Drawing, Threads and Stitching

22 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by carolnaylortextiles in Drawings, Embroiderers Guild UK, Exhibitions, Inspirations, Textile Art

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abstraction, Art, drawing, embroidery, galleries, landscape, skyscapes, stitch, thread

A long overdue post by me, so I thought I’d look at drawings and embroideries where I sometimes simply take a small aspect of something I’ve seen to translate. I always say that once I start a piece, the threads and machine seem to take over! I close the sketchbook up and then see what happens. Still working on skies, here are a couple of quick on the spot drawings and the work that came from them, with a selection of my threads as well.

Very quick drawing, skies change so quickly

Purple and Amber sky

The very quick drawing on the left helped me start the embroidery, 5in /13cm square. I started with the idea of form and colours, began to stitch and put the sketchbook away.

I was able to record these mountains in Palermo,and then had to try and remember the skies I had seen. The richness of the sun was my main interest, and the way the colours of the sky changed from pinks to pale yellow and blues. I love all my threads! I always make a limited selection to begin with, then add or subtract others as the stitching develops. I use heavyweight metallic threads, weights 8, 12 and 15, as well as metallic no 40, plus lots of rayon threads, mainly weight 30. Madeira classic no 12 is a huge favourite of mine, but Wonderfil also make some glorious threads and I love their rayons, weights 8 and 12. I use cotton embroidery threads of course, and woollen/acrylic mixes as well.

—and then sometimes I draw simply to record where I am. My sketchbooks are my diaries. I used to make architectural pieces, so maybe I’ll go back to looking at buildings, but I suspect they would be much more abstract!

My next post will record the development of a piece I am to make for the next touring exhibition of the embroiderers guild called “Home”, so look out for it although I have only just started it!

Sunbury Gallery Exhibition

01 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by carolnaylortextiles in Embroiderers Guild UK, Exhibitions, galleries, Knitting and Stitching Shows 2018, Textile Art

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Art, drawing, embroidery, galleries, stitch, Textile Art

I’m delighted that my exhibition A Stitched Timeline will shortly be opening at the purpose-built Sunbury Embroidery Gallery. It runs from Feb 26th to April 7th. Details are on their website, http://www.sunburygallery.org The gallery is well worth a visit, beautifully situated by the river Thames, with easy parking, stunning gardens, and has a great cafe that serves lunch, coffee and tea. I can recommend the chocolate brownies, but you may need to save half for another day! I’m also giving a talk on March 14th at 7.30pm , tickets and information from the gallery.

At the Knitting and Stitching shows, the response to my early work and to my sketch books was tremendous. So you did hand embroidery before? You made paper? We all have our own journey to make and its been a joy and privilege sharing it. Here are a few drawings and images but you’ll have to visit if you want to see the early hand stitched work as I have no photographic record and some of the work was too delicate to take out of the frames.

Drawing “Garden” 1980s-this way of drawing with oil pastels led to the delicate hand stitched work in the 80s

Journey garden 89

Different ideas that have led to textile pieces, although the middle one is from an old paper making piece I found recently, and have chopped up! It’s waiting for me to work into it…..

hi.res.print_the lake at petworth_detail_1

and finally my piece “The Lake at Petworth” made for the Embroiderer’s Guild touring exhibition “Capability Brown” in 2016

Sunbury Gallery Exhibition

01 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by carolnaylortextiles in Embroiderers Guild UK, Exhibitions, galleries, Knitting and Stitching Shows 2018, Textile Art

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Art, drawing, embroidery, galleries, stitch, Textile Art

Drawing “Garden” 1980s-this way of drawing with oil pastels led to the delicate hand stitched work in the 80s

Journey garden 89

Different ideas that have led to textile pieces, although the middle one is from an old paper making piece I found recently, and have chopped up! It’s waiting for me to work into it…..

hi.res.print_the lake at petworth_detail_1

and finally my piece “The Lake at Petworth” made for the Embroiderer’s Guild touring exhibition “Capability Brown” in 2016

From Sunrise to Sunset

19 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by carolnaylortextiles in Drawings, Embroiderers Guild UK, Exhibitions, galleries, Inspirations, Processes, stitched textiles, Textile Art, UK textile artists

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abstraction, Art, blue, clouds, colour, drawing, embroidery, France, golden threads, landscape, skies, south downs, stitch, sunrise, sunsets

I am indebted to a good friend for this title which she suggested when we were talking about forthcoming exhibitions this week, so thank you to Myfanwy Hart, as it has inspired a new blog post! I have been very involved in the natural world for some years, and increasingly found myself emphasising colours and forms in the skies. Some of these are very detailed, others show simplified shapes of colour and stitch. I’ve put more information with the images that follow.

