Hi Peeps,
Just to let you know that I will be delivering a workshop at the Manchester Museum on Sept 8th and am so looking forward to it.
We will be taking inspiration from the Alan Turing exhibition into sketches which in turn will be the basis for a contemporary textile and/or mixed media piece.

Alan Turing was a brilliant man who had a tragic end, the exhibition is well worth a visit and the coffee shop at the museum is pretty good too!

http://events.manchester.ac.uk/event/event:th-h45csfx9-o5mg0x/

Contemporary Textile Art from the Sea

Not really understanding why, nor needing to I suppose, I feel very drawn to lobster pots and if I'm ever lucky enough to be near any I feel compelled to photograph them. Perhaps its the 'controlled chaos' theme again which I've come to realise is a reoccurring presence in my work. I find the intricate structure of the pot is made much more exciting once other loose elements such as fibres are tangled within it.

Wanting to explore this attraction, and working from photos I'd taken during a visit to Whitby in Yorkshire, I snipped a few twigs from my Silver Birch Tree, (sorry tree) and then  experimented with threads and wire until I came up with my own, inland version of one. This measures about 24cm x 12.5cm and consists of crocheted white coated wire, waxed cotton orange thread within a frame of silver birch twigs.

 

 I photographed these lobster pots whilst visiting Yorkshire's Whitby Harbour.

I had to remember that they weren't mine, fighting the urge to search amongst them for any unwanted, accidental treasure from the sea.

Tiny pieces of the colour orange caught my eye.

To me, the rust and barnacles on the iron weight were the sea's own beautiful artwork.

I took this photo of some more modern pots whilst at Barmouth in Wales, somehow although the gridwork had a slightly hypnotic effect on me (or maybe it was the lunchtime cider), I just don't have the same excitment as when I find a stack of the old style pots.

something else about Tea....

Yep, its Tea again, here is some surface pattern I derived from cups, teabags and strung teabags, the pattern being suitable for fabric, i.e. kitchen blinds, wrapping paper, place mats and ceramics as per the teapot below. These were originally worked onto A1 paper. I wanted something a bit more geometric for a change.

I cut a few stencils based on china cups from my own collection, also a couple of different sized square stencils,using a roller with emulsion, acrylic with a white gel pen

same process different stencils for the strung teabags....

this time just the square stencils

I thought I would quite like a teapot with the square pattern.....

more from the Fish Board sketchbook

The outcome of this fun, mixed media project was to produce a wall mounted board with protrusions. I chose the sea for my inspiration, representing it by a 'close up snapshot' of a fish swimming through weeds with other sea creatures 'floating' amidst the weed. Here is the outcome and just a few of the samples and explorations from my Fish Board Sketchbook.

This is the finished piece, I think my photography/lighting could do with more improvement to do it justice. This was a piece of MDF with the shape cut out with a jigsaw, then sanded to create a slightly raised texture.

I always like to make a small model of what I'm thinking about doing, often in miniature because of the everpresent storage problem! Here it is with pins on cardboard showing possible positions for the other floating creatures, with crocheted wire representing the seaweed.

The inspiration for the base boards finish came from this photo (bottom right corner) of this amzing chocolate coloured fish. I just loved the wonderful colours of chocolate and turquoise and reproduced it with pastels on paper, then acrylic on leather, choosing to replicate this sample out of several for my board.

As usual with most subjects in my sketchbooks I further explored with other media, in this case; gouache on paper.

I painted the board with acrylic, using bubble wrap as a stamp for the bubbles.

With much of my work being very free and often having the 'handmade' aspect exaggerated, I like to include a slightly more traditional drawn piece in all of my sketchbooks, usually at the outset. I made a trip to the Sealife Centre in Blackpool and was able to take quite a few photos for source but the fish photos shown on this blog, for this project, all came from the Aquarium magazine.

 

I was drawn to the ridges in this tail and made a couple of fabric samples as in the 2 following pics;

Pinching the fabric and machine stitching.

As often happens with much sampling I chose not to use this in my final piece.

Other pictures of coral had me thinking about the tendrils leading from the arms.....

My version of the coral's tendrils are on the the tall 'post' in the middle.

This little red fella was another version of a sea anemone, made from angora wool.

More 'coral', from wire mesh and horsehair.

'Coral' created from heat gunned kunin felt and wire.

This was my favourite creature feature, a small segment of 'starfish'-embroidered felt.

A vintage crocheted covered button which I further embroidered produced this piece of 'coral'.

I've always been fascinated by kelp and for my board, shrunk it down by heatgunning a small piece of red acrylic painted foam to create the rubbery effect.

Can you see the crab? another acrylic painted piece of kunin felt which has be heatgunned.

the side of Mr Crabbie.

The seaweed was made from chicken wire, with heatgunned, spray painted, packaging polystyrene fabric

from source to surface pattern............

here is a page from my Fish Board sketchbook.....

the starting point is the photo (bottom right corner) which came from an old Aquarium magazine

this would be a pattern I would consider using for interiors

A3 sized page with ink, acrylic, watered down emulsion, plaster filler and cotton thread, there is actually some texture here, created by mixing the plaster filler into the acrylic paint for the heads of coral

never feels quite finished until there is a little thread involved somehow......

the early bird catches the worm!

I made this drawstring bag a while ago for the lovely Lizbet, for her allotment seeds. I did forget to get a photo of the complete bag, showing its wonderful dragonfly lining and still intend to so at some point but thought I would share it anyway! For those who would like to have a go at making this bag I do produce it in kit form.

beady googly eyes fastened on breakfast

I've drunk the tea and started to make at this point

for the bird and floral side of the bag I have used recycled fabric for the applique

I drew the bird on with fabric pen and carved my block for the dragonfly lining

I did use predyed fabric for the lining but used my dragonfly block with fabric dye to block print my surface pattern on it

I used the machine to stitch the bird's body on but for it's feet and some of its details I hand embroidered with cotton. The worm was done by hand too, again with cotton thread.

the strip across the bottom was a lovely little piece of vintage fabric that I'd found, so special to me that I found it hard to use it but Lizbet is worth it. I used mismatched beads for the worms eyes for a suitably worried look

the flip side of the bag has more appliqued scraps of fabric with a bit of machine embroidery for added detail, I went for a hollyhock look

recyling an old safari/army jacket for my daughter...

Now I'm finished with the Sketchbook Project I needed a new plaything and so have decided to start to recycle/upcycle an old jacket I found in a junk shop. My beautiful daughter Rebecca will be finishing her degree this month & I felt she needed a suitable jacket for the environmental scientist~hippy chick she is, so this is for her, a 'Becky Attenborough Jacket' .

I'm doing this without preplanning as I want it to be as off the wall as possible. I'm picking up/putting together anything thats reminds me of her or of times we have spent together and I wanted it to be free and quick. In a way it will become a walking sketchbook. Watch this space for the coming additions to it!

This is an old piece of fabric from scraps bin at uni, I do not know the original manufacturer but like the wildlife reference so had to include it.  I'm going bonkers with the stitiching, I think my ethos is 'what happens is what happens'.

 I'm going for randomness with the stitching, hand and machine, more of one of my favourite things 'controlled chaos'.