It's The Little Things...

...that make the difference.  I've been taking part in a Junk Art Challenge... this particular postcard is made from an RAC circular... but somehow, it just didn't work...  So, I carved an eraser into a sun shape...and here it is...

This postcard has been a pain from start to finish.  First, I cut the landscape around the car too small..so it's in two pieces.  Then I lost the word 'adventures' for about ten minutes...and after hunting up and down, found it on the table next to my cup (grr...).   And then, this hole in the composition.

I've never cut an eraser before, thought it was altogether too fiddly; in fact, it's really quick and  really easy, though I do think that it helps to have really good lino cutting tools.

So...reader, I printed, using acrylic paint, and here's the result.

It's not perfect...but it's a lot better.  I wish all my design problems were so easily fixed!

Progress...

...on the small brown piece I've been working on (more on it here and, indirectly, here).  This is where we were at... printed upon but otherwise untouched...

so... it seemed to me that I needed some machine stitch, and something to go inside those circles.  The machine stitch was easy; orange circles to reinforce the print.  I thought that there needed to be something substantial added to the circles in the centre, and made some multicolour felt beads.  I had used some of them in the jewellery I've been making recently, cut in half to give me a flat surface to use to stick them down.  But when I cut into them, I discovered that they were MUCH more interesting on the cut side, than on the outside...

so... the whole thing looks like this;

It's still not finished, but it has improved.  I think there's something about adding thin wrapped twigs along the length, or perhaps some flat discs... or both.  And perhaps some more paint.

Tomorrow... perhaps... though I really should be preparing for the show I'm doing at Spalding next weekend...

Mixing It Up...

For a long time, I tried to keep things in little boxes, when it came to art.  For someone who prides herself in working outside the box, that has never really sat well with me.  My drawings didn't seem to relate to the textiles, or the paintings.  But recently, I've been pushing myself to let go of those false barriers, and I finally found a theme to work to, that allows me to do that.  I thought I'd show you several  examples of work in the same theme.  That theme is 'Linescapes'.

I've been making drawings for years that simply incorporated a minimum of three lines, or three lines and a curved shape of some kind, usually an egg shape.  It struck me recently that they are 'linescapes', and that they are a way of expressing space and shape.  Some of them are abstract landscapes; others are not.  The images, I hope, will show you some of the potential this approach has.

These are postcard sized pieces which I drew while waiting for a doctor's appointment; Linescapes at their simplest, single colour, three simple lines and the relationship they have to each other, and to the surrounding space.  I will probably add some background colour...or not... it will be interesting to see how the additional colour changes the nature of the individual pieces.  The marks were made with crayon, so that I can paint over them with watercolours, but still retain the original colour of the lines.

This rather peculiar image shows a textile variation of the same theme, Lutradur XL with yarn stitched into it. It's not finished yet, I know, though I'm not entirely sure how it will progress.  I know that text will feature...but that's about it.  Currently, it is sitting on the window ledge in the dining room so that I can see it (and puzzle over it).  The colours feel like the Scottish Highlands in late summer and early autumn.  Perhaps a haiku... or two...

This is a Linescape of a different nature; far more lines, much less space.  It is made using layers of transfer dyes on Lutradur XL, which were then stitched into,.

Finally, a painting.  Acrylic on board, and the largest piece of work in this series so far... accompanied by the smallest, a textile ACEO.

The ACEO features yarn, hand stitched onto Lutradur XL, with a watercolour background.

I hope this selection of work gives you an idea of the potential I think this approach has for my work.  I love working in series, but I've never before felt that I had found something that I really wanted to explore, and that had so much potential.  This is the tip of a very large iceberg, I think... I'm going to have fun!

Still Working...

on this piece, which I talked about here ;

Today, though, I decided to work on the piece of board that I'd used as the base of the monoprint that colours it.

I should say that the dark blue isn't quite as strong as it seems in this image...but hey... it's a photo...
I decided to use it on as a warm-up piece today, when I went out to paint.  And here's the end result:

So... how did I get from there to here?  I started by spraying the piece with Lemon Brusho, deliberately varying the strength in some areas.  I don't like flat colour; I think it's boring.  Varying the colour makes it much more interesting to look at, and helps the eye to travel round the image.  While it was drying, I wiped off as much of the yellow as I could from the little circles, smudging it into the shapes, turning them into a lovely blue green shade.

