Flowers & Hearts

| janethaigh

The new season’s exhibitions at Jen Jones’ The Welsh Quilt Centre, Lampeter opened a week ago today where I am exhibiting a small show of personal work – work that I make and keep for myself.

On my first visit early in 2023, when I took actual work to show Jen Jones, she offered me a small gallery for an exhibition and I decided on ‘The Flora’ embroideries. However on my second visit to the, now empty, room I immediately realised it would need far more works than I had imagined. I decided to add a more unusual collection of my textiles combining vitreous enamel and based on Mending. It features broken hearts and how to mend them, so Hearts and Flowers: starting at the begining and going round the room: this is the story of putting up the exhibition

In the first week of March I took all my works and with the help of the whole team at the centre the exhibition was in place in a day(apart from a few extra tweaks before the opening)The first wall of work was The Flora. The exhibition curator/editor, Sarah James, remained focussed when I had lost mine.

The Flora flowers give way to a group of ‘Flowers For Our Times’ my most recent hand embroideries..but they continue the themes found in Flora. On the left is a stitched appliqued drawing.

The flower walls give way to hearts (and eyes) so here are my minimally quilted fabric patchworks. This took quite a lot of preparation, pressing on my behalf and for Charles (and Russell) the gallery’s invaluable exhibition men, constantly measuring and sometimes just waiting, but colour co-ordinated!

The large Comfort (Hearts)and Security (Quotes) Blankets and Safety Curtain ( Eyes) had been draped over my bannisters for weeks (above right) but a 3 hour car journey had creased them; I am always relieved to be able press my work before it goes on display.

Moving round next are the metal and vitreous enamel hearts – all broken, discarded, damaged but saved in some way.

The works above are made of metal and glass enamel, they are stitched and embroidered with drawn thread work in copper wires on metal fabrics and copper plate. Patterned by sifting white enamels through Lace and Broderie Anglaise stencils, except for the red sampler that is darned in silk on vellum

The bed in the centre of the gallery is Sarah James’ idea, she thought it would perfectly show off the bedding of Make it Through the Night and she was right! People are really curious and stop to ‘read’ the symbols and it makes sense when teamed with the Bolster.

Eventually we get back to entrance with patchworked and embroidered and flowers but outside in a vestibule there is still something else to see, Russell putting up my framed giclee prints, unframed for sale in the shop with many more flower pieces. And the large ‘Lytes Cary Manor’ woollen wall hanging taken from my studio wall where it has lived since 2001.

The very last picture I took was at the end of the Private View. A group of staff and on the left Jenni of Jenni Smith Sews talking to Hazel (who appears to organise just about everything around the Centre) waiting to hear how to get through the wild Welsh countryside to the restaurant for us to celebrate all the exhibitions and videos on display throughout this amazing place.

PS. my work is not for sale but my new giclee prints of embroidered flowers are available to buy in the fascinating vintage textile and bricabrac shop attached to the centre.

my 1960’s fashion sketch book

| janethaigh
The cover of my late 1960’s sketch book – says it all!

Invited to conduct a week long course of drawing flowers and then to develop the drawings into a small sketch book at Court House Farm in early June, when the cutting garden flowers are blooming. I checked out my collection of sketch books/ visual research journals (whatever they are currently called) I have kept all my research books throughout my working life.

then I unearthed my first Liverpool College of Art sketch book circa 1968 – and this cover still looks like a protrait of my early loves and fashion influences …Modigliani, man and work, Chagall, dresses as worn a la Dusty Springfield; with the faces and poses of models that influenced my design illustrations. And inside???

Above are a range of design drawings in pencil and coloured inks that were used to tint black and white photographs. I found that the colours were very subtle, I wonder what happened to them? These are layouts of my designs ready to be illustrated, I think for a competition for RSA (a brilliant organisation that enabled students to develop their practice with scholarships and grants). Everything looks in proportion until you see the legs, they go on forever. We were taught to make drawings that someone else could work the pattern cutting and making, a very good practice as I found out when I did become a fashion designer and illustrator in London in the 70’s. But what is really fascinating, the pages do not look so different to my own recent research books – just a change of subject matter- oh and embroidery!

These pages of flower are from my current research book started in 2023; I am still having a written conversation with myself. Back to the 60’s…….

