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Showing posts from 2014

Shades of Indigo.

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Phew!!  We certainly hit the ground running in the second year of my degree course….. Our module brief  'Shades of Indigo' asked us to create designs for fashion textiles using 'indigo' as our colour palette. Well, everything has turned blue, not only paper and fabric, but my hands( no gloves) and  several white shirts (oh.. where did I put my apron) . I needed to produce thirty paper designs and fifteen fabric designs using print, stitch and manipulation. Heres a selection of my work. My inspiration came from my summer sketchbook. I had experimented with Oriental brush painting. I also looked at Japanese textiles especially 'Boro' with is now considered an art form although it was initially a utilitarian way of preserving clothes and other textiles. During my further research I looked at the work of 'Yayoi Kusama' who lives and works in Japan and works with repeated 'Polka Dots.                                        

Adeline.

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I love the look and feel of cloth dolls and the quirkier the better. There is a real pleasure in searching through the internet and looking at American Primitive dolls, there appeal is endless. My friend Joan had a birthday recently so I made "Maddy" as a gift for her. This happy little soul now sits on a chair in her sitting room. One doll is never enough, so along came 'Adeline'. I am very fond of her as she dares to be different. She looks at life from all directions and is a proud individual. Her hair is wild, although she tries hard to tame it somehow it always has a windswept look. Her necklace is made from boot buttons from her grandmothers button box. She always has a wry smile on her face thinking about the scrapes she gets in to. We would all love her as a friend!! Coffee time now, off to meet another friend. Have fun. xox Angela.

A Summer of Design.

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At the end of our last term we were set a summer project to keep us busy during the holiday. We were asked to fill an A3 sketchbook with a documentation of our summer and to look for design opportunities in the every day. The trees in my last post are part of this sketchbook and were inspired by the artist David Hockney and his wonderful "Yorkshire Sketchbook". My work is a random look at places and events of the summer, Chelsea flower show,  The Tour De France in the UK, walks along the coast and various other ramblings. On a visit to the beach in Devon I came across a wonderful bed of alliums. Such lovely shapes and colours.                                                                                                                                                                               So many ways to draw and paint these majestic flowers. It would be great to develop this theme further  I couldn't resis

Hello, I'm still around…..

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Hello to all my lovely followers and apologies for my long absence. As you may know I started a BAHons degree in design last September. I have to say it has filled every waking moment (and often given me sleepless nights,) but I am loving every minute. I have been pushed way out of my comfort zone more times than I can count, learning new techniques and developing ones that I already knew. I have spent the summer break working on my sketchbook, visiting galleries, and researching many artists and designers. What a treat it's been. This is a piece of work on trees that I've been working on, the medium is ink on paper. I've also worked the piece on linen fabric using procion dyes and bleach the finishing with hand stitching. In between I've allowed myself the luxury of a little hand stitching inspired the Kantha work of the women in Bangladesh and Bengal. Some of these have added to my Etsy shop. I've really missed my b