From sketch, through process, to finished product, and finally exhibition!

Well it's taken us a year or two, (or even three), but finally KAIROS, the small group of artists I belong to are having our Bird Exhibition, Gokotta, from the 6th-22nd March at DC1, 67-69 Seaside Road in Eastbourne, BN21 3PD East Sussex UK.

It feels like quite a journey, because we decided to set ourselves a project inspired by bird song at least three or maybe even four years ago. Gokotta, the title of our exhibition is Swedish for 'getting up early to hear the birds singing'! We are a mixed age group of six women, and inevitably life and work gets in the way. Babies are born, we move house, poor health happens, and family events all give us obstacles to overcome, but thankfully, we do seem to have held on to our dreams. 

I hope this post will be self explanatory, I thought I would whet your appetites by showing some of the processes I go through before actually arriving at the finished piece. I know that I have posted about some of this work before, but I'm hoping that they may be a reminder of what to expect from me if you manage to get to our exhibition.

Above shows how I gradually layer up fabrics, adding paint as I go along, and finally adding the free motion machine stitch.

I really enjoyed building up the textures in the sky, and hopefully you can see more detail in the close up shots below.

Finally, we have something here in Eastbourne called 'Secret Stones', which involves collecting stones from the beach to paint images or patterns on, and then hiding them around the area for children to find. It's a way of encouraging families and children to get out into the fresh air on a regular basis, and seems very popular. I was really thrilled when I discovered that there is a similar thing happening in Whangarei New Zealand, while staying with my daughter, and they call it 'Whangarei Rocks'.

I painted three stones giving details of our exhibition, and we are offering a small prize for anyone who finds them and brings them along to our art show.

We are also running bird related workshops during the show, including chicken drawing, clay work, card making and felt book wraps.

Now I do realise that there are followers of this blog who live in many far corners of this world, but if any one of you does happen to be in the Eastbourne are of Southern England during March, we would be extremely pleased to see you. I hope that the very cold snap we are expecting this coming week may have passed by the 6th, but if not, just make sure to wrap up warm. What I have shown here is just a tiny drop in the ocean of what you can expect to see, because the other five artists will be showing some beautiful pieces of bird related art, photography, 3d art and lots of  greetings cards. Bring your Mum along on Mothering Sunday, and there will be free cake to enjoy, so that MUST be worth a visit.

Gokotta, an exhibition about birds.

Having recently returned from a wonderful five weeks staying with my daughter in New Zealand, I am now feverishly trying to get my head around the fact that I am one of six artists preparing for an exhibition here in Eastbourne. It's title is Gokotta, which is Swedish for 'Getting up early to hear the bird song'. Hence my theme for this post being inspired by our feathered friends.

My daughter keeps chickens, so I spent a happy few hours one afternoon trying to sketch them, but for some reason they didn't seem to understand that I needed them to keep still!

Anyway, making quick sketches are always good practice for looking more thoroughly.

Eventually I collected a few of their feathers, and made some feather prints with paint. I intend to work into these prints, and did manage to make a start with the print at the top, adding some pen and paint for detail.

Above is a stitched textile of some feathers that I made a few years ago. If you like birds, and are interested in art, I can recommend a trip to Eastbourne this March.  We are also running some daily workshops which will be very inspiring, and you can find all details on the Gokotta link above. Maybe something to look forward to during this very cold spring we seem to be experiencing this year, so cheer yourself up, and come along! We would be very pleased to see you!

Happy Christmas.

A short post to wish you all a very Happy Christmas.

I have included a few photos of my latest creations, including the sketchbook I have made to take on my travels to New Zealand. I bound it with some watercolour paper printed with one of my textiles. I think this way of binding is called 'Butterbox'. You can see the stitching on the spine below.

The next few photos show some techniques from my Wednesday art class, and as you can probably guess, we used some leaves in this process.

Above and below, another technique from the same class using tissue paper and watercolour paint. Some very interesting textures were created this way.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who pop in to browse my blog from time to time, and to wish you all a very joyous, peaceful and creative 2018. I will hopefully be posting again in February, once I have returned from my New Zealand travels.

Experimental Collage

As usual, and in my haste, I neglected to take any photos of these experimental collages before I added the paint!  The above double spread, and the page on the left below, were made on some blank pages that I added to the book I made from my blue pages, (here). Strips were cut from magazine images, and I chose a variety of coastal views, with a couple of Eastbourne, including the pier with red poppies in the foreground. I had mixed up the images, but somehow, they didn't seem to gel or work together, so out came the white acrylic paint, and a roller! I needed to keep the theme of 'coast', and I also wanted to keep the red poppy images in the foreground. After completing the page on the right, I decided to simplify further for the image on the left.

Above left, I had woven the strips of coastal images together, but again decided to roll over some white/blue paint, before collaging images of the shells. I took the patterns from the shells onto the background, to add more interest, and to try and meld the shells into the background. The page on the right, and below were made by combining text with collage, and I also used some of my own stamps to add interest to the two narrow pages above right.

Above is the reverse of the cut out text, but it gives quite an interesting view of the page underneath!

I tried to use newsprint to build up the coastal image above, and added some paint to the collage. I also copied a Haiku underneath the image, and a phrase that I came across onto some tracing paper on the right.

The collaged pansies above have also had some painted flower heads added, with the Haiku copied onto the last part of the concertina book

To finish off this post is another experimental piece, and here I have collaged crumpled up white tissue paper onto a piece of mountboard, and then added the paint after the glue was dry. It reminds me of looking through a bramble hedge to a sunset behind.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have enjoyed this post!

Downsizing and Manipulation.

This all started with one very large sheet of paper that we were given in our art class. The idea was to use a large brush, and some paint or ink, and to cover our paper with brush strokes, dribbles, splashes, swirls, lines, in fact any marks we felt moved to make. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of my piece until after I had cut it up, working further into each smaller sheet.

I cut my pieces into approximately 10" x 20", folding each piece in half, ready to make into a book. 

I have clamped my 'signatures' together, ready for stitching.

I had enough paper left over to make a smaller book, with pages of about 5" square. Above is the cover for the smaller book, one of my previous paintings from a while back, and printed onto some cotton cloth.

This book has inspired me to add some paintings from photos I have taken along the seafront. The textures and shapes on some of the pages seemed to lend themselves as backgrounds for sea birds, groynes, or pebbles. 

My attempt at a Haiku!

After taking photos of these pages, I was able to manipulate the colours and textures in Photoshop, giving me alternative ideas for further experimentation.

Above and below are some results which I used to make covers for another small book.

I also played around with the colours.

I have left the reverse of these pages blank, giving me the opportunity to add some written words, and some other art work that I have made inspired by my photos of ripples on a pond.

Still a few scraps from my prints left over, so I have used gold acrylic paint on the reverse side, and made a couple of concertina books. I wasn't quite sure what to do on the gold side, until I bought a copy of this wonderful book. In fact, I bought two copies, one for my six year old grandson, and one for myself. It is, 'the lost words' by Robert Macfarlane, and illustrated by Jackie Morris. Such a beautiful book, and I noticed that many of the wonderful illustrations are on a gold background. I experimented by drawing on my gold backgrounds with black waterproof pens, so collected some autumnal plants to sketch on the reverse of the narrow pages.

Quite a long post this time, so well done if you managed to get to this point, and thanks for reading.