been beading...

...I love the anticipation of this bit of my process, its the first stage of a slow build up to the final piece....and I can watch the telly while doing it!

just wanted to post...

...a photo of two recent acquisitions...with much appreciation to Abigail Percy and Karin Eriksson



...I shall treasure them.

...anything but....

...what I am supposed to be doing!

Today I was going to draw faces, lovely lined care worn faces, close up cropped drawings, ........I love drawing them, I need to draw them as part of my ongoing work.......there should have been no problem ....but I did this instead (drawn from an image in this month's Country Living magazine)

...I always seem to get distracted.... I think I am the world's expert at displacement acitivity. I always end up doing anything but what I should be doing! It'll definitely be faces tomorrow...definitely!

faces, flowers and photography......

...continue to preoccupy and inspire me.....

Faces.......

..because my Bankdfield work is based on portraiture and the human form and drawing faces is the first stage of this work. The drawings inform all that follows. So I'm on the lookout for interesting faces to draw. The more "lived in" the face is.... the more interesting I find it.

Flowers........

...because they make me smile and remind me the days are getting longer, the daylight brighter and it will soon be spring!

Photography......

...because I have been inspired by the wonderful photography in blogs such as simply photo and flickr sites such as wildgoosechase ..... and many others and want to explore this new (to me) art form in its own right.....and hopefully learn and improve!

More techno wizzardry.......

.....I hope!
I'm going to attempt a side by side photo of my ceramic work....wish me luck..



...this appears to work but I can't centre the composite image...... oh well, a problem for another day I think!

Aargh! ...well it worked on the preview but not when I published it...why not?

Strange compulsion to blog.....

......not much to say as not much happening here workwise save that I'm making a few cards and badges. I should be knuckling down to some work for the Bankfield project but blogging fever is taking over...so I am going to attempt an in post link to the wonderful Bankfield Museum which for a small place like Halifax has the most wonderful UK and international textile exhibitions. Jeanette Appleton is currently exhibiting there with her "Sow: Sew" exhibition. Some of this work was at Knit and Stitch last year but there is much more on display in Halifax and it is well worth a visit! ....and because I can't bear to post without using an image here's one of the drawings (after a little bit of photoshopping!!) that I'm currently putting up on flickr.

Not quite a techno whizz yet....

.......that tulip photo was much bigger than I thought it would be! oops, and I was doing so well....!

Still things are progressing otherwise. Last week I was contacted by another local embroidery guild to see if I could do a talk and a workshop for them next year and there may be a possiblity of doing a workshop as part of the Bankfield project too. On top of that a new gallery has expressed some interest in taking some of my cards and so I shall be sending off a sample for them to see in the next few days. If they do decide to take them I shall post an image shortly but in the meantime here's a post of one of my portrait cards ........

....these are great fun to do.

Just started a flickr account....

tulips..wonderful tulips, originally uploaded by Kerry Mosley.

...and thought I'd use these beautiful tulips to open the account and test out an automatic blog posting. Techno whizz or what!!

Friday....last of the textile pattern posts

End of the working week here and for my last textile pattern post I thought I'd stick with the geometrics and some of my favourite colours... the original inspiration for these was a cross stitch pattern of a pansy....

Don't look at then too long cos they end your eyes squiffy.

Textile Pattern Week...Thurs

Where did the lovely spring weather go? Cold and grey weather here today puts me in mind of wools and woven fabrics and tartans.......so from florals to checks

I always thought this would make a wonderful cosy beach towel for snuggling into on a day trip to the coast.

Textile Pattern week.... Wed

Mid week already...frightening how fast time goes. A couple of floral based designs today based around studies of piles of cushions and giving a patchwork effect. I had fun doing these about 4 years ago now.... what was I saying about how fast time goes!!

Textile Pattern week......Tues

I've had great fun leafing through my old college sketchbooks....happy memories...... and for a beautiful sunny blue skied Tuesday here's another floral design....poppies again!

maybe with a bit of cropping (and a bit of imagination!) it could be a border for a powder blue summer skirt - who knows where a drawing might go! I'm off to enjoy the sun!

