exploring the mystery of nature with painting & embroidery & mosaic
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 …
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 …
This is a recent commission I completed for a lady in the USA. It’s an American Goldfinch with some thistles – not quite cardoons but that kind of shape. The background is handpainted silk habutai, painted with liquid acrylic inks. I use Liquitex because they are really good quality and bond to the fabric without …
This little kingfisher started out as a very vague silk painting. I used acrylic inks to create a mottled background and the rough outline of the bird. I wanted the bird to merge with the background to some degree, so I didn’t make the outline too crisp. I had an idea in my head of …
I’ve tried to recapture the sense of decoration and opulence I experience while visiting the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. There was so much pattern everywhere, it was quite overwhelming. Not only were there mosaics but also very elaborate plasterwork, and patterned wooden doors with large metal studs. There were also beautiful gardens full of flowers …
Stitches are like plants: they grow organically if you let them, springing forth from the fertile ground of furrowed fabric. Texture upon texture, like blades of grass and stems of weeds, clashing and clustering, bending, weaving and tangling, the threads begin to create their own landscape. A wayside border of adornment that casts its own …
The weather has been so warm and sunny recently (hip hip hooray!) that I’ve been feeling the need to use lots more yellow in my textile experiments – to be truthful the urge to use yellow started last year when we went to Andalucia and were submerged into a wonderful world of sunbaked olive groves, …
My first ever published embroidery tutorial has come out in the summer edition of Workshop on the Web! I’ve chosen to do a two-part article on one of my favourite hand stitching techniques – bokhara couching beloved of the makers of Suzani which I adore – do have a look at the article – and …
Here’s an update of my peacock embroidery. It is proving one of those embroideries that never seems to be quite ‘right’ somehow. It started out life as a very tight drawing of a peacock which I painted in inks on silk habutai, having done that it looked dull and contrived so I spread a load …