Art is Everywhere
I was so fascinated yesterday when the workman fitting our new windows suggested he change the way the framing was done so that it would be more harmonious with the  siding on the house.   

Fresh and Loose
When I was a girl at a convent school being either fresh or loose was not considered a good thing!  but in art terms those are great qualities!  I’ve been reading about the last years of Matisse.  It’s so encouraging that there are so many examples of artists (in many media) producing wonderful work in their 70s and 80s.  No longer is commercial success a consideration.   At this time, a lifetime’s experience plus, strangely,  physical disability (e.g.having to paint with the brush attached to a long pole) leads the artist to produce work that is reduced to its essence.  It is both pared down and executed with the flair and panache and simpli

Stitching and stretching not cogitating!
Well I’ve been working on a couple of small pieces for the Elusive Beauty show at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK.   Dominie Nash and I are showing work together so we decided to share some of our fabrics and also to work some of the pieces to a standard size so that they would hang well together.  We picked a fairly small size: 18” by 24” partly because then the work can be grouped easily, but also because shipping work overseas is getting more and more expensive. I’ve just about finished one piece this week: here’s my sketch based on a photograph I took when I went on the Thames boat trip upto Hampton Court – I love boat trips and it

Some thoughts on Colour
I’ve always believed I’d make a more coherent piece if I planned my colour scheme out before laying scissors to fabric…but there is so much more to colour!  The more I look at and read about colour, the more I realise there is to learn – it’s a fascinating topic. It’s one of the first things that people respond to- in many situations, so how could we use it more effectively?  Charles Hawthorne, a much beloved art teacher, continually impressed on his students that they should “see color simply” and stay with simple color forms trying to create beautiful relationships between major areas of colour.  I think often we can get too bitty with colour – scatteri

The Enigma of subtlety: adding mystery
A friend (thank you, Terry!) suggested I consider adding more mystery  to my work .  While I love intrigue and obfuscation, I have often been told I should be more subtle!   So I starting cogitating upon how this could be done…I’ve come up with a few ideas but would love input!! Lost edges/dissolving A technique much beloved of painters, where the edges of a form within the paint dissolve into the background.  Paula Nadelstern uses this method to disguise the real edges of her wonderful snow crystals. I used it in several of my shibori/discharge pieces.