Fish sketch, Shakespeare poem

Altered Book - North East [ATC's]

the 2 page spread

below - the ATC's can be removed -

the dragon is the Durham Oriental Museum logo, the sea horses are part of a sculpture on Newcastle quayside, the angel of the north has changed its head with a rock sculpture at Herrington Park & the horse statue is at Alnwick Castle.

Inspiration from Paper Beads

Below is the original city & guilds (embroidery) sample - handmade paper & clay beads on cord -

it's so awful, I thought I would mess about with it - resulting in the picture above.

Do Not Spit

A sign seen at Beamish Museum. [a working museum which recreates how the people of the North of England lived and worked in the early eighteen and nineteen hundreds]

Sea Shells and Frog Sketch

Drawing with pens from a sketch book

Goose with Bag

screen prints on paper & fabric, applique, machine embroidery

Lizard on Rolling Stamp Background

Mixed Media - rolling stamp background (acrylic & dye)

[see 'handmade rolling stamps' in August], CAD lizard

Cherub & Pigeon

From Sketch to Fabric

The fabric was for a competition entry a few years ago [while I was at college in 2005] held by the Bradford Textile Society, for digitally printed fabric [section 2] - my theme was Games. I started with painting a board and I collaged cut & torn papers. Then everything was scanned into the computer, and I separated the images from the background and arranged them on the screen. Other drawings were added and also an image of an old games board and after lots and lots of experimentation I arranged them so that the pattern would repeat. [Trial and error, although there was a program at college which could do repeats, I never did get the hang of it, (although I must admit I only ever tried it once - it wouldn't repeat in a way I wanted it to!)]

I had to show the design on boards in different colourways






And the finished design was printed on linen at college [CCAD] on one of those big digital textile printers.I was awarded a commendation by the Bradford Textile Society.

Snakes, Ladders and T-Pots

I've been drawing a lot of snakes recently, and this picture combines them and a lot of the other things I draw regularly such as t-pots, cups, games related items, cakes and flowers.

Crowned Angel of the North

Altered images

LollyPop Tree

This lovely round tree was spotted in Paris, France

[Louvre Museum] & now it's grown some lollypops.

Doodle to Screen Print

I altered the original doodle to make it into a repeating pattern, then made a screen using net [the plain type for windows] around a wooden frame. My picture was copied onto the screen using the Daler Rowney System 3 drawing fluid [then the screen block etc]. As you can see, although my pattern is a repeating one, you have to get the screen in the right position for the pattern to repeat properly and lets face it, mine doesn't. Oh well it was used for a background & most of it is covered up.

Earth Globe

Hand embroidery - I did this quite a few years ago, but it's still one I like to look at and touch. Some countries are easily recognizable but others you will need to use your imagination! I got the idea from a squeezable stress ball of the earth.

Chunky Squirrel

Seen at the Grand Canyon, USA, this picture was taken by my brother-in-law Ian

Playing Card Houses

North East Altered Sketch Book

Angel of the North with butterfly wings, the Sage building in blue and the little house can be found at Bedes World, Jarrow.

Screen Printed Tweety Birds

Screen printing and painting on paper [top one - cut & layered] , machine embroidery - 2 versions of the same bird.

Mini Art Quilt

My first try at mini quilts [I've done samples of quilting, but never made any type of quilt], this is one of three. The other two can be seen on the hand embroidery network exhibition [link below right]. The flower was silk painted and applied to a painted and stamped [rolling stamp of course] cotton fabric. It was then hand stitched in different colours, shades and thicknesses of thread. The flower edges and petal edges were stitched together with the wadding and background fabric to quilt it. The quilt was finished with dyed binding and a backing fabric.

Bird, Acorns, Bee & Flower Sketch

Another one from a sketch book [no4 page 20]. I like to put numbers on the pages so that I can find the sketch again if I need to. I quite often use the sketches in my drawing books to put in my creations.

HAND EMBROIDERED FISH

Top picture - hand embroidered fish with threads, ribbon, sequin and bead. The picture below shows the fish on a transfer print [hand painted paper transferred to fabric with iron]

Handmade Rolling Stamps

I have an article in the new issue [sep/oct 09] of Cloth, Paper, Scissors about handmade rolling stamps [some use recycled objects] and here are two examples of background papers created using some of the stamps.

Baltic Flour Mills - Altered Book Page

The walls are normally plain, but I thought it would be interesting to add sculpture, art and signs from the area seeing that the baltic is now an art gallery. In the background is the millenium bridge and the sage [newcastle/gateshead].

Round Box with water slip decals

This was a recycled turkish delight box and my very first try with water slip decals.
[If you've not used them before - they are inkjet papers that you use to print on & then spray with acylic varnish 3 times. It's then put in water so that the backing can be peeled off to apply to your surface, when dry, varnish again to seal.]
My example didn't work perfectly as you can see as I didn't have varnish - I used inkjet spray - having said that it doesn't look to bad at the top so maybe it was my spraying method. But warts and all, I do still quite like the finished not too perfect look of it.

Cockerel - Screen Printed Papers

screen printed papers, cockerel stitched onto background with sewing machine

North East Angel - Altered Book Page

Page in an altered book featuring the Angel of the North

Screen Printed Flower

screen printed papers, shapes cut out, collaged, stitched

Harry Hotspur

A page from my North East sketch book. The horse is a statue at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland with Sir Henry Percy [born 1364] or Harry Hotspur as he is known riding. Alnwick Castle is also famous for another Harry - some of the Harry Potter films were shot there.

North East Sketch Book

Castles in the North East

[transfer laser prints, photo transfer, text, laser print, paint]

Square Eyed Bird

Screen prints on painted paper, layered, collaged, stitched.

Nine Houses

Mixed media. Part of the 'reworked, recycled, revealed' collection. The idea was to use recycled till receipts, magazines etc, but as I thought these would fade too quickly I scanned them into the computer & printed them. I cut shapes from these sheets, collaged and then appliqued with free hand machine stitching. The exhibition at Barnard Castle ended today, so I won't be showing any more pictures from the two collections for a while. [they can be seen on my web site]

News-Castle

Mixed media - paint, pens, pastel [part of the 'Illusions of the North East' collection]

Herrington Park

Mixed Media - background is painted, the images are parts of photographs printed on fabric, appliqued to the background, with additional freehand machine stitching.

The creatures were sculpted in large rocks, the girl and umbrella were part of seats, the bull rushes were near the lake - all things found in Herrington Park withPenshaw Monument in the background, which can be seen from the park too. {part of the 'Illusions of the North East' collection}

Palm Tree Avenue

Mixed Media - the houses are collaged and made from recycled art work [paper], the trees are painted recycled papers/art work. They have been stitched to a fabric background mainly with a sewing machine, but after that broke they were hand stitched. The lines on the fabric is machine stitching. The fabric has been wrapped around a canvas frame. [sold but was part of the 'Reworked, Recycled, Revealed' collection.