sketchbooks

A vase of Tulips

| janethaigh

The classic 17th century Dutch paintings of fabulous flowers, but this arrangement probably did not really exist. The modest bunch above, features early spring Daffodils, with mid to late spring Tulips and Irises, and yes they can all grow in the same season, but the give away is the fully formed damask rose seen only in mid summer. It demonstrates how the artists worked: each flower was a sample of horticultural expertise, painted when it came into season, then there was a wait for the next bloom to come to perfection.

So last year when I was commissioned to embroider ” a vase of colourful tulips” during my Hidcote exhibition, and I realised that tulips would not be in season in October when I could start working on it. I decided to find tulips within my own work and remembered a very old sketch book with a vase of drooping purple tulips ( circa 1980). Always keep your sketch books!

Above is the inspiration behind my latest commission. Below shows my studio wall with earlier flowers against stitched Kantha skies…with a sample of different fabrics to act as the background

Now I needed to choose some colourful tulips to put in a vase. I started with my sketch, below, of some striped tulips that I have used many times for different projects. It was at this point that I sent images of ideas and sampled fabrics to the buyer – for any feedback then with her agreement I went ahead and started on the actual panel. But with the stipulation of no other sighting until the piece is finished !!!!!!!!

Here is the drawing used again for the front cover of one of my embroidery books, and on a detail of Tulipomania now used for a print in my shop,

Below, designs for counted thread canvas work woollen embroideries – a good drawing goes a long way!

Now to flower arrangement – I am not good at arranging flowers and I really have to work hard at this aspect of my flower embroideries. I edited the tulips from the original early drawing as I did not have the time or space to stitch 10 flower heads in different colours and shapes. Below are 2 of many early drawings graphed for transference to the stitched ground.

And to colour, the tulips need to work with the sky, and the sky is all organised, tacked ready for quilting between stitching the tulips.

To enable me to gauge the placement of colours against the already glowing sky, I wrapped some silk ribbons to act as flower heads, found the silk threads to match them and took colour notifications – if only things work out so simply in reality – but I was starting this bouquet from scratch.

Drawing, redrawing, sampling and stitching one by one each tulip head is made,

Below show older drawings in my current sketch book; plus my friend Lizzie Butler’s birthday card to me – I just copied it straight onto silk organza – with her permission of course!

When enough heads are made I start to arrange them on the background….and then the leaves. I just love to draw tulip leaves and their colours are so soft and gentle. I start with cut linen shapes from my original drawing in order to stitch over them to give definition; getting there.

And last the vase – which is another story – believe me!

I truly enjoyed this work, creating spring flowers in the depth of winter, but it was a challenge as you can see. It is now safely framed and given straight into the hands of the son of the person who commissioned me; he had seen my work at the exhibition and talked about it…..and he has promised to send me a photo of the framed work in situ in the new house.

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.

Drawing Drawing Drawing

| janethaigh

I use drawing to express myself to myself. I feel that Drawing is the language closest to my heart; my second and most used language after English, followed by the most difficult to have mastered, Stitching. It is the foundation of my chosen discipline of hand-made stitched textiles and almost all my work starts with a drawing, sometimes just a scribble or as a written note, but it will be expressed as a drawing with enough information for me to proceed.

Scribbled thoughts are put down as lists for skies I see when waking up, and on whatever is to hand. The imagery is enough to lead me to another drawing…..

the first annotated drawing left, was made in pencil in my bedroom in the dark as I saw the setting moon. The second later that day in my studio in order to make the full colour version that became my working drawing for the Kantha stitched embroidery
The working drawing stays with me though-out the stitching process; left the first attempt to translate colours to fabrics and later the stitch patterns were added to the original drawing to help me to understand how I am going to hand stitch the fabrics

Very occasionally when I work from photographs, I will start an embroidery without a drawing – and it always leads to difficulties as I am torn between the ‘real’ thing as recorded by the camera and my initial vision of it. Basically the drawing is the first edit of the image, it concentrates me on what was important when I first took the photograph, but the camera sees everything and I get seduced too easily by captured colour, and sometimes the colour isn’t the same as my memory.

Below are various single pages from individual sketchbooks – the top 2 are observational drawings taken directly from life, the red in pen and ink is a detail from of my garden, the iris was from a friends garden. The the others are all working /design/ research drawings, (with added photographs of finished brooches)

I keep all my working drawings in a series of books that go back some 40 years! The types of drawings collected in them range from a scribble on the nearest available paper, as above, through to straightforward observational drawings that then get re-arranged or even collaged together

above are the collages design drawing and the finished embroidery of the great garden designer Gertrude Jekyll.

then eventually the detailed working drawings are assembled and kept together, and accompanied by any other research materials.

The images above are open pages of my own research books from different long term projects, they really show the way my mind works, both visually and mechanically.

The 2 pages below are anemone flower drawings made from photographs in a garden magazine many years ago for my Flora embroideries, they have inspired many many different pieces of work in a variety of materials; good drawings have their own energy and life.

a few of the many different works that have been generated directly by the drawings above.

The images above are of vitreous enamel dishes and a silk applique with a machine stitched drawing that plays with the idea of anemones, another name is windflower.

Occasionally I do make finished drawings ready for exhibition.

Three Noh Masks: crayon drawing on paper.

but somehow the stitching seems always to get in on the act.

Sanderlings flight postcard: paper, crayon, silk.

and here are I suppose my most personal drawings ( sad isn’t it) that just arrive onto any page near me, usually when I am talking on the phone to friends and colleagues, and sometimes prospective clients but always when i am fully engaged, they do not arise out of boredom. What is very strange is they have never changed over all the years I have been making them…

my phone call doodles!

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