Firstly, if you don’t know Myfanwys blog site then take a look at https://crochetalongwithme.blog/author/nuvofelt/ with loads of lovely colour!

So here are some images where sunrise and early morning skies played a part in the work. The first image is very recent and uses memories of the South Downs where I live in the UK. It’s followed by two other locally based pieces. Finally I don’t write a lot as I hope the images speak for themselves but your thoughts are always welcome!

Daybreak 2018

On the left, Silver Lining, a windy morning, and on the right a bright sunny winter morning at Petworth, which I’ve shown before here. The blue-grey palette of Silver Lining contrasts strongly with the rich morning late mid-winter sky on the right. They are followed by “A Quiet Summers Evening” where memories of travelling through France and the UK combined to produce a palette of golds and blues, as I tried to echo the sky colours in the fields below.

A Quiet summers evening

Sunset from Lanzarote, with the night sky gathering and darkening from behind the distinctive mountains there, and a softer Sussex sunset of gentle pinks

EPSON scanner image

Fading summer light detail

And finally a piece from 2017 where the sunset has faded away giving way to the night. You can see more of these on my earlier post called Skyscapes.

C Naylor, Skyscape Nightfall

Art and Textiles from Spain to Scotland

10 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by carolnaylortextiles in Drawings, Embroiderers Guild UK, Inspirations, Spain, stitched textiles, Textile Art

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abstraction, Art, drawing, embroidery, landscape, Scotland, Spain, stitch, thread

As always a busy summer schedule included work and play! Our usual month away in Spanish hideaways, wonderful landscapes for inspiration, staying with friends who are like family, was swiftly followed by a flight to Glasgow to teach for the Scottish Region of the Embroiderers Guild on the stunning campus at Stirling University. You can see some of my drawings here, plus examples from the summer school, an amazingly responsive group of students who played and worked hard in equal measure! The first images are from Spain, followed by a selection of work from Stirling summer school.

Sunflowers near Sepulveda, sketch book drawing. I hope to use this and the second drawing as starting points for embroideries this autumn.

2017-07-30 10.25.32 Carol Naylor drawing

This is the wonderful Posada de San Millan in Sepulveda where we stay with our delightful friend Pilar.

2017-07-29 16.17.17

Lavender and sunflowers growing in fields side by side on the tiny road between Santo Domingo de Silos, and Lerma inspired this memory drawing as there was nowhere to stop the car safely!

Lavender an Sunflower001 Carol Naylor drawing

And now for Scotland. The wonderful campus at Stirling University

20170826_162725

Here are some if the wonderful pieces made by my students. The theme was The Land we Know so nearly all had images from the wonderful landscapes of Scotland. Many of them had only done basic machine embroidery before. It shows what you can achieve in under 4 days. Maybe the late evening wine helped! There were 15 students so I can’t really show all the work here, but I felt so proud of their achievements.

, 20170827_172106 By Ruth Blakey, taught by Carol Naylor

20170827_171035 by Isobel Shaw, taught by Carol Naylor

20170827_171838 by Maureen Griffiths, taught by Carol Naylor

20170827_195234 (1) by Susan Gray, taught by Carol Naylor

I think these give an idea of what is possible if you are brave enough to fly on your sewing machine!

