Forty Season Scarves cont...

When I noticed the Jay at the side of the road in 2012 on our way back from Cornwall (here) I would never have guessed that his colours would be the start of a new scarf collection but I've always found that as long as I take the first step, there's always the probability it will lead to the next.

I'm very pleased that they've been such a success, not least because I so enjoy printing them. At last I've had a chance to print a few to go on sale in my online shop (here). Every one is an individual having its own unique character, pattern and colour balance (just like people really!). The scarf you'll see in the image on the shop is the scarf you can uniquely own.


























Printing in the studio with Luna on the alert and a Swallow scarf...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Cornwall Design Fair - 14th - 16th August, 2015!

I find it easy to berate myself for not doing absolutely everything! In this instance it's drawing (and my colour notebook) that's slipped. I remind myself that Professor John Miles, (a brilliant print tutor on my M.A.), told me that you cannot draw all the time, but that you have to stop, in order to allow the inspiration that comes through drawing, become the design, or product or painting etc. In my experience this is certainly the case.

In the meantime then, here's a preview of the work in the making that I've been screen-printing for Cornwall Design Fair next weekend, do come along if you are anywhere near Penzance next weekend - it's going to be great!!

On the print table today, a Great Spotted Woodpecker scarf, remember him?

Not yet for sale in my online shop because happily, each has sold as soon as I've printed it. Every scarf is unique, made from 100% woven Cashmere they are as light and soft as a feather!


http://www.cornwalldesignfair.co.uk/

Summer Beech panel, here I'm about to print the second black outline screen...

Very rare Heath Fritillary...

and a spectacular, prize winning, (white) Spider Chrysanth..!

Colour from the Season - Magpie feather blue

Two for joy!

Magpies have been flying into my field of vision lately. First on a amazing vase exhibited at my open studios a month or so ago by ceramic artist, Jacqueline Leighton Boyce (see below). Then last week I found a single feather across my path, I'm superstitious about Magpies - is that one for sorrow I thought? but when it was followed by a similar feather in the same spot a week later, I decided, two for joy!

Colour wise I was astonished to discover an iridescent cyan blue edging the soft brown along one side of both feathers. I had to draw them because they were so marvellous.

The "Magpies" vase was too beautiful to part with. I love the fact that it has a Magpie on each side, therefore although one is hidden you know joy is just around the corner. It is without any doubt, one of my favourite things...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colours from the Season - Rook feather black

Right in the middle of clearing one end of my studio to display work for Art Trek open studios last week, I was given a young dead Rook that had been killed on the road. Too big to be stored alongside the Thrush and Bullfinch currently in my freezer, I had to struggle to make time to sketch him but as always with drawing, I felt much the better for it.

A juvenile Rook looks a lot like a Carrion Crow, and so is difficult to identify, but the colour of the beak and shape of the head, suggests that this is a young Rook. Unexpectedly majestic close up; Victorian Gothic black plumage with iridescent purple highlights; dusty brown downy back feathers; slate grey beak and, on the sides and underside of the beak, slashes of pale pink...

Bank holiday sketching...

Right handed...

Photographed progress of the sketch.

If you happen to be in North Devon next weekend, please drop by my studio (looking fantastically tidy) and say hello! Second and final weekend for Art Trek open studios with Jacqueline Leighton Boyce, Judith Westcott and Mary Melling.

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Swallow feather blue

The Swallow's journey back and forth between the U.K. and South Africa is miraculous, they arrive in April and May and usually depart in September, travelling 200 miles a day, maximum flight speed 35 mph! They are such an uplifting sight to see and herald the Summer, (as long as there's more than one of course).

Sadly this Swallow got trapped in a barn last Autumn and couldn't make the journey to it's winter home. Desiccated as he was in reality, I chose to paint him at peace and who knows, perhaps he's already flying in another life.

Such iridescence in that blue - truly extraordinary..!

pencil sketch...

paint before a touch of ink.