But it wasn't enough.  The obvious thing to do, given my current work, was to print over the top of it.  I might have contemplated another monoprint, but  it seemed a bit predictable.  Instead, I took a look at a collagraph I made last weekend.  I tried it out on a piece of scrap cloth, in green; here it is...

I liked the way that it worked, so decided to try it on the monoprint; it worked very nicely.  And that, I thought, was that...  but nothing is ever that simple.  I had made an earlier trial print of the collagraph, in a reddish brown colour, but it was not particularly successful.  When I printed on the monoprint, some of the red brown colour was transferred.  I found it catching my eye.  And so, finally, I added some random dots of red and green paint to the piece.  I was surprised how well it worked; it seemed to pull the whole piece together.

Now, all I have to do is finish the textile piece... it's coming together slowly.  I think I have an idea...

Collaboration...

is fun.  One of my Facebook friends, Mary Kaye Catone,  is a keen photographer, and regularly posts her images.  I just as regularly say, that could do with stitch.  This time, she said, go for it.  This is the original image;

I love the textures and colours in this, and my initial intention was to make some long stitches in parallel running down the way.  Because I wanted to work small, I printed it out on some commercially prepared cotton...well, actually, it turned out to be silk organza.  That proved to be an additional bonus, as you will see.  But the transparency both added and detracted; I found myself struggling to put something behind the image that worked well.  In the end, I tried a stitched piece, which worked like a charm.  It was a piece of lutradur to which I had added encaustic paints, and then stitched.  Here's the back of the finished piece, to give you an idea of what I started with;

And here is how it turned out... 

and yes, I used those long stitches I was talking about earlier, though there is a row of small stitches at either long side, to keep the thing together.  And that's that, right?

Well, actually, no.  The thing about using silk organza, is that a lot of ink gets transferred to the backing paper.  And it would be wasteful to ignore that, right?

This is Ghost Tree, made from the backing paper, collaged onto mountboard, with swirls of shimmery medium to suggest mist.  I'm quite pleased. If you get very close up and personal with the piece, you can see silver leaf shapes drawn onto the board, my original intention, but somehow, it wasn't enough.  

So there you go; two for the price of one...and counting.  I still have some scraps to use up, probably in another collage.  Collaboration is fun...why not try it?

Another Rescue.

This piece really needed something... It started off as a piece of vintage tablecloth, which I'd hand dyed.  Two lots of hand stitch had added texture, but not a lot else.  I didn't want to paint into it; I felt that would make things worse, but my linocuts are far too small to be meaningful on this size of piece.  No, it's not that big...but big enough...

So, I found a piece of mountboard that was roughly the same size, and decided to make a monoprint.  The original colour I chose was a metallic turquoise blue, but there wasn't enough contrast for me, so I mixed it with some white, into two different shades, and added two more lots of pattern.  And here is the result:

Looking at it in an image, clears the mind... I'm going to trim the unprinted section at the bottom, and possibly turn it on its side...PSP says it might look a bit like this...

And then Yet More Stitch?  Possibly.  And I might paint into it, and/or add embellishments.

You can see quite clearly from the mountboard how the printing actually went...

On the principle of waste not, want not, I'm contemplating adding an watercolour wash to this, and then possibly using it as a base for a collage.  Textile, of course...

Rescuing Quilts...

is fairly straightforward, really.  But it can take a bit of time.  This one lay about for ages, until I gave it some hand stitch...I blogged about it here 

...and then it lay about some more.  I knew it needed more blue, I even knew that I needed to print it, but I just couldn't bring myself to take the risk.  Well, finally, I did it today...and here it is.

It looks better in the flesh, but hey... it's also a bit greener in the flesh.  I'm please, though, I feel it's an improvement.  Not perfect, but then, nothing is.

There's even a couple of cats... you can see this one in the close up, but can you find the other...?

The Straight Debate.

