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After completing my art foundation course I worked with mixed media for around six years, creating works on paper and fabric using painting, printing and stitch. I then began to focus on hand embroidery, and have now worked in this way for two years.
I love the possibilities of embroidery and the range of marks and textures that can be built up with stitch. I tend to use back stitch and stem stitch to 'draw' outlines, before using straight stitches of varying lengths to fill in space and add areas of pattern. I am very inspired by Kantha embroidery, building up areas of colour using small straight/ seed stitches. I am also partial to the odd French knot!
My inspiration comes from many sources. One of my favourite things to embroider is birds; their colours and patterns lend themselves so well to being translated into stitch, I really enjoy working out ways to turn certain details into areas of pattern (such as feather shapes on their wings) and working out how to stylise and simplify certain areas. I love to stitch pictures of other animals too, and I'm also very inspired by plants, gardens and the landscape.
I feel the need to distill things I have seen which have inspired me into pieces of work, it is often as simple as wanting to work with the image of something I have enjoyed. I often feel like I'm making the work as a sort of appreciation of and dedication to the animal, bird or plant I am depicting.
Although my work is primarily illustrative, I occasionally work on a small abstract piece in an attempt to capture the essence of a place, or sometimes purely to appreciate a particularly pleasing colour combination.
Drawing is an important part of my process, and when starting a new piece of work I usually make preparatory drawings from my photographs or imagination. Sometimes I also utilise collage as a compositional aid, cutting out pieces of paper to try different arrangements, but quite often I work spontaneously, laying down stitch to see what emerges. I find that this can often yield exciting results.
I also produce downloadable embroidery patterns. These are intended to guide people through embroidering a specific picture, but I am really keen on encouraging people to try different things when stitching the patterns, such as using different threads and adding beads etc. For more information visit my patterns page.
I have written several patterns and articles for magazines and love to work on projects like this, if you would like me to contribute a project or article to your publication, be it a magazine or book, please contact me.
My work is available through my Etsy shop, alternatively you are always welcome to contact me directly.
I love the possibilities of embroidery and the range of marks and textures that can be built up with stitch. I tend to use back stitch and stem stitch to 'draw' outlines, before using straight stitches of varying lengths to fill in space and add areas of pattern. I am very inspired by Kantha embroidery, building up areas of colour using small straight/ seed stitches. I am also partial to the odd French knot!
My inspiration comes from many sources. One of my favourite things to embroider is birds; their colours and patterns lend themselves so well to being translated into stitch, I really enjoy working out ways to turn certain details into areas of pattern (such as feather shapes on their wings) and working out how to stylise and simplify certain areas. I love to stitch pictures of other animals too, and I'm also very inspired by plants, gardens and the landscape.
I feel the need to distill things I have seen which have inspired me into pieces of work, it is often as simple as wanting to work with the image of something I have enjoyed. I often feel like I'm making the work as a sort of appreciation of and dedication to the animal, bird or plant I am depicting.
Although my work is primarily illustrative, I occasionally work on a small abstract piece in an attempt to capture the essence of a place, or sometimes purely to appreciate a particularly pleasing colour combination.
Drawing is an important part of my process, and when starting a new piece of work I usually make preparatory drawings from my photographs or imagination. Sometimes I also utilise collage as a compositional aid, cutting out pieces of paper to try different arrangements, but quite often I work spontaneously, laying down stitch to see what emerges. I find that this can often yield exciting results.
I also produce downloadable embroidery patterns. These are intended to guide people through embroidering a specific picture, but I am really keen on encouraging people to try different things when stitching the patterns, such as using different threads and adding beads etc. For more information visit my patterns page.
I have written several patterns and articles for magazines and love to work on projects like this, if you would like me to contribute a project or article to your publication, be it a magazine or book, please contact me.
My work is available through my Etsy shop, alternatively you are always welcome to contact me directly.
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