Petworth Revisited

04 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by carolnaylortextiles in Commissions, Drawings, Embroiderers Guild UK, Exhibitions, galleries, Inspirations, stitched textiles, Textile Art

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Art, Embroiderers Guild, embroidery, exhibitions, landscape, Petworth House, textiles

I wrote about my work for the Capability Brown Festival in my last entry, explaining how Petworth House in West Sussex was my inspiration, but this was not the first time I had used this beautiful venue for my work. Back in 1997 I relinquished my post as principal lecturer in the Fine Art department at Chichester University in order to free lance and concentrate purely on making my own work. This was a pretty scary step at the time, waking up each day with no timetable and no commitments other than going ot my studio to stitch! I began to apply for anything that looked possible for textile art, and saw a Festival of Craftmanship advertised. This was being organised by the Surrey Guild with Crafts Council support. Nothing venture, nothing gained, they wanted applications for commissioned pieces. I had carried out a commission for St Richards hospital in Chichester earlier in 1997, and this had been the catalyst that made me stop teaching. The brief for the commissions was to make work inspired by Petworth as the festival was to be held there in 1998. I was delighted when my ideas and designs were accepted.

As you will see from the images that follow, my work was completely different nearly 20 years ago! At that point architecture was the theme I had been working with, so the house provided me with wonderful starting points. I made a diptych (approx 55cm x 130 cm) each panel for the commission, and made several more pieces that explored architectural features in Chichester and Petworth. I don’t have really good photos of the work, but I think the following gives a clear idea. Here is the diptych where you can see the architectural features of the house and gardens, followed by a detail.

drawings of building features

and finally one of the other embroideries I made which I still have at home! September Haze, Petworth, 76cm x 60cm approx

Capability Brown Festival

18 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by carolnaylortextiles in Drawings, Embroiderers Guild UK, Exhibitions, Inspirations, Processes, stitched textiles, Textile Art

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Art, Capability Brown, drawing with threads, embroidery, JMW Turner, landscape, Landscape Architecture, Petworth House, stitch

Capability Brown Festival with the Embroiderers’ Guild

This year is the tri-centenary of the birth of the landscape architect Capability Brown, often referred to as England’s greatest gardener, who in the 18th century transformed the gardens of many of the country’s stately homes by his radical approach. The formal layouts so popular in France and Italy that had influenced the UK, were abandoned in favour of the natural landscape. This is what the UK Embroiderers Guild say-

“As the first ever celebration of Brown’s work, the Capability Brown Festival brings together a huge range of events. The Embroiderers’ Guild is delighted to be a Festival Partner and is contributing to the celebrations with a series of unique textile exhibitions at venues across the country throughout 2016”

For more information visit the guild website at https:// http://www.embroiderersguild.com

I am honoured to be amongst the textile artists invited to exhibit in a series of exhibitions throughout 2016. For this, I visited Petworth House near our home in West Sussex. I’ve been there many times, and indeed nearly 20 years ago made work for a festival in 1998 there, when I used the house and the iconic temples in the grounds, as my starting points. This time the grounds were much more significant. I walked, looked, made mental notes and took photos, as early winter isnt the best time to draw outside.

The piece I have made especially for the Festival is called “The Lake at Petworth” as the lake proved both a challenge and a change of imagery for me. The paintings of Turner, who drew and painted there provided additional food for thought, and I used his glorious golds to inspire my sky.
You can see this at venues that include the NEC Birmingham and the Knitting and Stitching shows in London and Harrogate. I am delighted that it has already featured on the guild website to advertise the Festival, and by the Landscape Institute (Royal chartered body for landscape architects) in their February newsletter. Lake I never try to imitate what I see, but I adapt aspects of form, colour and light and once I start stitching, the photos and sketches are put away, so that I simply create my own response. The whole piece follows where you can see the free edging. This has been sewn to a white box canvas. Embroidery size 35 x 45cm approx, mounted to 50 x 60cm

Naylor, C The Lake at Petworth 1 new

And here is the centre part so that you can see the detail. In my next post I will show you the work I made in 1998!

Petworth Lake, Autumn_edited-1

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Carol Naylor

~ Contemporary textiles, making, exploring and communicating ideas

Category Archives: Embroiderers Guild UK

Drawing, Threads and Stitching

Sunbury Gallery Exhibition

Sunbury Gallery Exhibition

From Sunrise to Sunset

Art and Textiles from Spain to Scotland

Petworth Revisited

Capability Brown Festival