Colour from the Season - Rosa Rugosa hip red

In May I documented the colour of the Rosa Rugosa when the bushes were covered in roses. They still have a few flowers on the dense bushes but now the hips have taken over as the dominant feature. The tomato like fruits have what are called long persistent sepals - these strange leafy protrusions coming out of the bottom of the fruit are visually extra-ordinary and great to draw!

Although the red and green are strong and contrasting, the less saturated orange and brown shades soften the overall intensity of the palette...

I tasted them to see what they were like (very rich in vitamin C but remove the seeds first!). They're a bit like a soft apple or pear but with slightly more citrus, not bad!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Petunia phantom black

Adding an touch of drama to the Petunia market. The complementary contrasts of deepest purple/black, green and a very unusual shade of yellow. Loved by hummingbirds apparently, but as their habitat's a few thousand miles away, sadly I don't think that they'll make it as far as my garden..!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Broad bean green

Broad beans are in season. These have got chocolate spot, which adds an extra colour and interesting splatter pattern to the pods! The tactile pods open up to reveal the downy palest green cocoon protecting the smooth beans held in line with a vibrant yellow hinge..!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Crows garlic yellow

These are the summer colours of a wild garlic named Crow's garlic (Allium Vineale). I came across it at a friends house a few nights ago, and agreed in a mad moment to give up the drawing in exchange for the specimen. It wasn't so much the colour I was after (for a change) - but the head of it was so comical - I just fancied drawing it. I grow garlic every year so I'm also interested in it. Found in roadsides and field edges, every part of this wild garlic is edible I believe..!

first pencil and wash sketch

black ink drawing before it parted from my sketchbook!

my garlic crop this year!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Sweet Pea garden

In the language of flowers, Sweet Peas mean farewell. The name is believed to have been first used by the poet John Keats who wrote:

"Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings"- 'I stood tip-toe upon a little hill' c.1817























































These are the wonderful colours I sampled from them
for C, S, T, H & P with love xxxxx

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Firecracker Yellow

Yellow is such a cheerful colour - I love it! and this Firecracker yellow set against it's deep red/brown leaves is a particularly vibrant combination. Also known as Hairy Loosestrife, unlike its cousin Purple loosestrife, it's vigorous but not invasive and sweetly fragrant. Here are the full set of the colours I sampled from it..!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Sea Holly blue

Keeping up with this colour notebook, I find myself looking at things more intently than I used to and have to restrain myself from delving into borders to sample colours that I like the look of (though I will admit I've found it impossible to resist a couple!). My intention was to document at least a years (four seasons) worth, but I've a feeling this colour relationship might go on even longer.

Well, it rained on St Swithin's day last week! - but I  happen to know that Sea Holly is flowering at the coast at the moment and it likes sun, so, optimistically, maybe it's a good time to highlight it's hazy summer colours...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Collaboration- Bucks Mills Cabin - A Modern Take

Collaborating with three other designers in the visually interesting and inspirational setting of Bucks Mills Cabin (owned by The National Trust), was a challenging incentive to develop new site specific work. This needed to be sympathetic to the interior of the cabin and each other. So it was gratifying when it looked fantastic at the opening last Thursday, subtly transforming and enhancing the interior with nothing out of balance with either the original artefacts, nor the other designers' pieces.

If you haven't been to see the exhibition it is open from Friday 22nd - Sunday 24th July (Location and details here) and here's a few images showing some of the transformations we made..!

ceramics by RAMP

Lamp by pachadesign, ceramics by RAMP

Textiles by Sam Pickard, ceramics by RAMP

mirror by pachadesign, textiles by Sam Pickard

curtain by Sam Pickard, Ceramics by RAMP

Table by pachadesign, chair by Sam Pickard.

Thanks again to Jago from Proof magazine for her great review of our exhibition, also to Selvedge and Crafts magazine for kindly advertising our exhibition on their blog! 