These very neat dresses were designed to be made in Double Jersey, a new innovation that made for easier pattern cutting (but little else as far as I was concernd). I always preffered my designs to be made in fine wool crepe. In the sketches below it appears I was also designing lots of accessories as well! the drawings above use my favourite media of the time – pastel with mapping pen and ink details.

Below are designs that use applique and embroidery – I remember embroidering woollen flowers onto a knitted dress for my final collection and I think this is where I really got the passion for embellishment and embroidery. My first freelance job was making and designing appliqued T shirts for the Mr Freedom in Kensington – the height of London boutique street fashion at the time.

Another sign of the times the Saga Mink competition, ( I did not win – well just how much fur would these designs sell)? The anti fur lobbly was just starting up, but that’s another story. The drawings are in crayon and pencil.

However here you can see the direct connection to the cover of my sketch book and the influence of my favourite fashion designer and illustrator – Barbara Hulanicki the design genius behind the most fashionable shop of the times – Biba .

mending the mending….

| janethaigh

It is not without irony that I am posting the mending my old ‘mended hearts’ metal embroideries.

Above are the original images of 2 pieces of old work (circa 2010), left is Discarded Heart, and right Crossed Heart. They are just 2 of the outcomes of much experiment with some challenging materials – I was interested that these metal fabrics would last for a long time – far longer than the natural fabrics that I usually use…..how wrong I was!

Searching in my studio I found a drawer full of old ‘fabric enamel‘ samples, that I had made use of for Discarded Heart. I had often used drawn thread-work as stencils and amazingly found the original stencil fabric , stretched and ready for use.

The most difficult thing I had to do was to repair the cracked enamel square. I wasn’t sure I could do this as it needed to be re-enamelled in exactly the same place as the original – fat chance! I carefully removed the gilded and stitched leather heart and re-gilded it. SO taking courage in both hands I re-stencilled it using a strong white enamel, then fired it at a very high heat and this made both the pattern very feint, and the cracks filled up – result!

Back of centre panel with leather and bronze fabric cut to free heart for repairs
Front of re-placed re-enammelled heart

To get it back into postition I had to re-excavate and re-drill the stitching holes, so that I could painstakingly stitch the whole square by hand using real metal threads, ( trying hard to stick to my intention of NOT buying new materials but recycle anything I already own). I had several real Japanese gold and some copper wrapped threads to choose from, but this thread had to be strong and resilient for stitching through metal and leather.

After several half days of really awkward stitching, I managed to herringbone a wrapped copper thread all around the square.

Relief, as I had already offered the Discarded Heart (as it was it was originally made from lots of my. unsuccessful samples ) to the Welsh Quilt Centre as part of my 6 months exhibition called Hearts and Flowers in 2024.

So far so good, but the next piece, “Crossed Heart” was really badly damaged – mostly by fading but seemingly anything it had been in contact with over the last 10 years….including my hands while working it! Everything seems to mark these refined woven metal fabrics (and I suspect Boysie, an ex fox terrier stud dog). And I thought that these fabrics would be as hard wearing as they are tough to stitch! I didn’t offer this piece for exhibition as I was not at all sure if I could make it look worthy of being exhibited again.

The only area not stained, faded or split was the centre panel of a decorative cross darn in white wire into a heavy copper mesh I had copied from a Darning Sampler in the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery which has one of the most famous Sampler collections in the world. I kept this, but now had decide just what to keep as signs of legitimate wear and what I just couldn’t aesthetically live with!

The whole sorry embroidery put onto my worktable and pinned into place – the metal fabrics have a tendency to roll up on themselves when left alone; a metal memory even after 10+ years of being stretched on a fame. The staining is plain to see with the general fading and tarnishing, but what you can’t see are the splits on the background fabrics underneath the rows of herringbone stitches.

The first area I felt confident to work was a rip and I cut away the fraying fabric – a mistake – but hey ho, nothing ventured…and started to darn the gap in the metal and nylon woven fabric with 1 thread from a stranded silver hank of 6 strand….very tricky – I may yet go back and rework this!

