to photograph them.

First the Hawthorn trees, complete with moss.

I loved the red berries against the gold moss and the black branches.

This is some more moss. It is a very delicate green, almost white and full of texture.


Here is Barney getting in the way of a photo of the dunes, at the side of the golf course.

I loved the waves of hills and the large spectrum of greens in this view. Unfortunately, they have not come out quite as true as the real colours.

Another inspiration is the Sea Buckthorn. I love the orange berries against the grey foliage. There is plenty of this plant on this part of the coast. The berries have a very bitter smell, but I have always wanted to do some artwork from this source.



Finally here is a crab apple tree which grows on the dunes. Every year it is full of fruit which stays on the tree into the depths of winter. The apples look like lime-green gems when the sun shines.

Play Days

I have had a busy week completing work for the CHET art fair.

Here are two pictures of the felt pictures.'Rosa' and 'Tulips" I am not very happy with the tulips. It lacks life. The other picture needs more work but I hadn't time to finish it. Then I cleaned the kitchen including the oven!
I used some wool to make a brooch to match my 'Rosa' picture.

)n Thursday we went to Keswick to collect the works from The Textile 21 exhibition which has been at the 'Theatre By The Lake Gallery' for the past month. We called in at a great cafe/wine bar in Penrith on the way home. (opposite Norris') and saw some lovely work by Briony Scott which was exhibited there. Here is a photo of one piece. It was mainly fabric collage with hand and machine stitch of subjects such as Scotland and Venice and flowers. Very inspirational.

Friday saw me at the K&S show at Harrogate. Another inspirational Day. There was some excellent exhibits as noted elsewhere on these blogs. I thought the Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn work was exceptional as was the work of the Complex Cloth Group.

I did a workshop with Jean Draper and learnt lots of new ideas. She is going to publish a book next year and I will look forward to that. Here is a sample of her work.

Finally, I left a bookmark I made on the barbed wire ball which was at the entrance to the exhibition to commemorate the life of Julia Caprara. Here it is.

Gesso????

Those 'Catalogue Killers among you will be wondering if this is one of my experiments with paper, gesso and paint. But this is just the beach at Ainsdale. The next photo shows the beach itself and lovely day we had on Wednesday. The first time we have had a really good sunny day for ages. Barney loves it. Here he is resting from chasing rabbits, his favourite pastime.

I have finished the pieces posted in an earlier blog. The experiments reminded me of rock walls so I add some machine-embroidered flowers to represent a rock garden.

Here are a couple of close ups. I am going to put them into our local Art fair at Crosby Hall.If I sell any the commission helps the CHET charity, which provides holidays for underprivileged children

More Graffitti

Here is another example of Lisbon Graffitti

Inspiration from Lisbon

I've just been away to Lisbon for a few days. What an inspirational city! Full of views and textures. Lots of decaying paintwork and huggly-piggly architecture.



Is this a decaying catalogue in the centre of Lisbon? No, I am afraid not. This was a piece of corrugated iron covered with old posters, but it did remind me of the catalogue decaying back home.




The city's graffiti artists were quite prolific , and I thought these works were worth taking a photo of. I post more pics later.



Here is a piece of sculpture in the botanic gardens. This is a good place to visit if you are ever in Lisbon. The cacti are wonderful, so I got lots of photos and close-ups to inspire me during the winter months. Note the lovely mosaic pavement beneath . This is a real feature of Lisbon, so don't wear high heels if you go there!


This is a view over the Alfama district. I loved the patterns made by the roof-tops.

I was very sad to hear about the death of Julia Caprara whilst I was away. She was a great inspiration to me and it was through reading one of her books that inspired me to take my C&G in embroidery. She will be sadly missed.

update on chapter one

Here are the samples after they have been painted with acrylic paints.

I added machine embroidery to this before I painted it. No PVA or Golden medium used on this sample.

Textures and cabbages

A busy day inspired by the new book by Maggie Grey, Textile Translations.

I had tried mixed media in my first pieces for the Norton priory exhibition, but I had trouble stitching the pieces.

I decided to make 5 samples following the instructions in chapter one, using slightly different colours and papers in each. I have a couple of ideas in mind, for a final piece.

Here is three of the samples at the first stage of chapter one in the book.

Whilst I was waiting for the gesso to dry I took Barney for a walk along the sea cop adjacent to the Ribble estuary.

A beautiful day, so warm and sunny but the view of the Pennines and the lake district was obscured by cloud.

I saw these lovely marks in the mud on our way back across the fields.
They had the same textures as the samples I had left drying in the garden.

The cabbages I photographed last week, have changed colour and some of their leaves are showing a lovely lacy texture.



When I got back home the gesso had dried so I sprayed the samples with some Moonshadow Mists I bought at the Fashion, Stitching and Embroidery show at Harrogate last week.

Here is the result.

Finally, whilst I was in the garden I just had a check on my catalogues ( see Maggie Grey's weblog Magstitch). This is the result so far!

Winter's here! back on the blog

Since GD5 arrived I have had no time to blog. But the days are drawing in and the evenings getting longer so I am spending less time out doors, golfing, gardening and walking the dog!

Here's the youngster. Don't they grow up fast?

I've been busy doing something creative this weekend. Hubby's been to Spain for the weekend so I have had the kitchen to myself to make as much mess as I want without having to clear up to cook. Well done to M&S and their ready meals!

Inspired by a visit to the fashion, stitch and embroidery show at Harrogate. A great venue. Smaller than the Knitting and stiching show but without the 'Tack'

Here are some cabbages in the local fields. I just love the textures.

I've been doing some paper collages to try to reproduce the fields and the textures. I am looking to produce a piece of work based on this using the embellisher.

I also dyed lots of different fabrics, although i may just use white fabrics and paint them after I have pieced them.