PFA AUGUST CHALLENGE

 

This month the challenge on Postcard Fabric Art is the colour orange and the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, famous for her large scale paintings of flowers

 

 I researched the images on the internet and found she had painted a few lilies and as I have a lovely potful on my terrace I knew I could use them as my inspiration.

 

I draw these fragrant blooms every year and I soon found some previous sketches to inspire me as well as going out and sitting by the plant to draw straight away. I am also aware of the copyright laws about using other people's images and there was a very interesting discussion in the group about this  issue.  I am very particular about using only my own drawings or photos or my friend's with her permission.

 

 

I love the way the petals curl and their frilly edges.

 

 

I have made a collection of templates that I use when I start a new project to make sure I work to a standard size, whether to fit a frame or a card to be posted.  I had bought a set of plastic place mats at Lidl but found them far more useful for this purpose as they are easy to cut with scissors or a craft knife.  I place them onto the fabric and lightly draw the boundary of where I want to stitch with a pencil.  Sometimes if I'm using linen with a coarse enough weave I will pull threads along the line to be sure I'm perfectly square.

 

 

I made a careful drawing that I could use as a basis for my needlework and made my fabric selection from my collection of organzas, cottons and some vibrant orange jersey given to me by a friend.

 

The base fabric is a plain yellow cotton then there is a layer of pale green organza and a translucent unwoven fabric layer for texture. I cut out each orange jersey petal shape and tacked it on then added a layer of yellow organza to lift the colour and give a bit of a sparkle.  Each petal was then stitched by hand using a red yarn to depict the spots.

 

 

After I finished stitching on the petals I added the white edges by couching on a line of white cotton knitting yarn which gives the flower a bit of life and dimension.  Then I decided to edge the picture with a line of variegated yarn woven through a line of light green running stitches.

 

 

I finished off with the stamens and stigma using various different yarns but being sure to follow the shape and pattern correctly as I had drawn originally.

 

 

I pinned the picture to a square canvas and used a co-ordinating ribbon round the edge to hide the folds and pins and it is now hanging on my studio wall so I can enjoy it while I decide who will be the lucky recipient.

Here is the link to the PFA group page on Facebook, (fingers crossed it works!)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/409001002802381/?ref=bookmarks

 

HOMETOWN CHALLENGE

 

I belong to a Facebook group called Postcard Fabric Art where we are challenged each month to make a postable work of fabric art using the prompts set by Ann Hillman Lamy.  This summer we had an extra challenge, to depict our hometown in any way we wanted.

 

I  like to work from my own source material if at all possible so I started by browsing through my sketchbooks looking for drawings of my home area here in Perros Guirec and came across plenty. They are all done from life, sitting at the harbour or on a fallen log in the case of the woods overlooking the marina.

 

I had drawn the propeller from our yacht after I cleaned and polished it a few years ago before we sold it.

 

I scanned each sketch, printed them on paper, then printed the script and cut out and assembled the pieces till I was happy with the composition and rescanned the sheet ready for the next step.

I bonded a piece of plain white cotton fabric to some vliesofix (bondaweb) and then printed my scanned image on it.

 

Now the fun begins, I found some pretty sky printed fabric in my stash and ironed on the bonded image before I coloured the background and pictures to match the border with my inktense pencils.

I then wetted the pigments with a fabric medium to bring out the colours as I've found that wetting them with water tends to make them run which doesn't happen with the medium.

I started on the embroidery using mainly running stitches to enhance the pictures, above you can see that I've done the right hand side only.

 

 

 

As I worked I started to realise that there were a few gaps that needed a little something extra and came up with the idea of adding the seagull at the top and a puffin which is the mascot of Perros Guirec. 

 Back to the sketchbook and a search through some photos and I made some more drawings to trace onto the vliesofix, iron onto fabric, cut out and stick to the picture.

 

As you can see they made the picture complete after a bit more embroidery. The border finishes it all off nicely, for that I did a line of running stitches in a blue thread  along the edge of the top layer of fabric and then wove the turquoise yarn through the stitches.  The whole picture measures 21 x 30 centimetres, just the right size to fit in an A4 envelope or frame. 

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my process and maybe have a go yourself!

 

 

MIDSUMMER SKETCHING

 

I love the summer when we can eat outside and especially enjoy our local speciality.

This sketch is in coloured pencils and pens.

A treat on a Sunday is oysters for lunch with a bottle of champagne, followed by some delicious cheese and salad.

Every shell is different and I always keep one or two to draw later.

Last Sunday was no different and I was inspired to get out my watercolours after visiting the annual festival of painters and chatting to Yann Lesacher, an artist who is walking the GR34 around Brittany and recording it in his sketchbooks.

This one is just drawn in a grey pen that looks like graphite and I decided to leave it unpainted.

 

The last one is my favourite, I've pushed the colours a bit but there really is purple and green in the shells. I'm thinking of a way to make textile depiction of an oyster shell....

 

I can't remember if I've posted this one before, it's in my nature sketchbook that gets occasional use when something outside inspires me.  I made it into textile art birthday card for a friend but I seem to have lost the scan.

 

We have a pair of magpies that live in and around our garden and I got quite excited when I saw them starting to build a nest in our silver birch tree.  Each day there were a few more twigs carefully woven into the structure and I was looking forward to watching the new family arriving and being brought up.  I went to England around this time for a fortnight and when I came back I soon realised the nest had been abandoned, it's possible the birds realised they hadn't made a good choice when the top of the tree was blown about in a storm!

