Category Archives: studio

Variations on Aurifil Threads

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A flower based challenge from Aurifil for this month gave me the chance to try out their gorgeous variegated threads.

The completed embroidery with its silk painted base setting off the stitched flower and buds

I love to use these shaded threads as they have beautiful subtle colour and tone changes. It was certainly a challenge making sure the right colours sat in the right place on these rose petals with their gentle curves!

Source photo, silk painted base and Aurifil cotton threads numbers 3660, 4660 and 3840

As you can see by these step by step photographs these threads can work really well. To give more definition and increase the tonal range the final stitching was white thread. It really brings out the highlights and makes the image pop! As always I used a wide tonal range to give a 3 dimension effect.

4 stages showing the colours and details slowly building up

Artist Support Pledge

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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many artists like me have found themselves without art fairs, teaching and gallery work. Exhibitions and sales have disappeared. In an attempt to help alleviate some of this stress a UK artist Matthew Burrows instigated the ARTIST SUPPORT PLEDGE #artistsupportpledge

The concept is a simple one. Artists post images of their work on Instagram, which they are willing to sell for no more than £200 each. Anyone can buy the work. Every time an artist reaches £1000 of sales, they pledge to spend £200 on another artists work.

Matthew said. “I realised the work needed to be cheap enough to make selling it an act of generosity, but also I needed to make that infectious because generosity creates generosity.” Since Matthew posted his first image and wrote those fateful words ‘I pledge’ it has become a global movement towards a generous culture and economy in support of artists and makers.

The first 4 embroideries I created under the scheme inspired by my walks with my new dog in the glorious weather we are having here.

I thought this was such a great idea so I have joined in this initiative on my Instagram and Facebook pages. I have created new work especially for it priced at £200 or less. It has been successful and I have subsequently bought pieces of artwork from participants on the scheme! A painting of a seascape by an artist on the @scillyartist, a watercolour by @debourahgourley and a beautiful misty landscape in oils @davidsmithart

4 more embroideries based on the beautiful cherry blossom I saw in Japan

These £200 embroideries are also available on my website for people who don’t follow me on Instagram and Facebook. If you want to see the new ones as I post them you can follow me by clicking on the Instagram or Facebook logo on my home page. Thanks!

It feels good to produce new work, sell to all over the world and the best bit is having the perfect excuse to buy art, its addictive!

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Creating in lockdown

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It’s a strange time, I find myself creating art for exhibitions and events that have been cancelled or at least postponed. It makes me realise that deadlines and imagining my work in a space is quite an important part of the process. That has always helped to supply the drive. I have had to produce work with no aim other than for the love it! How wonderful you say, but it was a tricky transition at first!

Life doesn’t feel too different from normal on some days but lockdown can produce a level of anxiety, fear of the unknown and worst of all, separation from loved ones, we all know now how that feels. We are all trying to find the positives each day. For me this means long walks with my new dog Bobby, accompanied by my son or husband who share lockdown with me. Baking flapjacks and chocolate cake, cooking lovely food and gardening. Wine o’clock has crept a little earlier in the evening than usual and sometimes it’s a cheeky G&T to round off another day.

It’s been a pleasure to allow the good weather to distract me into my garden, which, like many is in shock due to the amount of attention its getting! Cooler days and inspiration gets me in the studio creating embroideries.

I have been working on pieces that were due to go in exhibitions as they were already in progress and I was keen to complete them. In addition I have been experimenting with my embellishing machine. I have tried to make images by felting layers together, learning which fabrics work, how to blend colours and finally add definition with stitch. It has been an interesting learning curve.

One of my embellished landscapes

I have experimented with filming myself stitching, thinking it would be of interest. It was a challenge, getting the right gadget to hold the phone, trying not to nudge the camera when I rethread the machine, getting the right camera angle and still be able to see to stitch! I got there eventually and posted the results on social media with a great response from followers, so it was worth the effort!

Fighting the January Blues

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Fighting the winter blues is always a bit of a challenge, but when it’s so cold, the daylight is grey, at best and I am recovering from flu it’s more difficult than usual.

Inspiration and preparation

Painted backgrounds and threads ready to start stitching

I decided the antidote to potential misery was colourful embroideries! I had a few pieces in progress and decided to look at the most sunny and colourful to work on and found these flower based ideas.

Embroidered Lavender

Close up studies of lavender

I happily stitched and completed each background, enjoying the process after my trip to Aus and NZ which always means an enforced break from my own work.

Welsh Poppies from my garden

Welsh Poppies from my garden

It seemed to work and feeling enthused I trawled through all my photos from my recent trip to Australia and NZ to revisit all those blue skies and summer colour. I found a series of images from a beautiful rhododendron garden we stumbled across in the Blue Mountains. 2 of them immediately attracted me and seemed obvious choices for new work.

Sunlit Rhododendrons

Completed embroidery on the “Sunlight and Shadows” theme

They were just what I needed, colourful and vibrant to lift my spirits. Painting with bright colours and selecting lovely pinks, reds and bright blue threads to work with was already firing up my enthusiasm. I thought a series would be a good idea, thinking about my display at Chelsea in May (planning ahead!) and I remembered had taken some photographs of my own garden when the rhododendrons and blue ceonothus was in flower. So then I had 3 images to play around with and I wanted them to work together. Looking at the compositions and overall size was a good starting point.

