I’ve returned to simple pencil drawings to capture the beauty of dying plant material. The pictures below are of some very dried up roses, and yesterday while tidying the garden I managed to prevent DH from throwing away a handful of decaying seed heads and hosta leaves which I plan to draw from later.

I’m working on a patchwork block that abstracts the first sketch, what I’m hoping for is something that has some of the qualities of the petals without it appearing to be a flower. What I’ve drawn so far isn’t quite there yet, but it’s a good start. The flower shape is still obvious, so my next step will be to eliminate some of the lines.

My landscapes so far have been gardens or similar, this amazing set of images were taken near Atlantis, an art warehouse in East London. The second and fourth photos have has potential for fabric and stitch

From my afternoon out at Cliveden, a few painted pages and a design development to take further:

Traditionally fine whitework embroidery worked on cotton lawns, intended to decorate clothes or furnishings. I thought I’d try it on a silk paper surface with assorted chunky threads to see what would happen.

The surface is quite irregular and so in places very thin, this actually gave something to the piece as the whole surface started to buckle and change as I worked more and more into it. Hilary suggested working a larger scale piece, I’ve made the surface ready to transfer the design onto it. I’m now at the thinking stage, as I’m not sure about whether to scale the ammonite up or not.

I’ve been lucky enough to have Hilary Bower as a mentor for a number of years at Missenden Abbey. Over the last 6 years there must have been times when she despaired of me ever getting any where with anything!

My biggest obstacle was definitely how to best work in a sketchbook, I think what actually held me back from making any progress was I never gave myself a deadline by which to resolve this. Suddenly when my last weekend at the Abbey was approaching I finally got it!

Small section developed from an exercise set by Hilary

Developed further in colour within the sketchbook

The small sketch left is the larger image my blog header is taken from.

It shows, how something as simple as a mushroom and the blades of grass around it can become a landscape. 

A couple of samples done during a recent workshop again the theme was ammonites.

I might take the first sample further, by working on a larger scale, although it may not make it as a finished piece.

I won’t do anything to the second sample, quite simply its of its time, and wasn’t something I made with any real intent.

I’m proud to unveil my first finished sample for my “Within the Landscape” series.

The above is 3 layers of silk organza machine stitched together, at which point some of the layers are but back/ cut away before I embellished the piece with rayon thread and black beads. The white on white on the scanner bed makes the cut sections quite hard to see.

I’m not sure that this will become a finished piece, as the sample is taking on a floral appearance, which was not my original intention.

Welcome to my online sketchbook for an on-going theme.

These initial posts aren’t new, they’re copied from Spirited Soul my main blog, but gathered here to allow my textile design/ creation process to be followed.