I was not very confident to continue, but I had started and I am of the sign of the crab…..very tenacious. Here are various ruined areas of the work, with different mends : a proper running stitch strengthener over a pulled thread area, sewing an extra border in a nylon and probably lurex woven fabric (once a very glamorous skirt worn to a 1 very glamorous occasion)to hide the worst of the staining on the outermost edge of the piece ( Boysie?) and then surrepticious stitches to draw the edges of the split fabric together. The herringbone stitches had started to unravel – and by this time so had I.

but eventually they are finished enough for safely re-stretching and possibly have their place in the lay-out for the gallery as part of a group of stitched metal mended hearts…

The mended Crossed and Discarded Hearts

my badly stitched blanket

| janethaigh

I have been invited to exhibit my work at The Welsh Quilt Centre, when they re- open for next year. So I have been carefully choosing pieces to make a cohesive exhibition of the recent Flowers For Our Time, the related Flora embroideries with the collection of bedding, Make it Through the Night.

I realised that the work chosen fell into 2 distinct groups – there are always cross currents and references in any body of work sustained over long periods of time and some of these embroideries are 20 years old! I wanted to make links between them, and decided on a new piece that encompassed the mending broken hearts themes of the bedding with the perennial flower themes.

My sacrificed jacket fabrics reconstructed as a heart – the opening page in my sample/sketch book for
“My Badly Stitched Blanket”.

I looked at my studio wall and saw a small group of pinned samples for designs for Ehrman Tapestry company – the rows of split hearts and some fabric scraps that I had wanted to work into new designs. I also thought that it was time to use some of my most beautiful vintage embroidery scraps that I had hoarded for years… I had an idea to make a blanket – a comfort blanket.

I cut a card template and started to place it over the treasured collected fragments of fine hand woven woollen shawls, silk Chinese robes and European woven ribbons and embroideries. I found my own old un-sold fabric design samples (from when I was a free-lance designer for an international fashion fabrics company). I thought I could use all of them all together – more is more!

Choosing from my truly delicious and damaged fabrics, I cut out an oversized heart shape, and quickly realised that my original idea would look like patterned porridge. I needed to add some strong plain contrasts. And this is where the difficult part of this design process really started. I had very 3 old and well loved boiled wool jackets that I didn’t wear anymore I have to admit that I am very attached to my clothes and keep them for years. But the colours were perfect…….

Cutting up the red one was not so bad, it only got used lately for occasional dog walks, and it had suffered from moth. Somehow the idea of setting my treasured vintage and antique fabrics, in new cloth just didn’t seem right. With a heavy heart, and after a few days consideration, I reluctantly unpicked it and started to cut it up for the blocks. This was to be a hand-made quilt and this decision made me consider the work beyond its original purpose by provoking me to consider what it meant for me. It became deep down and personal.

I now wanted to show that this work was a part of my broken and mended hearts theme, which is predominantly red and black embroidery on white bedding, but this was supposed to be a celebration of colour and pattern. Now I was mending, recovering, recycling and rescuing my treasured fabrics and clothes as I had admitted to myself that I was never going to wear or find a better use for them. I couldn’t bring myself to photograph the cutting up of the navy blue Oscar jacket (I have kept half for a pattern – someday).

now the central join of the split heart was to be fully in evidence and the more jagged the join the better…completely at odds with my normal practice of (over) controlled stitching. I decided to use the Surgeons’ Knots on the outer seam and leave it un-neatened, like a scar. I tried various threads; above left an oversewn waxed thread and I thought about gold as still I have real gold threads bought in Japan years ago – totally perfect until I saw a hair conditioner advert featuring gold filling on a dreary vase – suddenly all forms of value has been taken away from this ancient mending symbol for me for now. Then I found the too-heavy-to-sew red silk.

And this is where the title of the quilt arose – there is no way that I could control stitching this yarn and coupled with the slightly wonky sewing in the hearts I think it is a perfect title. Eventually I rescued enough fabrics to make 16 blocks to arrange on the quilt wall ready for sewing together by hand onto a large sample of tartan wool as a backing!

This was plain sailing after all the the decision making – but as I had oversewn the hearts into the blocks in fine wool yarn, I now felt I had to continue with the borders in the same way but the lack of having to rule a stitching line and unpick when necessary made this 2 weeks of work rather than 2days!

I kept the beautifully woven selvedge of the last border fabric as a testament to the quality of “Superfine” British wool and weaving traditions. And here it all is pinned to the wall this morning.