Textile pattern week ...Mon

Hope its OK for me to join in Mecozy's textile pattern week as a new blogger with a love of all things textile'y. I came to the link via Abigail Percy's blog and, as I was looking back at some old college work, I thought I'd post a daily picture of one of my old paintings, sketches, stitcheries that I thought then would maybe one day make a great textile surface pattern but which are sadly still "sketchbook bound" ....maybe one day. Most of them like this one are floral based....


....finding the repeat was always the problem with this one!!

Computer glitches....and embroidery stitches

Just discovered my computer has been sending my genuine emails to an area reserved for spam so that I have had to spend an hour or so sending out apology emails to everyone that might have recently emailed me and not received a reply. So I have been quietly cursing machines....but then realised that of course I couldn't live without them. The sewing machine, computer, radio, washing machine, and dare I say it - television are an important if not essential part of my life. Thank goodness though that they haven't quite yet taken over the world.

As an antidote to all that technology I've been indulging in looking over some pomegranate inspired embroidery work I did at college - its a real blast of a contrast to the monochrome I've been working with recently

I guess pink and orange were really doing it for me then!

Featured.......

Yesterday I went out and bought a copy of Workbox magazine as someone told me I was mentioned in it....


It's very exciting to see the work in print.

I met Victor the editor of Workbox at the Fashion and Embroidery show in Harrogate last year where we each had a stand and he kindly offered to do an article on my work then. Thank you very much for featuring me Victor.

By coincidence last night I received a telephone call from someone else I met at the same show - a branch member of the Embroiderers Guild inviting me to do a talk there next year. I had to confess I had never done such a talk before but was very happy to do so and I'm now booked in for next April. Only then did I learn that the branch meetings can command an audience of up to 70 people!! Sounds like it will be a baptism by fire! At least there will be plenty of time to prepare and how great that the branch is so well supported .....who said that embroidery was dead!

The Bankfield belles.....

....not too sure about that title!!! But this is the wonderful Bankfield:

I thought you might like to know a little more about our course group mentioned in the previous post.

There are 9 of us and the group is led by Hilary Bower a "62 group" textile artist (wish I knew how to add a link here so you could click and visit the website - sorry I shall try and master that trick next! - any tips gratefully received).

Hilary is well known for her multi media textiles and is a wonderful tutor able to inspire, encourage, focus and forge ambition in us without being directive or unduly influencing how each individual artist works. The diversity within the group is not stifled and will I'm sure result in a very interesting exhibition in October.

Once I have permission from the group I shall post links to their websites/artist details as they are all well worth a visit.

A weekend of reflection.........

Since September last year I and 8 wonderfully creative women have been taking a course led by the textile artist Hilary Bower at Bankfield Museum in Halifax, West Yorkshire. This weekend was a time for regrouping and reflection upon the progress of our work to date and begining to focus on which pieces will be taken forward to exhibit at Bankfield later this year.

Here is a sneaky peak in my sketchbook:

The weekend made me appreciate how much I enjoy being amongst others who share my own interest and passion for textiles as an art form, and how much considered thought and hard work lies behind each body of work ..................and how enriching the creative process can be.

Thank you Hilary and everyone else for being there!

FEBRUARY!!...where did January go?

January seems to have disappeared in a blink of an eye as it was busy, busy, busy...
I exhibited my portrait work at the Mall Galleries in London with the Society of Designer Craftsmen and was accepted as a fully fledged member .....oh! and sold a piece too which was very satisfying. I hope it brings a lot of pleasure to whoever was kind enough to buy it. The whole experience was exhausting in terms of completing the work and travelling to London ..... but it was fun too, and I met some lovely, very creative people.

Two Galleries also expressed an interest in my heart leaves which should be on display with the Heart Gallery in Hebden Bridge and Artlink in Hull in time for Valentines Day. Thank you Alison and Katie.
I was though disappointed not to be accepted by the North Yorkshire Open Studios event for 2008. I've enjoyed visiting it in previous years and it would have been great to be a participating artist. Oh well maybe someday .........?