Textiles blog update etc

Just popping in quickly to say that I've updated my other blog  Caroline's Stitched Textiles, with a couple more chapters of work from my Stitched Textiles course.

 

Cables - Stitched Textile Sample


PLUS  I wanted to thank all you lovely people who left a comment on /facebook 'liked'  my previous illustration of poppies - it's always so good to hear from you !! 

 ALSO  I'll be back soon with news of a   giveaway   here on this blog!! 

Have a great weekend!!

Art in Action

Hello! I hope you're all having a good Summer!

I'm back from my travels in Holland and the length and breadth of England and Wales and can hardly believe it's been nearly two months since I last posted something here! I've had a wonderful summer in Europe and have many hundreds of photos to sort through and lots of stuff to share!

I thought I'd kick off with a lovely day out I had just before flying back to KL last week at the Art in Action event! This is a wonderful 4-day art extravaganza at Waterperry House near Oxford, where hundreds of artists display their work, demonstrate and talk to the public about their techniques. There are classes, lectures and displays and a market brimful of exciting handcrafted wares to buy! I spent my day there drinking in the atmosphere, revelling in all the wonderful pieces on show and meeting and chatting with some very inspiring artists.

Some of you may already know Sue Brown through her blog Sue Brown Printmaker. It was so nice to meet the lovely Sue in person and to see her splendid prints. Sue was exhibiting alongside other artists in the Nature in Art area. Read more about Nature in Art, which is the world’s first museum dedicated to art inspired by nature, where 70 artists each year work in residence, here.

Sue had an abundance of delightful bird pictures on display.

click to enlarge any of the photos

She is an expert collograph maker and whilst she chatted about her work, I was able to browse through her fascinating sketchbooks.





Sue runs workshops in printmaking - will have to take one of these! Contact her details of upcoming courses.

click to enlarge

I also spent a while in the Printmaking marquee with Susan Erskine-Jones who is another artist happy to divulge many of the tricks of her trade. Here she was describing how to use a solar plate to achieve a similar effect to etching but without the hazards involved with that traditional technique! I'd like to take one of her workshops too - more details on her site here.

Sarah Morpeth crafts unique books and works of art from paper. Just take a look at the incredibly detailed cutwork which Sarah carries out on cartridge paper with a surgical blade! Magical!

I'm fascinated by all things paper and was thrilled to see her exquisite bird and butterfly books, hanging ornaments, pictures and sculptures on display.

Do visit Sarah's website to view more of her work - she also runs a course on making books from her studio - details on her site!

The textiles marquee was another joy to behold!

So many beautiful creations there, including these pretties by Anne Selby created with Arashi Shibori pleating, handpainting and screenprinting.



These stunning accessories by designer maker Tammy Child really caught my eye! Tammy's booth in the Market was awash with sumptuous fabrics in a myriad of jewel colours! If you visit her website you'll find fabulous creations for special occasions guaranteed to make you drool. Be warned, you'll find them hard to resist!

Click to enlarge

Of course, one place I just had to visit was the Illustration marquee! Here I met Jackie Morris. I'm sure many of you will have seen her wonderful book illustrations and/or made acquaintance with her blog or perhaps kept up with the antics of her felines at http://www.wethreecats.blogspot.com/( Jackie admits their blog receives 4 times more hits than her own!!). I watched whilst Jackie applied gold leaf to a very large painting of kingfishers. Many of her artworks incorporate a gold background and are truly sumptious for it!

That's all for now - hope you enjoyed this part of the tour! I'll be back with Part II later!

In Flight x 2, new project and GIVEAWAY!

In Flight #1

The Brooklyn Sketchbook Project has taken up every hour of the day for the past couple of weeks!! Anyway, I'm pleased to report that my 'In Flight' themed sketchbook is finally finished and in flight winging its way to the States as I type! I'm so pleased that I made the effort (I'd only done 4 pages by the start of the new year!) as I really enjoyed the total art immersion whilst I created all the pages! To view them you can click on the image above or use the tab below my header.



You may also notice that below my header I've added another new tab for a page that will lead you to my other project - a new blog called Caroline's Stitched Textiles - not a terrifically original name, I know, but I'm just hopeless at finding catchy names and this was the best I could do at short notice! I've been anxious to set this blog up to document my work on a City and Guilds Embroidery course which I'm studying by distance learning. I actually started this a while back and completed Module I already when I lived in Hong Kong! However, I've been really slow about starting it up again since I moved to KL, but it's full steam ahead now and if you're interested in checking out what I get up to there please do hop over and take a look! Again, you click on the image above get there, or use the new tab below my header.

In Flight # 2

Bob out on a limb!

Now on to Bob, our one-eyed cat. As you can see from the photo he seems to think he is a bird. Silly moggy got himself stuck up that tree last week after being chased by a couple of dogs!

Click to enlarge to get a better view

This photo gives you some idea of how high up he'd managed to climb. One of next door's gardeners shinned up the tree to try to help him, but his efforts only served to make Bob climb even higher and yowl even louder! More attempts to catch him in a swimming pool net had the same effect! In the end he made it down to the ground on that branch, which was eventually sawn off. Fortunately, he was none the worse for his adventure, but I think it'll be a while before he ventures through an open gate again!

Of course, HRH Tia had no sympathy for Bob!

Finally, just a little advance notice of a GIVEWAY on my blog! It's been absolutely ages since I've had one here and I'm feeling in a celebratory mood with the completion of my latest projects, so I'll find something nice for you and be back soon with more information. See you soon!