Blog

| janethaigh

Flowers & Hearts

The Welsh Quilt Centre, Lampeter opened a week ago today where I am exhibiting a small show of personal work – work that I make and keep for myself.

by janethaigh

my 1960’s fashion sketch book

Invited to conduct a week long course of drawing flowers and then to develop the drawings into a small sketch book at Court House Farm in early June, when the cutting garden flowers are blooming. I checked out my collection of sketch books/ visual research journals (whatever they are currently called) I have kept all…

by janethaigh

mending the mending….

The first area I felt confident to work was a rip, and I cut away the fraying fabric – a mistake – but hey ho, nothing ventured…

by janethaigh

my badly stitched blanket

Choosing from my many truly delicious and damaged vintage fabrics, I cut out an oversized heart shape, and quickly realised that my original idea would like patterned porridge.

by janethaigh

Autumn Flower drawing Class

In at the deep end. I asked the class to choose a table to sit at and draw the whole display in front of them…in 20 minutes!

by janethaigh

Drawing English garden Flowers

A perfect English summer’s day in June, and here we are for an RWA drawing school class: Drawing Flowers at Court House Farm. I have 12 people to introduce my own tried and trusted drawing methods of capturing the colours and forms of a bunch of flowers – well that is the morning’s workshop…try my…

by janethaigh

Flowers for Our Times:

I was shocked, relieved, delighted and then excited to find that I had embroidered War, Scandal, Uncertainty, Instability and Sickness within 2 pretty bunches of flowers.

by janethaigh

Rainbow Flowers – after winifred?

For several months, since March, I have been working on a new stitched sky – an image combining 2 photographs, the first of a wonderful brooding grey sky with different shades either side of the bow, and another of Denney Island in leaf in the middle of the Severn Estuary, they were made during different…

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My Covid Project: Patchwork Enamel Fireplace

The patchwork walls are almost completed, just some finessing needed so time to think of the fire grate. We measure carefully and then cut 20 copper tiles ready to be decorated – using my favourite Drawn Threadwork stencils. I started to scribble lots of ‘back of the envelope’ ideas as to design layouts – but…

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My Covid Project – Getting There:

So, by the beginning of March I had at last finished stitching all the patchwork panels, and between long bouts of quilting them, I managed to paint all the woodwork and window reveals in the sitting room. I had decided to make a strippy quilt for the chimney wall, partly to save time but really…

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Cold Feet

somehow during lockdown the well-honed critical faculty I use for all projects, professional as well as personal, has deserted me.

by janethaigh

Lockdown Patchwork Project

Determined to make the most of the new year 2021 winter lockdown in the UK, I decided to cover my damp (although supposedly cured) and now ruined sitting room walls…….with patchwork! And with real fabric. the left-overs from my work organising quilt making in the UK for Kaffe Fassett’s books of patchwork and quilting designs.…

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Stitching a Sky

The drawing above took less than 1 hour, the work shown below, more than 8 weeks…..

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Drawing Just Drawing

Here is a set of drawings that have lain in a research book for more than 10 years, the reason that I did them was in a university research project workshop – making our own brushes with the amazingly inventive American maker Bob Ebendorf. I made several brushes out of grasses, leaves and branches, picked…

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Drawing Drawing Drawing

I use drawing to express myself to myself. I feel that Drawing is the language closest to my heart;

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My SECURITY Blanket

The finalised order tells a story about my working life over the last decade and more…hard to display – but here I am.

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My Spooky Wooky Butterfly Dream

It is almost 20 years since I had this disturbingly beautiful dream but I have NEVER forgotten it. Re-visiting my sketch books archive, I found the original drawing that was hastily scribbled down when I thankfully I woke up. Now, I have decided to complete my long standing/stitching on-going work project “Make it Through the…

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Designing Stitched Cushions

Another commission has just been published, yippee! I have something new to write about. I first started the designs for this catalogue last year when Hugh Ehrman asked me to make some new designs using affirmative sayings. The mottoes and sayings come directly from the handkerchiefs in my ongoing if intermittent work ‘Make it Though…

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Appliqué Flowers Workshop

As part of the activities developed for the current Kaffe Fassett exhibition at  the American Museum in Britain I am giving 2 separate day workshops to make a small panel of hand appliqué flowers. I am supplying the same fabrics used for the large scale appliquéd quilt that I made for Kaffe to celebrate his…

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LIVE a LITTLE: embroidering a book cover.

