Experimenting with inks and resist

 

drawing an interesting vessel (wine decanter??) with patterns indented on and drawings of various flora. using inks (dr martins) with resist to create a collagey piece. Worked on in photoshop to introduce variety of scale

End of summer visit to Eype, Dorset...

The visit to Eype was lovely!  The day after our bradford on avon outing, we all (this time dad and bran too) drove down to dorset.  Eype is a very pretty tiny village on dorset coast.  Pebble beach, quite high cliffs , and sitting there provided a brilliant view across the beach, sea and cliffs / heathland around us. Didn't do a lot of sketching.  Again - just pen then water colour, and like usual, quick, and not much looking at paper.  I find this less intimidating than a careful, slow, considered sketch, and for me it works better.  found a better pen this time - less bleeding.  its a uniball signo gel grip pen 0.7mm

Bradford on avon sketching

Having enjoyed (!) sketching on honeymoon, and regaining a little confidence, I happily agreed to mum's suggestion of taking our paints, pencils etc on our day out together.  We went to Bradford on Avon - a lovely characterful town outside Bath, with plenty of brilliant sketching potential
as its always full of people out and about, the river runs through it, as does the canal.  We pitched up by the river.  Giggling to ourselves (why is sketching funny?!) we had a little go at 'capturing' our surroundings - ie the view across the river.  The train route is just visable over the far side of the river bank, and every few minutes a train would whizz by - there were seconds to form an impression of shape and colour etc.  As so much in way of greenery, and little in the way of actual stand out landmarks, this view wasnt that easy to do... enough waffle.

sketch starts with black pen (roller ball i think , but bleeds a little too much..) and then filled in with water colour (its brilliantly portable with a small bottle of water, plastic cup, and small paints tin)

train whizzes by the river at bradford on avon, somerset

i like to sketch quickly, and look at the paper relatively little.

not much sketching actually occurred, but we managed to have another go at the pub - Cross Guns, Avoncliff.  Not really very keen on this one, but i'll put it on for the record (my record..)  NB the flowers on the left hand side were such a beautiful purple.  I just couldn't get the colour right!!

view from cross guns pub avoncliff

I wish i could put mums sketches on! she didn't like them, but i thought they had such appeal!!!

Marazion boat taxis and passenger

More drawing from the patio. Scale leaves a little to be desired. Need to get some decent paper again today. Will visit art shop at Porthleven. Watched the boat taxi so much again today. St Michaels mount is v popular. Later wen tide out the trail of people walking over was just as mesmerising.. They looked like little ants..

Funny feathers Jazz band at sand bar

Watched a fantastically characterful band playing in sand bar. A challenge to capture. A - because moving and B - coz i was so paranoid about people watching me!!! Doodled a fair bit first, to get to know shapes etc, then went for it. They were brill. If nothing more, I like this as a momento. The chap on right was such a dude.

Praa sands, Cornwall, sketch

Praa sands beach

Spent sunday at Praa sands beach. Sketching is a brilliant way of being a visual diary. Drawing the beach scene (from the cliff, then coloring whilst on beach itself) really makes you look and appreciate shapes, colour and life around you. It was a challenging scene as beach was very densely packed (pic not quite right) and my husband was waiting for me to hurry up! I'd love to have another go. Again, gel pen first then water colour.

Marazion sketch

We are spending a week in marazion honeymoon. Woooo. Perfect perfect place for sketching. Our terrace faces st Michaels mount. There's a boat taxi going back and forth constantly. I'm already addicted to wanting to sketch every little group of awaiting passengers. This is first sketch for ages. (months) Inspired by being back here. This is gel pen then water colour.

Edible Creativity

Inspired at Coffee break

Visited a local coffee / eating place in Larkhall - a really cute little place called Ma Cuisine - it was buzzing! Coffee was up to scratch (a rarity to find at the mo) and  the atmosphere was perfect - a little hub of busy activity and run by a french couple (singing chef and sunshine made for a v happy visit!!!) Bookcase aptly filled with french books - one of which caught my eye...

The illustrations in French Leave Favourites were so charming... and made me want to get my water colours out straight away (and also made me want to go back to France - NOW)

 The pencil illustrations - not pictured brilliantly here, were inspiring too - soft, textured, detailed..

 The feeling of sunshine and cafe culture is captured brilliantly i think! I must find out the artist.

