I’m often asked what I am going to do next, and the answer is usually I dont know, I have to wait and see. I am constantly looking at land formations, light patterns, textures and so on, and will draw or make notes without knowing exactly where my thinking will end. This summer we visited friends who live in a small village on the banks of the Loire. We went out drawing, watched the river change daily at different times, and passed fields of varying colours and textures. On one journey, a splash of brilliant purple colour in the distance was too intriguing not to investigate, and we couldn’t identify the source from a distance. When we reached the field we found delphiniums being grown, perhaps for seed. A riot of pink, purple, blue and white, set against a golden green backdrop. Here I’m showing you the flowers, a drawing I did, and a small embroidery that I made on our return to the UK.

My drawing took about two hours, pencil, ink, and fibre tipped pens that run when you wet them. I tried here to extract enough information to be able to start stitching.

and this is the first small piece I made. It found a new home on its first outing. My intentions are to go forward from this and work a larger piece that is perhaps more abstract, looking at the contrasting shapes and colours. I never seek to imitiate, only to investigate.

and finally a detail, I haven’t tried to draw individual flowers, but to say something about the ways in which the colours overlap and merge. If these ideas do develop I’ll show them in a future post!