Wednesday 30 September 2009

Vintage Health Poster


Do's and don'ts of good health and long life or consumption and early death. A poster in the school at Beamish Museum.

Tuesday 29 September 2009

Friday 25 September 2009

Illustration Friday - Pattern


Although this is an old 'altered book' I've altered it again today as I thought it would fit in well with this weeks challenge - pattern.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

Altered Book - North East [ATC's]

the 2 page spread



below - the ATC's can be removed -
the dragon is the Durham Oriental Museum logo, the sea horses are part of a sculpture on Newcastle quayside, the angel of the north has changed its head with a rock sculpture at Herrington Park & the horse statue is at Alnwick Castle.






Monday 21 September 2009

Inspiration from Paper Beads

Below is the original city & guilds (embroidery) sample - handmade paper & clay beads on cord -
it's so awful, I thought I would mess about with it - resulting in the picture above.


Sunday 20 September 2009

Do Not Spit

A sign seen at Beamish Museum. [a working museum which recreates how the people of the North of England lived and worked in the early eighteen and nineteen hundreds]

Wednesday 16 September 2009

Tuesday 15 September 2009

Lizard on Rolling Stamp Background

Mixed Media - rolling stamp background (acrylic & dye)
[see 'handmade rolling stamps' in August], CAD lizard

Friday 11 September 2009

From Sketch to Fabric

The fabric was for a competition entry a few years ago [while I was at college in 2005] held by the Bradford Textile Society, for digitally printed fabric [section 2] - my theme was Games. I started with painting a board and I collaged cut & torn papers. Then everything was scanned into the computer, and I separated the images from the background and arranged them on the screen. Other drawings were added and also an image of an old games board and after lots and lots of experimentation I arranged them so that the pattern would repeat. [Trial and error, although there was a program at college which could do repeats, I never did get the hang of it, (although I must admit I only ever tried it once - it wouldn't repeat in a way I wanted it to!)]
I had to show the design on boards in different colourways






And the finished design was printed on linen at college [CCAD] on one of those big digital textile printers.I was awarded a commendation by the Bradford Textile Society.





Thursday 10 September 2009

Snakes, Ladders and T-Pots


I've been drawing a lot of snakes recently, and this picture combines them and a lot of the other things I draw regularly such as t-pots, cups, games related items, cakes and flowers.

Tuesday 8 September 2009

LollyPop Tree

This lovely round tree was spotted in Paris, France
[Louvre Museum] & now it's grown some lollypops.

Monday 7 September 2009

Doodle to Screen Print



I altered the original doodle to make it into a repeating pattern, then made a screen using net [the plain type for windows] around a wooden frame. My picture was copied onto the screen using the Daler Rowney System 3 drawing fluid [then the screen block etc]. As you can see, although my pattern is a repeating one, you have to get the screen in the right position for the pattern to repeat properly and lets face it, mine doesn't. Oh well it was used for a background & most of it is covered up.

Sunday 6 September 2009

Earth Globe




Hand embroidery - I did this quite a few years ago, but it's still one I like to look at and touch. Some countries are easily recognizable but others you will need to use your imagination! I got the idea from a squeezable stress ball of the earth.

Saturday 5 September 2009

Chunky Squirrel

Seen at the Grand Canyon, USA, this picture was taken by my brother-in-law Ian

Thursday 3 September 2009

North East Altered Sketch Book


Angel of the North with butterfly wings, the Sage building in blue and the little house can be found at Bedes World, Jarrow.

Wednesday 2 September 2009

Screen Printed Tweety Birds



Screen printing and painting on paper [top one - cut & layered] , machine embroidery - 2 versions of the same bird.

Tuesday 1 September 2009

Mini Art Quilt



My first try at mini quilts [I've done samples of quilting, but never made any type of quilt], this is one of three. The other two can be seen on the hand embroidery network exhibition [link below right]. The flower was silk painted and applied to a painted and stamped [rolling stamp of course] cotton fabric. It was then hand stitched in different colours, shades and thicknesses of thread. The flower edges and petal edges were stitched together with the wadding and background fabric to quilt it. The quilt was finished with dyed binding and a backing fabric.