I went to Turkey for a couple of weeks during the end of August and beginning of September. It was a place I have been to many times but only started drawing there last year. Unfamiliar with landscape drawing and painting, I gave the ones I made last year as gifts to friends, so this year, I decided to keep most of them as a record of my visit. The watercolours are only postcard size, but I made lots of drawings in my sketchbooks with a view to make larger pictures from them at a later date. I have made a separate page on my website for the postcards which you can see here:
Here are some samples from my sketchbooks:
Before I went away, I made 2 new embroideries for the Brighton Art Fair:
Both are approximately 42cm x 60cm and are framed without glass and based on monoprints that I had made in the studio. In this technique, patches of ink are often impressed onto the drawing and I have stitched these patches onto the finished piece. It was very labour intensive requiring me to break frequently so that I didn’t become too stiff during the process and I am happy with the results.
When I returned from Turkey, I remade an embroidery from a drawing I made in Cornwall:
The lines of the landscape are made of words that are sounds I heard as I walked down to the bay. I like the idea in principle but the finished image was not as strong as I hoped it would be. I want to pursue this idea of using words to make the image and I have in mind a portrait drawing I made whilst I was in Turkey, redrawing the lines with words from sounds. Hopefully I will have time to pursue this in October.
I will be exhibiting at the Pure Autumn Art Fair from Saturday October 24th – Sunday November 1st and I will also leading a special feature on drawing over the first weekend of the fair with life model Francesca Cluney and the life drawing dress that we made with Emma Sandham-King.
The drawings on the dress are hand embroidered drawings of both Emma and Frankie, the dress itself was designed and made by Emma.
Finally, a few drawings and waterolours from the studio before and after I went away:
