Paint, print and stitch

 Some small embroideries which have kept me occupied over the dark winter nights.

These are approximately 4" x 5", lino prints on painted calico and hand embroidered.  These may be combined to make a wall hanging or perhaps another fabric book.

Christmas Greetings

 

Wishing you                                            a Joyful Christmas and                                   a Peaceful New Year

I have been very quiet on social media of late with very little art and craft to mention.  I did, however, manage to get a lino cut image completed for my Christmas cards, although I did struggle to come up with an imaginative theme for this year.  These were all hand coloured with watercolour and metallic ink.

The venue for this month's Urban Sketch group was nearby Stanton Park, an area of ancient woodland, grassland and a lake which has Nature Reserve status.  Originally part of farmland, a large, renovated stone barn was in use as an art and craft gallery.  The day dawned very frosty with an icy fog and only three intrepid sketchers turned up.  It was far too cold to set up outside and we were lucky enough to be able to use the farm cottage interior as our base.

An old dresser captured in water soluble
sepia fine liner pen

A tiny driftwood sculpture

Drawing Attention - December 2023

The latest issue of the Urban Sketchers e-magazine.

 drawing-attention-december-2023

Paper and thread

The cover of this book was from a needle case kit supplied by #thelittlesewingmouse at one of our local craft meetings.  I didn't need another needle case, so made the cover and filled it with my experimental mulberry paper embroideries, aiming to keep mostly to the blue theme dictated by the cover.

I used a double thickness of the mulberry paper and was surprised at how the feel was very like working with fabric, with even very small stitches being achievable.

Linen cover with quilted hexagons (approx. 4" square)

This textile fragment was saved from an old Christmas card

Left: appliquéd and embroidered plain fabrics
Right: Printed fabric motif, raw edge appliqué
(used to cover most of the back of the
 embroidery on the next page).

Left: hand embroidery
Right: hexagons from printed fabric

Left: hand embroidery
Right: Printed fabric, raw edge appliqué

Back page: printed fabric used to cover the back
of stitching from previous page

More textile explorations

 Last month I posted an image of the front of a recent fabric book.  I can now show the rest of it.

Because this was a practice piece, trying out different techniques for applying paint and pattern to the fabric, no specific thought was given to the overall design.  When I decided to turn it into a book there was one printed image that didn't tie in well with the theme of dragonflies, butterflies and flora, so the pocket was designed to cover that up.  A pocket needs something in it, hence the mulberry paper lavender bag!

Unsure about adding traditional type pages, I used up a couple of small embroideries as flaps.  I'm not sure that idea was the best, but I can always rethink the format at a later stage.

The front

The back, with small pocket and mulberry paper lavender bag

Cubism?

 Our art group's theme this month was a Cubism-influenced still life.  Despite some internet research, I really couldn't get to grips with the concept of this art style, neither did I find the example images shown appealing.  However, using pastel pencils, I quite enjoyed this "disjointed" effort, even if it doesn't meet the Cubist criteria.

Pastel pencil on black paper
approx 9" square

Another fabric book

 Back in May, I decorated some fabric at a workshop with Karen Carter.  I was unsure how this would be used, but have now made it into a small fabric book. 

Paint, print and hand embroidery
5.5" square