My Love Affair with Drawing Continues

Whether it's drawing with the sewing machine or on paper with pen or pencil my love affair with drawing continues. I've been working on ideas for illustrations, doing pencil drawing first then careful pen an dink versions, the second one here was when I added some colour to the back ground using a watercolour wash and extra elements in Photoshop. It's always a case of trying things but also listening to what my heart is drawn to. It's painfully long process sometimes, finding what it is that I want to say, and i'm only just beginning.

Recent Adventures

It's been a very busy few months with moving my belongings out of storage from the house I used to share with me ex and trying to organise and simplify it all. Going through all my stuff was emotional with a mix of highs and lows and also some surprises. I found so many unfinished art and craft projects, and spent quite a lot of time looking at them thinking they were less rubbish than I'd remembered! Some of them I got rid of but some of them I've hung onto with the intention of using them in some way or finishing them off.  I honestly didn't know how much I had. I do however now have a quite a collection of vintage fabrics and some of those were a joy to find and I've started using bits and pieces. I've only just started producing more consistently though after all the upheaval, and I'm also working on my drawings, vegan ideas etc. Here's a little update of what I've been doing:

This is a rather colourful one of a crow after feeling inspired by a commission someone asked me to do which was using a crow image. I think in hindsight I'd like to tone down the colour combos, but learning what I like is all a part of the process and never see things as mistakes just as an ongoing development.

This is was the first stag I did, which I liked very much actually. I've decided stags are one of my favourite subjects because their antlers are such  a fascinating shape and they are so magnificent to look at.

Following how much i enjoyed the first one I decided to do a follow up, I think I'll be doing a few of these!

Little Pleasures

I know I've been rubbish at keeping up my blog but I'm making a promise to myself to start being more consistent even if it just means posting photos of bits and bobs and unfinished pieces that I'm playing around with. It's been bust old month with family commitments but no excuse! I got all my vintage fabrics out of storage last week and I've been having a wonderful time going through them all, I really do love them, colours and patterns just do it or me what can I say!

This led me an intense urge to make lots of pretty little things, like brooches and ACEO cards. I've always had a creative fetish for the small and miniature, no idea for that where that comes from but I love it. I made some of these little ACEO, or ATC cards. I came across the whole ACEO thing accidentally on ebay of all places. It stands for Artists Collectibles, Editions and Originals, a kind of step on from Artists Trading Cards because ether tend to get sold instead of traded. Well what ever, it's an excuse of remaking lovely little things with my bits and pieces, so here are some of my experiments below, soon to be all in my Etsy shop:

Thread drawings from the last couple of weeks

I've been trying  a variety of images and exploring what I enjoy, here are a few experiments from the last couple of weeks:

New Thread Drawings

  I've been trying hard to get into the swing of some kind of routine when it comes to working and producing consistently, which seems to go against my nature! But I'm moving in the right direction as I have managed to be producing on a more regular basis. I've been enjoying my freehand embroidery on the sewing machine more and more. I feel like I've found the perfect way of combining my love of drawing and vintage fabrics, the quality of line drawing with wonderful patterns and colours. I've even managed to start listing things on Etsy now. Slow progress is better than no progress so heres to moving forward!

More Fun with the Sewing Machine

It's a all trial and error, sometimes mostly error!

Just some more 'drawings' from the last week. I've found though that I really need to use a much thicker interfacing, as you can see there is a quite a bit of puckering from where I've worked into the fabric more intensely or when I have set the piece on an embroidery hoop first. some of them have come out well, others not so well but then that's the point, to try different things and see what works.

Freehand Machine Embroidery

I started trying freehand machine embroidery ages ago but hadn't gone back to it for a little while but then these last couple of weeks I'd felt a growing urge to try it again. I think I was feeling inspired after going through bags of my vintage textiles and the simultaneous need to draw. Once I'd given it a go again, only this time with a more ordered process I realised that I'm a bit in love with it!

My process involves lining a nice piece of fabric with interfacing, to make it more stable, and then sewing appliqué pieces from another piece of fabric, usually flowers on to the fabric for added colour and interest. Once that was done I used a pencil sketch, either of my own drawing or of a photo onto thin tracing paper and then with a freehand machine foot and the right stitch setting would 'draw' around the outline of the sketch. I'd then take the paper off, ripping it carefully to remove it from the stitches, and would carry on filling in the details and the rest of the drawing so that most of it really is freehand.

Here are some photos of the results, I think they turned out well, better than expected. I've started setting some of them on embroidery hoops for frames and selling them on Etsy. I intend to do a lot more and experiment with all kinds of designs. I'm genuinely feeling excited about this whole new way of working. It allows me to work with beautfil textiles, patterns and colour AND drawing, it really couldn't get much better in my world! I would highly recommend people give it a go.