Photographs of my garden and silk painted background

Photographs of my garden and silk painted background

Sketches followed, lots of standing back, looking, thinking and drinking tea! Finally a commitment was made on each piece and I could draw each one on to the silk and paint the background colours.

Painted background of the rhododendrons

Painted background of the rhododendrons

As usual some pre arranged teaching popped up in my schedule and an enforced break from my own work came along. It’s never a bad thing, I like the space between the processes, it gives me thinking time, stops me rushing in, too eager to finish a piece without due consideration.

So at this stage I have 3 backgrounds ready to stitch when I can get back into my studio! In the meantime winter is slipping by and the snowdrops are looking pretty outside my window. Daffodils will be next, hurry up spring!

Teaching in my Garden Studio

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I have been organising my studio with teaching in mind and recently took delivery of some very smart tables and chairs! All part of the preparation for the 2 courses I will be running in there in March.I will be teaching 2 courses in March. The first one is “Up Close and Personal” when we will be learning to stitch the fine detail in close ups of flowers and leaves. Learning how to blend in stitch to create a smooth transition through colour and tonal ranges, plus interesting stitch techniques for petals, stamens etc.

The second course is “Texture in Nature” celebrating and exploring the colours, texture and detail of trees, concentrating on stitch techniques for tree bark. Some smooth, others craggy and covered in lichen and moss.

I had an email this week from a picture researcher at Quarto Publishing in London to say they love my work and would like to publish it in a new edition of the Encyclopedia of Embroidery Techniques. They told me they plan to update the book with some more contemporary embroidery examples in the gallery section and are looking for beautiful finished embroideries in a range of styles and stitches that reflecting different themes including landscapes, flowers etc. They chose several from the website and I have sent 10 examples of my work so they can print as many as they like! I am looking forward to seeing it.

 

Opening my new studio

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My Open Studio event in June this year was the first opportunity for people to visit me in my new studio. Only a short time after coming home from my week at the Chelsea Flower Show it was a frantic ( more than usual! ) lead up to the first weekend. I enrolled the whole family to help, we were painting walls, making shelves, varnishing the floor, weeding the garden and hanging pictures on the walls, it was non stop activity!It was worth all the effort when we had lots of visitors over the 2 weekends and really good sales. Everyone enjoyed the new studio and with all the doors open it allowed people to stroll through to the garden and the summerhouse to see Myk’s photography display. Most of the time the weather was very kind and we had some sunshine!I am planning to have a quieter spell now, enjoying working in my new space, occasionally getting distracted by the garden and relishing the summer months ahead.

Between Wisley and Chelsea

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The Wild Garden at Wisley

I have returned from my first show of the year at RHS Wisley, nr Guildford. It really was a top quality show in beautiful surroundings. We had 5 days to enjoy the gardens and meet new and valued customers, their response to my new embroideries was really wonderful. The event was also a great a practice run for Chelsea, after being in glorious isolation at home for months since my last exhibition it can be a shock to the system! I returned to see the progress on my new studio. Its a major project with a cloakroom, utility room and the studio room with its 2 sets of bi-fold glass doors. Its going to be ready for my Private View on June 12th…hopefully! I am thrilled with how it looks and can’t wait to get in there with my sewing machine and hang my embroideries on the walls.

Starting to lay the oak floorboards

Preparations for Chelsea are now high on my agenda, with a few more embroideries to frame and plants and pots to organise for the stand its a busy time. The mammoth task of fitting everything into the car is a challenge, we always manage somehow! There is so much to remember, hi-vis jackets, tickets, screwdriver, framing gun, clothes for all weather conditions, etc. etc. It is the major event of my year and demands my full attention before and during the week we are there. This will be my 22nd year as an exhibitor…I should know what I’m doing by now!

My centre piece for the stand at the Chelsea Flower Show ( 23 x 36 ins)

My New Studio

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Work has begun on my new studio. We are converting the double garage behind the house into a teaching room and studio. There is a lot of work to do, the brick walls and ceiling need insulating, plastering, painting, and a wooden floor laid. The wall overlooking the garden and the garage door will be replaced by floor to ceiling bi-fold doors, so there will be lots of natural light.

Framework on the wall for the insulation and plaster

I currently work in a smaller studio the attic, (all jokes of artists starving in garrets have already been made, thank you!) so I am really looking forward to having more space to create in. On a sunny day it will be great being able to open up the doors and enjoy my garden. I will overlook the pond and my favourite tree, a corkscrew willow.

This wall will become glass bi-fold doors, my entrance to the garden

There it was …gone!

The view of the studio from my garden. Waiting for the glass doors to be fitted, bit draughty in there at the moment!

My regular students are looking forward to being in there too. It will be ready in time for my Open Studios event in June. I will be open 10am to 5pm on 13th, 14th and the following weekend, 20th, 21st

I will post more photographs as the work progresses. Exciting times!