I make no apologies that for this long and detailed post of my most recently published commission, the nature of the commissioning aspect of my work makes for total secrecy until the publishing dates, in this case July 4th 2019. As I am now working on several more commissioned projects of different types of work…

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Flower show quilt

The following post explains why I have been silent for several months since completing the quilt for Kaffe…I have been working on the bedding for Sleep Well (a garden that was designed by Julie Dunn for the RHS summer flower show at Tatton Hall in Cheshire) since early in the ear..it was quite a challenge.…

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Quilt for Kaffe

It was the addition of the the ribbons, that tipped the balance … I suddenly saw it was now Kaffe’s.

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nexus – meetings at the edge: exhibition

The night before the private view I had a dream that a giant version of the work featured on the poster ( see above) was writhing around the gallery walls and flashing strobe lights, while all the other pieces of work in the exhibition were equally massive and glowing while moving to – for want…

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Patchwork Enamel

Out of the blue, last year, came an invitation from Diana Sykes, Director of Fife Contemporary,  to apply to exhibit my work for a new exhibition, Nexus:Meetings at the Edge, to be held this year – 2018 at 2 venues, in April at the Kirkcaldy Galleries in Fife, then in September at Ruthin Craft Centre …

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sleeping in the garden

My latest commission is to design and make a patchwork quilt to be placed on a bed in a show garden for this year’s RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park. This is the idea of plants-woman and garden designer, Julie Dunn, And I think that her design is really intriguing – to make a garden…

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Serendipity – Lillian Delavoryas

My recent meeting with Lillian Delavoryas is, in her words “serendipitous” and in mine “bizarre”. During October 2017 I was visiting various friends who were  taking part in the annual West Bristol Arts Trail . The artist, Anna Christy, recommended that I visit the studio of another friend of hers who, “used to design textiles”;…

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Drawing Vintage Fabrics

I have been invited to deliver 3 day drawing classes at the Bristol Drawing School based at the Royal West of England Academy. I was asked to work with my collections of vintage embroidered textiles which include Chinese embroidered robes, Japanese kimono and Indian/Pakistani children’s  clothing and tent hangings.. first I brought in the Chinese…

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Kantha Club

although I was not aware of it at the time I wrote this blog this is the very last post for Heart Space Studios…we conducted many more parties, clubs and classes , we have now ceased trading as a class based studio – however I continue to make my work and explain many different ways…

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Best in Show – Ally Pally

And so to Ally Pally for the annual Knitting & Stitching show, attentive readers of this blog will realise that this is where Heart Space Studios headed to advertise our new book at the invitation of The Cotton Patch, the home of all things patchwork and quilting in Birmingham. For a week I worked at…

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Making Ribbon Beads

And so to Bath, to launch the Heart Space Studio book, ‘Little Ribbon Patchwork and Applique’ at the American Museum, with a workshop in the morning to show how to make ribbon beads.

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It’s a Tough Job – But Someone Has To Do It

We are launching the new book, Little Ribbon Patchwork and Applique, on Tuesday 15th September at the American Museum, near Bath. Things are a tad hectic here, even my old dog Boysie is getting in on the act posing in the Heart Space Studio window for the Ribbon book display….and all of us who are working…

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Almost Shaun the Sheep

The local high street community, including Heart Space Studios, has sponsored a sheep sculpture and he arrives in the first week of July….meanwhile Heart Space have decided to welcome him with a knitted yarn bombed lamppost and bunting.

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Kantha Club

New to Heart Space Studios – Kantha Club; started as so many people who have been to our day classes, tutored by  Susi Bancroft,  have become fascinated by this simple method of hand quilting. We have 3 trial sessions being held once a month – each meeting is 3 hours long – enough to get…

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Story Boards To Go

The second class in the mixed Media Sampler Course at Heart Space Studios began by looking and assessing the finished story boards; several people needed help to get everything organised but here are the results so far….Ceema (above) has refined her theme, she has kept the silvered wallpaper but added a lot of spirals an…

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Story Boards

Story Boards are a visual statement of intent – so we will be drawing their attention back to them each time we sample a new technique over the coming weeks .