Here's the first of the pieces I talked about yesterday, waiting to be worked on ;

And here it is, finished ;

I think it's rather fun.  The cat button was part of a set by Button Mad, which my sister gave me for Christmas, while the boat and duck buttons were left over from clothes I made for my son when he was wee.  A family piece...I think it'll end up with Cara, my granddaughter.  Unless someone makes me an offer I can't refuse...


I showed it to Robin who said, it's nice...but the edges aren't right.  To me, the edges are Just Fine.  Most people, he said, would want them to be straight.   Now, I can get them to do flat, which is important, I think...but I'm not so sure about straight.  I like the country, primitive, sketchy feel that the frayed edges give...as if this piece was a fragment of a larger piece.  It adds texture and visual interest.  What do you think?

Negative Thinking...

affects us all, whether we admit it or not, whether we're depressed or not (though depression does make it rather worse...).  One of my favourites is that I'm lazy, that I don't work hard enough.  And then, as I did today, I go to tidy the studio and realise that it's not strictly speaking true... I just get diverted a lot.  There is, however, a lot of work around...  I picked up these five pieces that had been kicking around the studio (out of a Rather Substantial Pile), waiting for something... In this case, I think they had been waiting for me to get back into hand sewing.

Clockwise from top left is a piece of silk, with yarns and other pieces of silk needlefelted onto it.  Then there is a piece of Evolon which has been printed using one of my hand cut lino blocks, then transfer dyed, then stitched.  Below that, there is a piece of transfer dyed lutradur, fused onto crinkled paper (I think that one is probably upside down in this image).  Fourth, is a piece of shibori painted nylon beneath a piece of transfer dyed lutradur, with a lot of stitch, and finally, a transfer dyed monoprint. All of these pieces need more stitch, except the fourth one, which needs embellishment, I think with tiny lutradur flowers, and maybe some three dimensional leaves... we'll see.

I like all of these pieces, but have a sneaky preference for the first one...though I'm fond of the monoprint, too.  Guess that's my Easter weekend sorted out....what with warping up the peg loom, and starting the rug, and possibly buying a couple of plants (well, it's traditional, right?).  If you celebrate it, have a very Happy Easter.  And don't worry; a girl (or boy) really can't have too much chocolate!

The Helpful Cat

...always knows when  a job is boring, and tries to help.  Mollie being who she is, meant a lot of leaping up and down, trying to catch the warp pieces as I cut them.  Given that they are twice the length of a large, three seater sofa, and there were, at the end of it, twenty six of them, she had a very happy time catching and attempting to chew them.  Sigh.

Now, all I have to do is thread each one of the twenty six onto a peg, ready for the fabric strips I tore up earlier.

This afternoon, though, I'll be out in the garden, collecting these fellows (no, not the insect, the flower). They are scattered through the grass; a better gardener than me would dig them up, but I want the flowers for dyeing.  You can use the roots, too, so doubtless a bit of digging will be done later.



I've got a list of plants I'd like to add to the garden this year, purely for dyeing purposes, starting with a eucalyptus.  Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, will know that at one point, there were several full sized trees in the garden, but high winds brought them down.  My intention this time, though, would be to keep chopping bits off, to dye with the leaves.  I'd like some St John's Wort, mainly because I like it as a plant, but it is useful too... not that I'm obsessed... yet... or much...

My New Toy...

...is proving to be great fun, and incredibly easy to use.  Several years ago at a craft fair, I tried out a peg loom, but did nothing about it.  Now, I am the proud possessor of one of these wee beauties, and I'm having great fun with it, as I expected.  Just goes to show that procrastination gets in the way of fun, right?

This is one evening's weaving, about an hour's worth.  I watched a couple of YouTube tutorials, and they both suggested starting with a scarf, so here it is.  It's remarkably easy to use a peg loom.  This is worked with sari yarn, and it's really very firm; I think I should have used the other set of holes, which are slightly wider spaced, and made something less stiff...but you learn every time you do something.  I worked it with all the yarn I had on the ball, and produced a collar sized piece which I'm quite pleased with.