Drawing day with Fiona from the fashion lab

This was the back to drawing day....  Lots of useful exercises used to break the ice again... drawing blind, drawing for 3 mins , drawing with wrong hand - etc etc. Fiona supplied some amazing props to inspire and lead our drawing - all along an oriental theme. Some amazing patterns, lots of floral next to geometric.  I was certainly rusty, but enjoyed revisiting drawing again.

Interesting using inks - never really got to grips with this medium. find it a lot easier to use the end of a paint brush (ie not bristles) . Some of ink was watered down. Used brush end too for filling in etc

 

The work we are doing with fiona is designing fabrics for childrens wear. Had a bit of fun on photoshop with some of the images I drew.  Used a mixture of pastels, inks and pens.

Knitted mittens for the twins

Knitted the girls mittens for Christmas. Will match the hats done previously. Hoping the ribbon attached will avoid premature loss of mittens! Also sewed some ultra thin elastic inside the cuff. Took an afternoon and used old style craft 4693 pattern with dk wool. Really easy pattern.

White choc, mocha and milk choc cake

It's defo not all wool n knit here. B's birthday cake. Not my best effort. Amazing what icing n sweets hide..

Soz's Christmas bobble hat

Close up of bobble hat. Not a brill pic to show stitches (pearl then moss) but shows the vibrant colours.

Soz's bobble hat

Did this bobble hat with double knit, aran and super chunky and doubled /trebled up strands to try and get similar thickness to the rowan big wool which the free pattern I had specified. Used size nine needles this time, which gave a snug fit... Used my makeshift bobble maker for bobble (hee hee). Super quick winding but scissor bit a nightmare..

Another one bites the dust - crochet exits

At LAST I have finished crochet poncho and hat and scarf for my friend's girls - they were quick to make but finishing them, taking pics for future reference, re making the items and patterning them so I can have a copy of what ive done, eternal deliberations...... all took AGES!!  I shall have to change my colour pallette of choice soon, before i do overkill - but still loving the grey pink and red combo.  The grey wool is a gorgeous super chunky by Wendy, in Jet.  The red and pink are DK or Aran weight - combined to provide a similar thickness to the wendy yarn.  The Crochet stitches are mainly DC or SC, although on the poncho i experimented with stitches and did some rows with alternating stitch colour which provided interesting patterns.

Also made hat and scarf for my 5 year old niece - she looks gorgeous i think! She wanted 'sparkles' on hers so I added a few sequins - red stars and tiny black ones (cant really see on this pic). Have also experimented with how to make bobbles - i'll do a separate post on this.

Christmas decorations

                                                                                                                     

felt heart making from recycled jumper, wool and sequins

 

Had some spare time today to replenish christmas decorations - had a little factory going of cutting felted jumper up (lovely grey lambswool jumper salvaged from brothers bin!), sewing sequins, remembering the satisfaction of french knots and how effective hand sewing can be. Got the tree today - so chuffed, its just as beautiful as last years. 

Blue tulips scarf is packaged and gone!

Really pleased that one of my favourite scarves from my collection has been bought and has left the fold.......  Had great pleasure in deciding how to package the scarf, designing the label etc. Its all still WIP really, but this makes a good start...  Had wanted to source square boxes but these seemed a nightmare to find at the size I wanted.  But the box I used (recycled photoframe box) is perfect!

Beach Huts and Collaboration with The Fashion Lab

I'm very pleased to be collaborating with Fiona from The Fashion Lab - she is putting together an inspiration board for ideas for textile designs for the children's wear market - here is a selection of my work she has for the inspiration board.....


http://thefashionlab.tumblr.com/

- a link to The Fashion Lab blog - really inspirational imagery on there!!!

The work comes from a 'card design' project I did during my textile degree course, and was in response to a brief set by a card company (paperclip) (see some of my cards in early blogs i think) - the work above combined scans of textile prints i did using heat press transfer / disperse dyes (floral and dots) and watercolour, ink and pastel drawing.  There is a fair bit of collage too which is really fun and effective.  

Was really excited the other day because I did some more stationery for my scarfs collection, like an order form etc - Spurred to do it as my scarves (and Southwold collection cushions) are currently on show in Painswick, Stroud, at the Gloucestershire guild of Craftsmen Summer Exhibition.