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First Bristol Wool Fair

this is as far as I can get with the new improved WordPress system of editing – this is after 2 weeks of trying to get this post out – but I am leaving it now after yet another wasted day – so sorry………..Day 4 of trying to post this with a completely wonky WordPress…

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Things With and Without Wings

The world is full of surprises. You invite a group of people to develop ideas together in a studio in order to make work for a themed exhibition over a period of 6 weeks, then they go away and come back 3 weeks later with something completely different  – Hey Ho! BUT sometimes the things…

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Construct: Stitched Exhibition

I seldom feel that my work fits easily into contemporary textile exhibitions – it often looks too colourful, or too decorative, or even too old fashioned in its simply stitched narratives.

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Crazy Fan Class

I have been getting out and about recently and have been taking a workshop at the American Museum in Britain, which is situated just outside Bath. I have been asked to deliver 2 day long workshops by their education officer, Zoe Dennington (who found me via this blog). Zoe asked me to use Crazy Patchwork…

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Embroidery as Physiotherapy

I have had a few problems getting to grips – literally – with hand embroidering again (not to mention eating with fully functioning knife and fork ). So in order to get back to my normal working life of designing, stitching and teaching, and not being given any specific physiotherapy for my now fully mended…

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Taking a Line for a Dance

“Taking a line for a dance” is a good way to describe what happens with free machine embroidery…the freedom with which the needle can stitch patterns, images and even writing very fast – is really fascinating to watch. First disengage the feed dog – I just love that name for the row of teeth embedded…

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Valentine Hearts

The small but delightful exhibition that the Heart Space Studios staff made in the mixed media session are all framed and ready to go on the wall …. the first to arrive through the post was a box of stitched printed paper hearts from Susie Bancroft – so I set about mounting rows of  them…

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Paper Cut Hearts

In celebration of Valentin’s day the staff and tutors at Heart Space Studios got together to develop mixed media work based upon Paper Cutting. Debby Bird led the session – a chance for everyone to get to know one another better and swap information, materials and ideas. The project was to make selling exhibition of…

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Left Hand Drawing

There are all sorts of things written about drawing with your weaker hand – you are more in touch with your inner being, using the opposite side of the brain unearths alternative visions etc. All I have to say is that it is very slow, very demoralising to begin with and completely exhausting – just…

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Bling Slings

To celebrate my return to posting my blogs I am showing a small selection of decorative arm slings – yes dear readers I have a broken wrist, my right wrist; so there has been no writing, stitching and perhaps worst of all no drawing/doodling/scribbling for more than a month now. But I determined to make…

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Crazy Barcelona

Crazy Barcelona – crazy patchworks everywhere, but not in fabric – in ceramic, stone and marble. OK then, crazy mosaics, but whatever you call them there is no better place to appreciate them than at Parc Geull, designed and built by Antoni Gaudi in the first 14 years of the 19th century. I have seen…

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Knitwear – but not as you know it!

This is what intrigues me about many successful textile makers, they can develop many different types of work, from applied art pieces for museum exhibitions, to practical hand crafted things for everyday use.

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Ribbon Felted Flowers

My favourite cardigan sadly got lost. When I eventually found it pushed to the bottom of my laundry basket (don’t ask) it was totally ruined by moths – even beyond my curative darning powers. So I decided to felt it by boiling it twice, cut it into ribbons and made flowers…..

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Crazy Mixed-Up Samplers

strip sampler of tweed, embroidery, nuno felt copper and paper- Kirsten Hill-Nixon I am interested in developing a set of workshop using mixed media at Heart Space, think leathers, metals, ceramics, fabrics, glass and wood….. so I thought I could try the idea out on the people who work with us, all expert in their…

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Embroidering a Child’s Drawing

Everyone loves children’s art, whether as drawings or paintings the pictures have such energy and they capture the spirit of the thing depicted – real or imagined

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Crazy Stitch Sampler

first we chose the colour scheme -eventually by using the same set of colours in various patterns and proportions the finished piece can be made harmonious.

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Embroidering a Thangka

I enjoy working to commission, there are several pluses: someone actually wants my work and is willing to pay for it, I get a clear idea of the task ahead during discussions into the personal likes/wants/needs of the commissioner and I also get a time limit. The designer side of me likes working to deadlines…

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Autumn Flower drawing Class

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the Barn Studio all ready for Drawing Day at Court House Farm

Following on from the successful Drawing Day in June at Court House Farm The RWA ( Royal West of England Academy) Drawing School organised another Autumn Flowers day. But due to the ultra dry summer the flowers were not so abundant as the spring crop…my solution: select just 3 big bunches of different flowers in vintage vases with a toning striped runner and everyone would be able to draw all 3 during the day

In at the deep end. I asked the class to choose a table to sit at and draw the whole display in front of them…in 20 minutes!