 

 

We're all very concerned about the bees and when I saw one lying on the terrace I tried to give it a drink of sweetened water but sadly it didn't survive.  However I kept it to draw on a page where I had already drawn a tulip from my garden.

2018 SUMMER HOLIDAY PART 2

 

We had decided to cross the Pyrenees from coast to coast and here is one of my sketches done on a rare damp morning at a small camp along the way.  This tangled tree was right next to our parking spot and when the sun came out later it gave us some welcome shade while we took our lunch.

 

 

The tree had flowers and fruit at the same time and I enjoyed using my watercolour pencils to capture the fuzziness of the seed heads.

 

 

We only had one stop on the Mediterranean coast at Roses, just across the frontier  in Spain, which has a wonderful bay with sandy beaches and an interesting history.  I sketched and stitched the palm trees just in front of the café where we took our daily aperitif.

 

 

We then spent a week at Argeles Gazost, a wonderful place just south of Lourdes, the famous pilgrimage destination.  The snow capped mountains surrounded the town with a fast flowing river running through the valley.

 

 

This is the view from a high point in the town which I was able to sketch and stitch using some threads and organza I found in the weekly market that filled the centre on the Tuesday.

 

 

We discovered the 'voie verte,' a cycle track made from a disused railway that runs from Lourdes to Pierrefitte Nestalas.  What a fantastic couple of days we spent cycling in each direction and enjoying the views and the cool air when we came close to the river.

 

 

I was totally captivated by the sight of the cold water rushing  over the different coloured pebbles so I tried to capture it in a stitchpic.

 

 

Another view by the river, a clump of poppies caught my eye and soon that became another embroidery and then a birthday card for someone special.

We finished our holiday at St Jean de Luz for a few days then on to Nantes for a couple of nights on the last leg of our return home.

 

 

I didn't have time to sketch while we were at St Jean de Luz so here is one I did on an earlier visit showing the typical architecture.

 

 

 

2018 SUMMER HOLIDAY

 

We set off at the beginning of June only 65 kilometres down the road to Carantec where we met up with Stéphanie, my middle granddaughter who is studying geology at Cardiff uni.

We spent a lovely Sunday together which ended with this enormous cloud that covered the sky and started a 3 hour thunderstorm with torrential rain.

 

We had a delicious crepe lunch and then a walk along the shore collecting pebbles and learning about the rocks from Steph.

The view out to sea was beautiful with perfect blue sky and golden beaches edged with wild flowers.

 

I turned  the sketch into a stitch picture using organza and assorted yarns.

After waiting another 2 days for the weather to clear we decided to go home and re-start our holiday later. We studied the forecasts and  made the decision to go south to the Mediterranean coast where it was a lot warmer!

 

 

On the 8th of June we set off again southwards through the Massif Central with it's lovely views from the A75 free motorway  of the amazing wild flowers and the extinct volcanoes in the distance.

 

 

The sketch also became another stithpic which I worked on for several days when we reached our next destination.

 

 

We made a stopover for the weekend at Millau on on a peaceful wooded campsite by the river Tarn.

 

There was a gang of ducks that came by every day at the same tome on the scrounge for crumbs, quacking and wagging their tails.

SKETCHBOOK 45 STARTED

 

I've been back home for nearly a month now and I realised I hadn't posted my sketches from my trip to England at the end of April.

I started a new sketchbook and the first drawing was done while I was staying with Jo at Whitstable. The weather was perfect and we spent most of our time in the garden where we were able to admire their magnificent pear tree covered in white blossom.

 

 

I drew the tree first then started a stitch portrait of a sprig of the flowers, on some pretty sky printed fabric with a layer of organza under the image to make the whites stand out.  As it was intended as a thank you card for Jo I had to hunt for some card to mount it on while she was at work and wrap it in plain paper as it's just too big for an envelope.

 

 

On one of my days at Whitstable I had the time to sit by the beach and draw Jo and James's favourite pub, the Neptune, that stands almost on the water's edge and where many a Friday night is celebrated.

 

Jo's cat Mac is getting very old now and spends most of his time asleep but he knows when I need him to keep still to be drawn and immediately moves.  He lost his voice while I was there and it was very strange to see a normally very noisy cat opening his mouth but no sound coming out!

 

Jo has a willow tree as well and it was just coming into leaf and opening it's catkins and it also became my favourite place to sit in the shade and sew when I had the time.

 

After 6 days it was time to move on to Justine's and we met up at my mother-in-law's house to do 'the granny hostage exchange' as it's now called!

I spent 4 days with Justine and on one of them she had organised an outing with 2 other friends to a garden where we listened to a talk, had a delicious lunch and then a tour of the walled garden.

Later I sketched this view in Justine's garden of a pair of silver birches surrounded by colourful azaleas.

 

 

I decided to embroider it as a thank you card for her but didn't finish it till I was at Juliet's so I had to post it back to Justine before I left the country.

 

 

I spent a lovely 4 more days with Juliet and her family, feeling very cherished and relaxed.  I drew this on Sunday afternoon after church and lunch while the family all rested.

 

Juliet goes to a friend every Tuesday for painting instruction and this time I was able to go to and meet Nan, a 91 year old lady living in a beautiful 17th century cottage.  While they painted I drew the view through the window.

Well that's it so far as we're off on our travels in the camping car at the beginning of June to visit more of Brittany, keep your fingers crossed for some warm, dry weather otherwise we'll be coming back home too soon!