Category Archives: drawing

April 16, 2013 · 3:08 pm

Spring Buds.

Could it be Spring at long last? It`s a bit of a wild and stormy day today, but it`s definately a bit milder. Yesterday was a lovely fresh day, with the temperature finally cranked up to double figures (only just!). We had a bracing walk round a nearby loch in the morning and I spotted a swallow!

Later on I had a wander round the garden and gathered a few budding twigs to draw. I really liked the lines of the almost bare twigs, with each shrub or tree having quite a different character. I laid a selection out on some grey paper to have a closer look, then I filled a double page in my sketchbook with some twig drawings.

spring buds 1

spring buds 2

spring buds 3

spring buds 4

spring buds 5

I was quite pleased with the sense of line and space and it was an enjoyable excercise. I`m hoping to try and fit in a drawing day at least once a fortnight from now on and to include some small drawings for sale in my Etsy shop very soon. Meanwhile, it`s back to bumble bees! I had a great response to my bees over the weekend- thanks to everone for their lovely comments, special thanks to Emily Heath who featured my brooches in her blog. She is a beekeeper and writes tales from her hives in her blog Adventures in Beeland. Her blog is truly fascinating and well worth a look.

Far too wild and stormy to venture far today, so it`s time to head back to my sewing machine. Hopefully we can all enjoy some lovely Spring weather very soon.

spring buds 6

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April 12, 2013 · 9:17 pm

More Bumble Bees…

I`ve just spent the last couple of days making some more bumble bees brooches and I`m really pleased with the results. I used the drawings I did last year for inspiration again, but I let these ones ‘evolve’ as they were being made which means that they are all slightly different. They really seemed to come ‘alive’ when I embroidered their little legs, I took care over the angle of their legs to try and suggest movement and to give them a sketched feel. I really love their textures, I think the layers of fabric scraps and stitching give them a lovely furry look. It`s been such a cold Spring so far that I haven`t spotted any bumble bees in the garden yet, but I`m looking forward to seeing them soon.

more bees 1

more bees 2

more bees 3

more bees 4

more bees 5

more bees 6

more bees 7

more bees 8

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June 17, 2012 · 8:03 pm

Daisies.

I always think that daisies must be the most cheerful and friendly of flowers. I love seeing a sweep of grass studded with little white daisies. The last time I cut the grass I couldn`t bear to cut the daisies so I left a little island of long grasses to enjoy them for a bit longer.

My favourites are wild Ox-eye Daisies. I would love to grow them in the garden, but in the meantime I have Marguerittes, Swan River Daisies, Bellis Daisies and Osteo Spermum.

There is a patch of Ox-eye Daisies growing on a nearby roadside and earlier in the week I brought a few home to draw.

Inspired by my drawings, I made these little brooches.

I`m really pleased with them. They are appliqued and machine stitched onto recycled linen furnishing fabric. They have some hand embroidery and a few seed beads in the centre for extra texture. I really enjoyed making them and I like their `hand drawn` look.

I`m looking forward to making more of these over the next couple of days, I want to send a wee supply to all my stockists (I think they are the perfect brooches for summer!). Then I`d like to try some larger daisy-inspired embroideries.

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May 20, 2012 · 8:02 pm

Bluebells.

My garden is full of bluebells just now, they thread themselves through the other plants in the borders and pop up all over the place. The wash of lovely soft purply-blues have cheered me up on the cold rainy days we`ve been having lately. I popped out on a rare moment of sunshine the other day to take some photos.

I`ve been looking forward to a walk in our local bluebell woods, where there are whole swathes and carpets of bluebells growing under beech trees. I`ll try to go next week, hopefully the weather will be a bit drier and the path leading to the wood won`t be such a quagmire.

I had a walk in the rain yesterday and found lots of wild bluebells, even some in a mini wood. The wild bluebells are much darker and smaller than the garden ones. The little dots of blue really stood out against all the wet, green leaves of the undergrowth, and the dampness brought out their fresh scent.

When I got home I brought some bluebells in from the garden to draw.

They are really more purple than blue when you look closely, with tiny streaks of turquoise. I like the way the bells grow in all directions.

I`d like to try some embroideries based on these drawings, but in the meantime I made another little heart brooch inspired by bluebell colours.

A little posy to enjoy on my kitchen windowsill.

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May 12, 2012 · 6:36 pm

Bumble Bees.

I`m very lucky to have a sewing room, but it faces to the front of the house, so if I have hand sewing to finish, I`ll usually take it through to the kitchen table so I can look out to the garden. Quite often in Spring there will be a gentle tap (or bump) at the window and it will be a newly emerged bumble bee, trying to get to the jug of flowers on the window sill.

I think bumble bees are gorgeous, so fat and furry you just want to stroke them! They are the first bees to emerge in Spring and a sure sign that Winter is over.

I`d been thinking about bees this week, after having a dream that I made some pin cushions with busy bees on them. I wanted to have a go at stitching some bees, using the same layered technique I`ve been using for my heart brooches.

This was my first attempt:

It wasn`t quite right, so I decided to sketch some bees in the garden on the one sunny afternoon we had this week.

I love sketching animals from life, such a nice free and scribbly way to draw. I really should make time for more drawing, I enjoyed scribbling these little bees.

Then I did a couple of embroideries straight from the drawings. These were much better. I`m pleased with them, I think they look quite life-like, but with the same loose, sketchy feel.

I`m not sure what I`m going to do with them yet, perhaps they could be details on cushions, but I`m feeling inspired to carry on with this way of working- maybe birds will be my next project…

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