Colour from the season - Sheep's-bit blue

It's been a hectic few weeks. The opening of our exhibition (pachadesign, Ramp and myself) at Bucks Mills cabin was a perfect success and amazingly the sun shone all day! Here's the link to Proof Magazine's online blog description of the opening, which is far more beautifully described than anything I could say! Come and visit - It's open today, tomorrow and next weekend only. I'll be posting a few more images over the next couple of weeks.

Also thank you to Jago of Proof magazine for the additional Supermodern floral write up of my work on this exciting new arts diary blog. Subscribe to receive email updates here. (I have!)

Sheep's-bit, what a great name for a plant!  It's flowering right now around the rugged cliffs over the North Devon coastline - so called (I believe) because sheep like to graze on it. It's wearing these coastal colours at the moment..!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Giant Scabious yellow

This giant perennial is extremely attractive and smells slightly of aniseed in the summer. The colour of the yellow on one website I noticed was described as lemon, well it really isn't that! The delicately scruffy pale yellow flowers are tinged with green and not at all the strong yellow of a lemon. More a Scabious yellow I'd say! It's loved by bees and butterflies, mainly Peacocks and Red Admirals but here in the notebook featuring a Bath White...

special  thanks to bec and pete for letting me borrow this cutting!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The little things - The President's Prize!

Flying high last friday when my Moths and Butterflies exhibit won the President's Award at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen in Bovey Tracey! It was a real honour to receive this, and particularly as it's their Silver Jubilee celebration year. Fantastic also to finally see the finished design displayed in their (architecturally designed) gallery space and not just from a ladder above my print table! 

later spotting my little leopard moth as a very large banner on the side of the building was exciting too!

Finally thank you to Ekta Kaul for the lovely posting on her blog about my work. A very talented textile designer herself. You can follow her blog here.

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

The little things - Bucks Mills Cabin

A big thank you to Sammy and Glenn of pachadesign for inviting me to be part of their exciting exhibition which opens next weekend at Bucks Mills Cabin in the charming village of Bucks Mills on the North Devon Coast!

This tiny house, 'The Cabin' was the summer home of artists Judith Ackland and Mary Stella Edwards from the 1920's to the 1970's, and it's still an evocative time capsule of their lives together. Left exactly as it was in the 1970's, today it is owned and preserved by the National Trust (read their blog post about the exhibition here )

 
"The project with pachadesign, Sam Pickard and Ramp is a great way to bring the cabin to life in 2011. Involving local artists who are also inspired by the same coastline as Judith and Mary, 'A Modern Take' exhibition is the perfect opportunity to open the doors of the cabin to the general public and get people talking about contemporary craft and design, in a setting which is lost in a different era." - Hannah Jefferson from The National Trust. 

Each designer taking part will select a few of the objects from the cabin and replace them with pieces of their own work, pachadesign (furniture), Ramp (Ceramics) and Sam Pickard (textiles). Here's a few images from the interior and exterior of the cabin, (prior to any objects being replaced!)...



















The cabin will be open 15-17 & 22-24 July from 11am - 3pm.



















and the designers...

www.pachadesign.co.uk

www.rampceramics.com

and myself..!

Colour from the season - Meadow Grass green

Out and about at the coast with Chip this weekend, the sun was shining, the meadow grasses were swaying in the wind, the sea was fabulous green/blue and it was just one of those near perfect English summer days.

These grass colours give exactly that uplifting sunshine feeling...

gorse and coast

foxglove and sea

Chip and grass

(& happy birthday to Josse!xx)

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Stinking Iris purple

Seasonal colours don't stay around for too many weeks, I'm concentrating on the plants I like the idea of drawing as well as the colour interest - well, theres such a blooming abundance at the moment!

Stinking Iris (Iris foetidissima)... I documented the berry pods in January in a preserved salt air dried state when I came upon them at the coast, now here's the flower. It's a quiet sort of flower, easy to miss, but absorbing to draw. We inherited them with our garden and usually I forget about them until the structured pods open up in the Autumn revealing loud shiny orange berries. Named so because of the smell of roast beef when its leaves are crushed..?!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The little things - night and day

Earlier this year I drew about forty butterflies and moths as a starting point for my next fabric collection and also for a Silver Jubilee exhibition at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen who have a wonderful contemporary Crafts gallery in Bovey Tracey, Devon.