Many thanks to Judith for bringing him round for me to sketch, see her wonderful lino-cut prints here

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Screen-printing - Budgie Chrysanth Bespoke

It's a relief when a custom print is successful. It requires attention to detail as mistakes are expensive, both in terms of time and wasted fabric. I've just printed this Budgie Chrysanth panel (in fact it's still drying on the print table). Hard to see in these images taken in artificial light but it is pretty damn perfect! 

The customer saw my work earlier in the year at Selvedge Fair and phoned to ask if I could print a fabric panel to hang on the wall of her new kitchen, matching the colours in her blind (a Sanderson fabric (left)). Here's the printed colour swatch I sent her...

Once the colour was okayed, I sample printed to check number of squeegee pulls as this can vary hugely depending on the dye, type and weight of fabric etc. Very glad I did this, if I'd guessed I think I would have got it wrong...

There are fine details in areas of this design. Too many pulls with the squeegee, and the white of the Budgies eyes will fill in, however not enough pulls and other areas will not have enough print coverage, so it's tricky and had to be just right... 

Learning to stay away from my feet when I'm printing - Luna...

Colour from the Season - Great Spotted Woodpecker red

The last two months have been busy, I've worked almost every day including weekends yet I have still fallen behind with deadlines, which is unusual. Honestly, I think I've been quite sad and maybe this has been the incentive to finally draw this beautiful Great Spotted Woodpecker that a friend gave me earlier this year (he's been in the freezer).

I drew two sketches, I liked aspects of both, the wings and feet of the first and the head of the second (below). The feathers are mainly soft neutrals, contrasting black and white spot patterned, and a dramatic red crown - I thought Constructivist colours...

The first sketch...

(spilled the ink)

and in every rare spare moment - I've been training Luna..!

'My Head is an Animal' by Of Monsters and Men (2011) is what I'm playing to death at the moment. This one's 'Slow and Steady'...



...from my seasonal colour sample notebook

Colour from the Season - Owl Feather brown

I was given some feathers from a Tawny Owl some time ago (also a Woodpecker), however this is the first moment that I've felt in quite the right mood to draw them!

Serrated and fringed wing feathers and fluffy down feathers, make the Owls flight almost silent. The colours themselves are also quietly beautiful - late Autumnal maybe?

Being without Chip was like life without colour, so last week I decided to look for a dog who was needing a home - and Luna moved in on Monday...

"There is always something left to love"

(Gabriel Garcia Marques,
100 Years of Solitude)

The little things - Robin Redbreast

The little things in life that make the difference...

...Roy introducing me to his friend in the local woodland (location and inspiration for so many notebook sketches on my blog) - amazing lovely and amazing (!!) and well it certainly made my day today, (thanks Roy!).

Eye contact...

Colour from the Season - Song Thrush brown

This week two things a bit out of the ordinary.

For weeks a friend (Pete) has been enjoying the song of a Thrush, then on Thursday, he found it dead  in his garden and was very upset about it. (He thought it was probably chased by a bird of prey causing it to fly into a shed and break its neck). He knew that I would like to draw it, and I did. It was incredible to draw and hold a Song Thrush I can tell you.

I sketched it twice - below some of the sketch developments,  I overworked the (first) sketch, because, well, I think I wanted to do my best, for the Song Thrush as well as for Pete's sake..!

First sketch at different stages ending in above...



































Second sketch, much faster, I liked the detailing in the wing, and preferred the looseness of the drawing, but the first sketch won out for composition.

Then I got an email (Friday) offering me a late stand at the Selvedge Spring Show (A Textile fair in London) - in 3 weeks! - which I've taken them up on - better get printing...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Pheasant blues

It was a bit of a shock to be given a dead Pheasant. I've been wanting to draw one, in fact the timing couldn't have been better, but still a shock!

All along the main roads here on the edge of Exmoor are warnings about the deer and you do see the odd deer - but not a single sign to prepare you for the daily hazard - the scores of Pheasants who strut (nonchalantly) into the path of traffic.