Tall and elegant autumnal shades…and in contrast below – hot clashing colours!

and then massive and majestic….

only 2 people attempted this vase and were somewhat overwhelmed by the abundance! So we started again by choosing another section of the bouquets and making some rather more detailed drawings – now things were starting to develop.

BUT so far no-one had even attempted the fabric specially chosen to be drawn with the colours already used in the flowers……so after lunch I changed things over and added another arrangement – now we start drawing with the fabric!!!!

And in the process we even got vases.

For the last session I relented and asked them to choose just 1 flower/branch/leaf from all the masses of materials and to place it next to their drawing boards and make a study – I usually start my drawing sessions like this – and I may return to this method for my next drawing flowers session in November….

Drawing English garden Flowers

| janethaigh
Court House Farm cutting garden , Sweet Peas and Opium Poppies, and the parish church next door.

A perfect English summer’s day in June, and here we are for an RWA drawing school class: Drawing Flowers at Court House Farm. I have 12 people to introduce my own tried and trusted drawing methods of capturing the colours and forms of a bunch of flowers – well that is the morning’s workshop…try my way and see how/if it works for you – if it doesn’t you have at least learnt this method doesn’t work for you! *

Helen Read the owner and designer of the cutting garden had, that morning, hand picked a selection of flowers in differently coloured bunches, and they were waiting in the large open barn for the students to choose from.

Then back to their tables to start the class…..

I wanted to quickly establish my basic advice to get everyone started, so that I could assess how best to help each student individually…the class had been pitched at all levels of drawing experience, including absolute beginners, and a mixed group they certainly were. But fascinating to work with.

I started by asking each person to choose their favourite item from the bunch, write at the top of the page what had made them choose it, then draw it in full colour on a large sheet of white paper using only the media I had stipulated for the course, pastel crayons, pastel sticks, watercolours….

The students ranged from a few complete beginners to people who may never had tackled flowers in this way before, but who obviously were experienced enough to adapt their own methods to my strictures. I kept visiting each table and discussing the drawings – either suggesting to them to move on or to really look more carefully at the details and colour. Mixing colours together to get exactly the right shade and tone is a major skill to develop for drawing what you see.

Some people are quick and make bold statements with bravado..others take a long time and seem very nervous of showing the results and most often people who are nervous draw small. I always advise people find their own size and pace for their drawings. I think it is a fundamental concern for developing your own work

After a short lunch break, I asked them to draw the whole bunch, either building on the knowledge gained in the morning for the beginners, or just doing their own thing; hopefully there would be a mixture of the 2 ways of working.

The results were as varied as the students themselves…

The lessons in developing colours certainly had been taken on by everyone. At the end of the day everyone put out all their drawings around the barn and we all enjoyed a really good look at what had been achieved -a true mixture of different visions of what they had put in front of them – truly observational drawing but with character of either the flowers but often the maker.

and then an image of a student just enjoying the day…almost as much as I did!

*I was taken at my word and one of the group decided to leave at lunchtime saying he had learnt that it wasn’t for him…and as I have been requested to crop out an image of one of the participants for reasons of anonymity I am not giving the list of the participants….privacy needs to be respected.

Flowers for Our Times:

| janethaigh

Over the past few years I have been intending to start selling giclee printed versions of my personal stitched work. The latest pigment prints available are unbelievably faithful in reproducing my finely stitched work…but where to start? Flowers – where else? I determined to develop some new flower embroideries for this venture.

Following on from revisiting my old research books and past work, I decided incorporate the flower embroideries with the Kantha stitched skies as in After Winifred. I took a beautiful bunch of dahlias and held them against a large scale Kantha Stitched sky in progress on my studio wall. I had been brought the flowers by Helen Reed, who owns Court House Farm and runs a seasonal cutting garden amongst other ventures. And where I hold drawing sessions in the summer months.