Some of the drawings ...

Chose twenty-five for the final exhibition piece, these were to be printed as individual small canvasses which would hang together as one wall piece. The first one that I sample printed was a little spotty Wood Leopard Moth...

One down 25 to go..!





















All twenty-five eventually printed (phew) and twenty-one of these, selected for the final mounted pieces. These make up one large statement wall piece of twelve butterflies and nine moths (photographed on my print table before they went off last week).


Designed to fly together but every one an individual..!

The exhibition 'A Silver Thread' opens at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen in Bovey Tracey, Devon on 2nd July and will be on until 4th September.

Colour from the season Woody Nightshade purple

Green highly glossy poisonous berries, purple and yellow flowers, these are the colours of the Woody Nightshade. Brother to the deadly, uncle to the potato and unlikely cousin to the tomato (amongst it's numerous family members). Beware..!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Blackberry flower pink

Blackberry's are starting to flower here in Devon. As a child, blackberry picking was part of our late summer weekend outings and I still have memories of my scratched hands and arms and the purple stains on our hands and mouths which went along with this! Not only did my mum and dad make blackberry wine, but also blackberry jam, various bramble jellies not to mention the stewed blackberry and apple puddings (which I loathed). The slim thorns which are angled downwards to do maximum damage are vicious. Here are a few of the colours I discovered in the stems yesterday...

..from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Rose Warm Wishes Pink

I drew this rose while watching Mission Impossible. Not the kind of multi-tasking that I normally do - drawing and watching films, but it came about because of a shortage of time. Quite tricky, but I had someone at hand to translate the more complex parts of the film and I pretty well got the gist of it! I wonder if my sketch picked up an essence of the film? It was an amazing rose - It had dropped all it's petals the following morning - possibly the after shock..!

some of the incredible colours sampled from it - really summery and uplifting. Blooming in my mum's garden and mine too.

Warm wishes!


...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The little things - studio opening

I'm opening my studio this weekend and next, during the
North Devon Festival for Art Trek 2011. It was with some trepidation I decided to do this back in February, as my studio was in complete dis-array and my dad was very ill.
But… I decided that there's nothing more galvanising than
a deadline to work towards, and especially if it involves a commitment to other people. So… I asked a few friends who are very good designers and makers to join me…
and here I am, a few days before the deadline, painting and generally giving the studio a bit of a face lift, with new work (still) in the making!

If you happen to be in South Molton, North Devon either this weekend (Friday 10th - Sunday 12th or next ( Friday 17th - Sunday 19th) then please call in - you will be very welcome and we will be here..!

The Venue...in North Street, South Molton, EX36 3AN - on the North boundary of St Mary Magdalene Church.
The sky will be blue!

Sam Pickard - Textile/Surface designer maker...

below:Vibernum print with snail...

also...
David Cleverly celebrated sculptural ceramics.
below - Two dog's meet...

Paula Slater MA (RCA)- lighting design creative.
below: laser cut paper lights...

Glen Marsdon MA (RCA)- Print maker extraordinaire.
below St. Pauls. Cyanotype and copy transfer original print.

Colour from the Season - Foxglove purple

Common (wild) foxgloves are invading the banks and hedgerows at the moment. This one was collected from an area of cleared woodland where I spotted masses of them, humming with bumblebees.
Digitalis is used to make medicines for the treatment of heart conditions but it is also a deadly poison. All parts of the plant are highly toxic. It's slightly unnerving to handle plants which are this poisonous, especially when (as usual) I only discover the full degree of their toxicity after I've already drawn and dissected the plant.

















































the bumblebee who came into the kitchen to gather pollen from the foxglove while I was drawing.

(off to wash my hands again!)

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...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.