This one was still warm but very dead. A beautiful bird, its neck feathers gradated colour from deep blue through to green and shades of turquoise in between - a white ruff, followed by the richest browns, ochres, creams, far too many in fact to show them all here...

Ink sketch - Unlike other birds I've drawn, I felt uneasy drawing this Pheasant, partly the sheer scale. Decided that I'd have just one attempt at it. In the end this sketch took about 8 hours.

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Jay blue

This handsome Jay measured a foot long from head to tail! A member of the Crow family yet so much more colourful. Still warm when I found it, its eyes were open and had an unexpected intensely pale blue iris.

Had we been driving along that stretch of road a few minutes earlier or later, it would almost certainly not have been there. In the short time it took to pull over, a Crow tried to carry him off lifting him out of the ditch into the path of oncoming traffic. So, a rare opportunity to study and make a note of the truly extraordinary colours that I found in the plumage of the Jay...

These exquisitely drawn prints by the French artist Edouard Traviés are in Treriefe House, Cornwall. I saw them when I exhibited my work there in August during Cornwall Design Fair and found them inspirational.

Another Traviés image - of a Jay (c. 1854).

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook

Colour from the Season - Great Tit yellow

Not all my colours have been exactly seasonal. I've drawn feathers, lichen, shells etc. when I've discovered interesting and beautiful forms and colours and thought them worth recording. My dad loved birds and often encouraged me to draw them. Since his death earlier this year, by chance, I've been given a number of dead birds to draw. While it's sad that these birds have died, it's an opportunity to draw and document them and learn about their anatomy through studying them, which would be impossible in quite the same way from a photograph.

This is a Great Tit, sent to me last week by a friend who found it in their studio, quite a bit bigger and more aggressive looking than a Blue Tit. I drew him last week before going for a short holiday (camper vanning!) in St. Ives. On the last stretch of road before arriving back home today, lay a dead Jay...

The first pencil and acrylic sketch.



















The second (one handed) sketch.

finished second sketch - again acrylic and pencil.

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...from my seasonal Colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Bullfinch orange

Helping Marie to get a print project off the ground, she told me that she spent the previous night printing and couldn't think of any better way to have fun on a Friday night! She asked what I'd been doing, and I told her I'd drawn a dead Bullfinch. I think my evening just had the edge over hers, though I know what she means about screen printing.

A friend found this beautiful (male) Bullfinch and gave it to me to draw. It was another rare opportunity to examine a wild bird closely.  This was the second sketch as I wanted to get it right - or until I felt ok with the drawing. The beak of the Bullfinch is designed for voraciously eating buds and fruit, the orange of its feathers is almost equal parts magenta and yellow...

Outline sketch and first brush work - (acrylic paint)

At this point I wasn't happy with it.

Its coming on Samantha - as my art teacher at school would say (usually when I'd finished).

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Blue Tit blue

Running out of time this month, but decided that as we've had a beautiful pair of Blue Tits nesting in the wall in our garden again this year, who've been there all of this past month, these feathers (that I was given) should really be included in May's colours.
Very shy, and especially when nesting, just flashes of blue and yellow as they flit in and out of the rambling rose (just starting to flower).

Captured here in pencil and acrylic...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Goldcrest gold

My dad encouraged me to draw birds, but not dead things - so I did wonder as I drew this dead Goldcrest what he would have thought of this post.

Tragically this one was killed by a friend's cat and so he gave it to me. While I would far rather it hadn't died, it was a rare opportunity to draw one from life [sic] and to document the colours in its crest and feathers.

It's the UK's smallest bird, this one's a male and so has a brilliant yellow crest with an orange centre, (the females have just pure yellow). I documented the hue of the feathers as accurately as possible but it's impossible to translate the almost iridescent brilliance of the real thing into flat colour.













































outline pencil sketch,

























drawing at least twice lifesize -
used a magnifying glass to see detail...

ink wash and acrylic...

More info about the Goldcrest on the RSPB website here

(I realise that birds and feathers aren't necessarily seasonal but I include them here - just because...)

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.