I also eventually started to work on an idea taken from a rare photograph of my garden Hellebores in a vase and in front of my scarf design of Hellebore flower heads. What is odd is that while Hellebores are one of my most favourite flowers, am not keen on Dahlias and did find myself reluctantly stitching them onto a small version of the Kantha sky. Below are the first 2 prints in the series Flowers For Our Times, on the left is Dahlias, on right, Hellebores

Reflecting on the Dahlias and Hellebore pieces (made between winter 2021 to early 2022) I felt as if I had made a definite link between my old and new work in order to make the really vivid giclee prints, available soon at Heart Space Editions. But although technically demanding, using the new Inktense dyes from Derwent, I decided that this was not the way forward that I had imagined it would be.

  • flower face, stump work, raised hand embroidery, inspiration Archimboldo

I returned again to my early flower work and re-read the catalogue of my exhibition of Flora’s Legacy, held in Bath in 2000 ( yes – so many years ago!!!!!) and realised exactly what was missing – symbolism – or the half hidden messages often contained within these earlier works.The centre-piece from the exhibition, Flora – the Roman goddess of flowers, had what was missing from my new works…the hidden meanings and humour – here some blackish, bawdy humour.

Turning to the many and various dictionaries of symbols I keep in the studio library I thought I would invent a bunch of flowers instead. The meanings of plants and flowers are universal and every culture has its own beliefs, sometimes conflicting – sometimes they are entirely in agreement: a poisonous plant is a poisonous plant. Out of curiosity I checked what the 2 bunches meant adding, the meanings to my original studies…..

I must admit that I was shocked, relieved, delighted and then excited to find that I had embroidered War, Scandal, Uncertainty, Instability and Sickness within 2 pretty bunches of flowers. But everyone else around me was spooked. So – they asked – where did I get this information from? Well in my books of symbolism, the most curious and confusing is The Language of Flowers – but oh the possibilities that it offers for mixed messages and hidden warnings amuse me enough to keep going with this theme.

Using just my old folders and Victorian books of flower meanings lead me to a brand new fully comprehensive dictionary by S. Theresa Dietz – published by Wellfleet Press, and the here I discovered far more arcane information than I had gleaned from my all my original sources.

So now what to do next – can you guess?

check the gallery section to see more outcomes of this ongoing project

returning to my sketchbooks

| janethaigh
first page of my reborn Flora research/sketchbook – Flowers Again!

Recently, the “After Winifred” embroidery has inspired me to develop work to use as Giclee prints in order to add a fresh way of getting my work ‘out there’. I turned to my old Flora workbook, some 20+years old – but still alive for me as a source of inspiration.

  • last last pages of drawings circa 2000 in Flora workbook .
  • drawings and stitching samples for Auricular Theatre 1998
  • painted studies of garden Iris circa 2000
  • most used pages -Anemonies painted from life and photos.

I found some empty pages at the end of the old book and started to collate recent samples and drawings of bunches of flowers grown and made up at Court House Farm, where I conduct drawing workshops, using the cutting garden as inspiration.

second page of the book – old samples and magazine cuttings for colour
a small bunch of dahlias
obvious inspiration from Winifred Nicholson flower painting
my initial research fixed now into book showing early samples of new-to-me Inktense pencils – as dyed ground for stitching

looking back at my Flora work, which is 3 dimensional and very heavily embroidery, I now want a freer drawn imagery to stitch into. So I bought some Derwent Inktense pencils that basically act as dyes when wetted and left to dry – I did many samples but found my drawings had too much information in them – I needed to loosen up further. Ha ha – the story of my working life!

first inkjet pencil drawing
second freer drawing
sample hand stitching
design page using a very old photograph of my own collection of hellebores against a silk ribbon applique.

To enable me to play easily with the new ink crayons I chose an old set of drawing research and photographs to work with. The colours of the crayons are very brilliant and I needed to find ways of making more subtle colours, so stippling, cross hatching and dotting colours one over another made for rich but softer ground colours – these techniques are still a work in progress. Below are 2 studies of the under drawings using pencil dyes ready to be stitched

Meanwhile I have been looking at all my old flowery finished works and their drawings to use as reference and then reframing/remounting stitched pieces ready for the printers.

original drawing for this older Hellebore embroidery right
early Hellebores silk embroidery

the little Hellebore image above is my first Giclee print and the smallest at 30cms/12inches square.