exploring the mystery of nature with painting & embroidery & mosaic
Inspiration for the art work Yes I must admit I have a bit of an obsession with both goldfinches and pomegranates! I love goldfinches because they are such gorgeous little birds, with the flashes of lemon yellow on their wing bars and their multicoloured heads. And I think they go well together with the lush …
Puffin Commission Who doesn’t love puffins? With their brightly coloured beaks and funny walk, what’s not to adore about these cute little seabirds? I was recently commissioned to do a puffin embroidery based on the customer’s photo from a trip to Iceland where he spotted lots of wildlife. This puffin was posing on a cliff …
My latest project is a Purple Glossy Starling inspired by seeing one at the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham. I love the way the tail is so long and seems to flow behind the bird like a ribbon as it flies. They certainly are very exotic looking and their feathers change colour as they catch the …
I started this artwork a while ago and came across it the other day. I felt it was lacking something so I added the little yellow finch – I guess you could call it a yellowhammer. I cut out a bird shape from hand-painted silk and bonded it on and stitched a bit of texture …
Bluejay is part of a trio of commissions I completed recently. Check out American Goldfinch and Yellow Flicker. The Bluejay with wings outstretched represents a rising a spirit. The background is hand painted silk habutai, with lots of acrylic ink splashed on it and lots of little flower shaped sequins and hand stitching to create …
This is part of a trio of commissions I completed recently. Check out American Goldfinch and Bluejay. The Yellow Flicker has been created on hand painted silk and I used quite a lot of ink to create the darkness of the background. I used some stranded cotton thread to create the seeding and fly stitch …
Since I was a small child I’ve always loved kingfishers. This piece ‘The Summer of the Kingfishers’ is inspired by the place down by the river where we used to go to play in the summer and have picnics. And it is where my father used to go as a child, where he learned to …
‘Peacock on a Hilltop’ is a small silk painting embroidered by machine using free machine embroidery and by hand too. I’ve used some rayon and stranded cotton threads for the hand stitching (feather stitch and fly stitch. I’ve added lots and lots of sequins to build up the layers of textures especially on the …
Shimmer shimmer shimmer. It’s taking forever to “sequinize” this peacock embroidery.
[wpg] This is just a bit of mucking about with some spattered silk dupion as the background. Then I added a section of sequins already bonded onto net tulle, some previously painted silk cut out and appliquéd on in leaf shapes and circles and some ribbon printed with flowers cut out and sewn down. I …