There are oodles of roadworks around at the minute – many re-patching the shattered pot-holes whose fillings crumble every winter…. The sign SURFACE DRESSING propped up on a local pavement made me smile and think of my own work – I couldn’t help doodling on the photo. Put at its simplest, my job is concerned with making decorative surfaces. In the last thirty days or so I’ve covered a lot of ground in matters of the how, what, where and why of applied pattern.
Continue readingCategory Archives: News
NEWS!
When Clare from Bloomsbury Publishing got in touch out of the blue to ask if I’d be interested in writing a book I said yes. That was in October 2020 and the proposition was, loosely, for a ‘maker’s guide’ to painting on fabric. After a lifetime of painting patterns on paper for ‘the industry’ I’d been slowly developing a new repertoire of pattern and gesture applied directly onto cloth. Re-reading my very first email sent in response to her I see that I’ve remained pretty-well true to my starting point:
When Clare from Bloomsbury Publishing got in touch out of the blue to ask if I’d be interested in writing a book I said yes, although I’d never undertaken, or even considered, quite such a huge venture before. That was in October 2020 and the proposition was, loosely, for a ‘maker’s guide’ to painting on fabric. After a lifetime of painting patterns on paper for ‘the industry’ I’d been slowly developing a new repertoire of pattern and gesture applied directly onto cloth. Re-reading my very first email sent in response to her I see that I’ve remained pretty-well true to my starting point:
Continue reading‘us in the life’
Look what just arrived – newly printed fabrics! In January this year I sent a group of just-painted designs to Free Spirit Fabrics in North Carolina for my collection, ‘Fresh Picked’ – my first for this company.
Continue reading‘us in the life’
Look what just arrived – newly printed fabrics! In January this year I sent a group of just-painted designs to Free Spirit Fabrics in North Carolina for my collection, ‘Fresh Picked’ – my first for this company.
Continue readingpage turning
A couple of days ago I had a longing to paint stripes! Luckily I found a new concertina notebook stashed in my studio drawer – couldn’t be a better match. Sometimes it’s so nice and so necessary to have a play, to make familiar marks and run colours together just for the fun of it; to use as many brushes and as many palettes as I want for no reason other than pleasure and curiosity.
Continue readinga solitarian celebrates
I certainly have some things to be celebrated, but it’s something of a challenge as to know how: I’m not drawn to zoom social gatherings. I had a bit of a birthday a few weeks ago, and I held an impromptu lockdown table-top tea party – Continue reading
abroad-thoughts, from at home
Try as I might, I can’t avoid the feeling that this lockdown has a doomy air about it. Even though some of us are getting vaccinated; even though spring is coming Continue reading
’tis the season – almost!
Usually, on an early december weekend I’d be taking part in both the Selvedge winter fair in town and the Open House studio sale event run by a generous and enterprising group of friends in Balham. Continue reading
a shop, a show, a show-off
I’ve left it rather late in the day to tell you about ‘Painted Treasures’! Continue reading
brushes with reality
A nephew, catching sight of the jars on my studio window-cill (or is it sill?) once asked me what all the paintbrushes were about. “Well, these are the flat ends for straight, choppy and also consistent strokes, Continue reading