Given that I'm a texture fiend, I love the textures this loom produces, and am already thinking about how to use it with all kinds of things.

Part of the reason I'm doing this now is that I want to use these at the Hub.  For those of you who don't already know, I volunteer two mornings a week with adults with learning difficulties.  It has been a real learning experience for me, both as a giver of workshops and as an artist.  Some of the people in my group have issues with manual dexterity, so I'm always looking for things that would be easy for them to do.  The premises we work from aren't the best decorated, so the plan is to make rugs using this loom to cover the worst bits of the carpets, and to cheer the place up a bit.  If anyone locally (or not so locally) has any fabric scrap they would like to donate to a really good cause, this is your chance...please leave a message or email me for more information.  We would all be really, really grateful.

And maybe now I'll get the other loom set up, the floor loom in the studio... procrastination is the thief of fun, right...?

Being Away From Home...

can be wonderful, but also a pain... the latter, when you forget your sketch book.  I had gone to the bus station to meet my friends Alison and Michael off the Inverness bus, had some time on my hands and...aaargh... no sketchbook.  Usually I have two or three in my bag.  Fortunately, I did find a card blank in there (no, I have no idea what it was doing there either).  That, a pen, courtesy of WH Smith, and fifteen spare minutes on a bench, produced this;

I've been mulling about shapes like these ever since I got back to painting.  Working in this format, though, made me wonder about making a book.  And some quilts.  So, an idea was born.  Notice that I write all over my sketches, just to remind myself of what the thinking was at the time...it has moved on a bit from there, now.

I love the simplicity of sketches, and would like to make some stitched sketches in a similar vein... watch this space.  The series seems to have a title; 'Linescapes'.  These ones clearly tie up to landscape, but I think that overt marks like these will not last long; they come from one of my quilts, Norfolk Fields.

Although there is definitely a connection between the two, I think Linescapes is really about space, not about landscape per se.  It might be argued that there is no difference...but it feels like there is.Now to clear the decks so I can Get On With It.

Step Back, Part Three.

Flowers, all the way...

I became interested in macro photography.  I'm fortunate enough to own Big Bertha, a large scale Epson printer, which allows me to print things out, either small, in duplicate or large scale. This lets me focus on abstract work, rather than flowers themselves.  It's not a new idea...Georgia O'Keefe made wonderful flower images (click here for her museum).  I wanted to explore these things in textile, with stitch...and can often be seen crawling around other peoples' gardens, taking photographs of their flowers.  I have even gone as far as tidying up my own garden, and growing my own.

Most of the images are manipulated in PSP, printed out and stitched, like this one.

A tulip, it was printed out more than once; since I don't like to do the same thing twice, the stitching is different between the two.

More complex images followed ;

I like the idea of being able to repeat a print, but differentiating each one by the amount and design of the stitch.

Mark making, of course, had to get in there somewhere, rather than just as stitch.  I have large numbers of photographs of walls, wooden beams, pavements, all waiting to be worked on.  This one I think is one of the best things I've made.  It is an image of a wall in Norwich, and I have made it several times.  This one has intensive stitching in the dark areas.

Here is a detail shot;

Click on the image for a closer look.  This one is in Evolon, and so is hugely tactile.  My favourite version, however, doesn't have a stitch in it.  It was made from Lutradur XL, and has the darker areas carved out, and is framed with a light behind it.  That is spectacular, but I'm yet to get a decent photograph.

And that about covers it.  What have I learned?  Firstly, that it all holds together.  I've felt overwhelmed, recently, by all the things I do, but in fact, they all have similarities.  My passion for mark making and texture run through the work, and a passion for landscapes, both observed and internal, as well as the natural world.  

I can also see how the work has changed.  I worry less about what people might think about me and the work, and make what I need to make, without hiding anything.  I can also see that the colours I use are changing, from intense darkness early on, to increasingly bright palettes more recently.  

Now that it's coherent, clear in my mind, I feel I can move forward.  That, I think, will involve lots more mark making, lots more exploration and lots more hand stitch.  That feels right.  I'm glad I paused, and took stock.    If you have read all three posts...thank you for keeping me company!  If you have any comments, I'd be glad to hear them.  Perhaps you, too, might benefit from looking at what you have achieved in your work so far.

Step Back, part two

I've always been interested in meaning, the creation of meaning, and in particular, how the brain interprets marks, whether man made or natural, to try to fit them into some sort of structure of meaning, to reach an understanding of them.  The Texture Of Memory has work in it that relates to that mark making/mark interpreting interest, but there are a number of quilts that fit very nicely into the 'mark making' theme, such as this one.

It's called 'Unrequited', and has three abstract figures in it, the eternal triangle, each looking at a different 'other' with unrequited affection.  At least, that's what's going on in my head, when I look at it.  Some of my stitched photographic work fits into this category too, like this piece ;

It is an image taken of a section of wall in Ely Cathedral...and there are all sorts of things happening in it.  I struggle to reach any kind of true understanding of it, other than that I think that it is beautiful.

Markmaking with fabric, also, as in this piece ;

Lutradur base, with fabric felted into it.  To me, this reads as a landscape, and leads very nicely into the fourth category, that of landscape, or landscape inspired work.  There are a number of landscape pieces, and landscape references pop up in titles all over the place in my work.  Landscape was what drew me to art in the first place (no pun intended...).  I wanted to be able to record what I saw...and then realised that actually, I wanted to record what I felt, about what I saw, and that rarely meant reproducing 'real life'.

The first of the landscape quilts were 'Flying Dreams' (if you search on that title, you'll come across several images and some writing about the work).  This was the first of several, including one in the shape of a flying body, which now lives with Thelma Smith.
I think this has to be one of my personal favourites, it has such a feeling of space and joy in it, at least for me.

While this, Norfolk Landscape, is the most recent, a dye painted and stitched piece.  I want to make more in this vein, it feels 'right' to me, somehow.

Some of hte landscape quilts included quite a bit of mark making; I made a series of them for the Evolon book.  I find myself still playing with that idea in Norfolk Landscape, though it moved from a horizon based image, to a view from the air (in part at least).

Enough eye candy for one day, methinks... more next time.

Taking A Step Back.

Yet another one.  It seems my life is composed of lots of steps backward, followed by a few forwards, and then back again.  Interestingly, this seems to have led to the creation of Rather A Lot Of Work.  I'm going through it now, as you know, partly because I'm working towards a new website. That has meant trawling through the work to see what there is to photograph.  To my surprise, I've found that most of the work is related, even when it didn't feel that way at the time.  There are several main headings for the work I've done over the past fifteen or so years.  Most of it is abstract, or semi abstract, much of it it textile, but the paintings and mixed media also seem to fit fairly well into these categories, also.  A lot of it could sit in more than one category; I'll talk about that as we go along.  I'm still working in all five categories, I've discovered, to my surprise.  If there is an underlying theme, I think it is change, and the creation of meaning within constant change.

It started with work 'about' gardens, all abstract, with incredibly simple structures, but packed with meaning.  There is a complete series, unrecorded, called 'Dawn In The Healer's Garden', which is still ongoing.  Each piece has been made for a friend who was struggling with something at a particular point in their lives.  I continue to make and release these pieces, as a response to what they are going through.  I have no photographs of them, and mention them here for completeness. Here is an image of a small piece in the gardens series; I see from the blog post that it was made for a trade, but I still have it... so it clearly didn't happen...

Most of the garden quilts take a similar format to this, though the Healer's Garden quilts vary enormously.  The garden paintings, though are more like this ;

This is Spring Garden, oil on canvas.  I think that what the series has in common, regardless of medium, is the concept of a riot of colour.  When I think about gardens, I always imagine a gentle breeze through flower beds, making them move and intertwine... a riot of colour.  

Chronologically, the next work to be made is the 'Texture Of Memory' series.  These are almost all quilts, and they are 'about' depression.  This was the first of them, made about sixteen years ago, just after the breakdown from hell, recording the process of burnout which resulted in my illness.  

In a similar vein, this mixed media piece is called 'Losing My Religion', and is also about that time of my life.  

So...that gives you a feeling for the first couple of themes in my work; more tomorrow.