Tag Archives: Spain

Knitting and Stitching Shows 2018

30 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by in Drawings, Exhibitions, galleries, Knitting and Stitching Shows 2018, Processes, Textile Art

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Its too long since my last blog entry, but a very busy summer has been compounded by preparations for my one woman show at the Knitting and Stitching shows this autumn.

“A Stitched Timeline” showcases my work from the 70s to the present day, and is the first time I’ve shown this work together. It’s been a fascinating journey, searching out old, forgotten pieces in the attic, and contacting people who I know bought pieces from exhibitions, especially in the 80s and 90s. There is a really lovely catalogue to accompany the exhibition, which goes to all 3 K&S shows at Alexandra Palace, London, Dublin and Harrogate. It’s also going to the Sunbury Gallery in 2019.

From the 70s, never been seen before, hand embroidery onto hessian. The threads are as vibrant now as they were then!

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the 80s and 90s, some drawings from my sketch books follow, which will also be on display

the 2000s, hangings based on maps- this was from my local landscape near Arundel in West Sussex UK and only exhibited on two former occasions, its quite large, about 120cm x 50 cm per panel, and includes some felted areas.1 Arunscape, diptych 2004

….and finally work from the last ten years includes land, sea and skyscapes from the UK, Spain, Italy and France. You’ll have to visit to see most of them, but a few follow. So for UK friends I do hope to see you if you come to the shows, and for those further afield, I hope you enjoy seeing these.Its a slide show (clever !)

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Your comments are always appreciated. Carol

 

Skies 2018

11 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by in Drawings, Exhibitions, galleries, Inspirations, Processes, stitched textiles, Textile Art

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I’ve started this year by continuing last year’s theme of skyscapes. My obsession and passion for colour is especially indulged by autumn and winter skies, the latter somehow always the richest and most varied due to the sun’s  low position. I’ve also shown a few of the skies that I found inspiring, always fleeting, impossible to “draw” unless you are a Turner or Constable! I record these rapidly changing vistas by putting down words, quick sketches and by memory, and then the threads and stitches take over. They are all 5 in (13 cm) square and double mounted to 12 ins (30cm) square. I am always interested in what visitors to my blog think, so do comment if you would like to.

 

On the left, the stitched piece, and the quick drawing on the right, Costa Teguise sunset. I start with a drawing then put it away, never trying to copy. Below two night skies from the UK, “As Night Falls” on the left, and “Wintry Sky” on the right, this week’s work.

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The magic of sea, sunrise and sunset. I havent really looked at using the sea very often although it does feature in some of my work, maybe I’ll do more—

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And finally, these four all found new homes after my last exhibitions in 2017.

Art and Textiles from Spain to Scotland

10 Sunday Sep 2017

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

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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 10.25.32Carol Naylor drawing

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

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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 Sunflower001Carol Naylor drawing

 

And now for Scotland. The wonderful campus at Stirling University

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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_171035by Isobel Shaw, taught by Carol Naylor

20170827_171838by 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!

Spanish and Italian Reds

02 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in Commissions, Drawings, galleries, Inspirations, Italy, Spain, stitched textiles, Textile Art

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I’m not talking wine here for those who know me well (!) but this is a follow up to my last post, where I looked at using the colour red in my work. Below you will see a number of contrasting pieces where different red tones and threads have been used either as one of the main colours or as highlights within the compositions. I always use first hand experience, even if its just a fleeting glimpse of something that can inspire a series of works. The first embroidery is called “Sol y Sombra” which translates as sun and shade. The image comes from the landscape of central Spain near Santo Domingo de Silos. The light  was pouring through the valley, with golden wheatfields, terracotta earth, and blue shadows reflecting the mountains, catching my eye. After drawing on  site, when back home, I stripped out the vegetation so that I could concentrate on the land’s surface, and the act of stitching took over.

I am always interested in hearing what readers think so your comments are welcomed.

Sol y Sombra cropped

This next piece is called “Winter’s Song”, memories of cool light and chillier weather and the changes wrought by these conditions on the landscape.

C Naylor Winters Song

I showed this next piece in my post entitled ” From Drawings to a Stitched Landscape” where you can see how I developed the piece, but its so very red it needs to be seen again here! The cascading fields were seen against a backdrop of wheatfields and distant blue hills, Spain at its hottest and best, rich with colour and the sounds of insects.

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From the fiery reds of Spain now to the rolling Tuscan hills peppered with poppies. I use a crimson rather than a scarlet thread in this series as I feel it echoes the landscape more softly. I called this “Tuscan Serenade”. I never tire of playing with ideas that take me back in my mind to Italy, with its cypresses, hills and late springtime poppies that permeate the fields.

Tuscan Serenade

Finally the following embroidery was a small commission for a French family who requested a red landscape. I took the reds from Spain and mountain ranges from France, and really enjoyed the challenge of adding richer scarlet colours combied with metallic copper and gold threads. Its about 20cm square.

Bouton 1_edited-1

From drawings to a stitched landscape

16 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by in Drawings, Exhibitions, galleries, Inspirations, Processes, Spain, stitched textiles, Textile Art

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I have recorded here some of the stages of my most recent embroidery, completed this week, and would welcome your comments. The drawing was done in central Spain near Covarrubias last summer. I have shown some of the stitching as it develops, explaining the processes that resulted in this final piece, a Spanish landscape that contrasts strongly with my gentler South Downs pieces.

Here is the drawing, A4, pencil, pastels, watercolour pencils, and pen.

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The planning stage with mainly Madeira threads, Natesh and Wonderfil added later

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I draw a few main lines directly onto the painters canvas, stitch them in and then turn to the back as most of the work is done with cable stitch. This technique means putting threads that are too heavy to go through the eye of the needle on the bobbin. I stitch on the reverse side of the canvas, couching down the heavy threads to give long, uninterrupted lines of threads- the next image shows me workimg from the back. The top thread colour is important as it affects the bobbin thread adding new  colours to the piece eg the bright red is couching down a heavy metallic copper underneath.

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I have to keep turning to the front, shown next, to make sure I’m happy with what I’m doing, but as the bobbin runs out every 3 minutes I get plenty of opportunity to correct any errors and add any fine details. You can see below that the fabric starts to move and undulate. I “go with the flow” in the hope I can control the final results!

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-and here it is, 24cm x 35cm approx. The drawing is  only ever a guide, as once I start stitching, the thought processes and techniques take over. I never try to copy my sketches, but aim to translate and interpret. Hope you found this useful and interesting!

–looking-towards-clunia-final

 

Sketchbooks, the 90s

15 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in Drawings, galleries, Inspirations, Processes, Spain, Textile Art

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My first entry for 2017 and it’s a look at my sketchbooks in the 90s. All the drawings here are from 1991-92 and there’s quite a change of direction. I started looking at architecture and architectural features, so here are drawings from France and Spain. I also show two embroideries that evolved from the drawings.

Carol Naylor Beach Umbrellas 1993

Beach Umbrellas, Costa Brava.( machine embroidery onto muslin) The embroidery came after making about six drawings. The first, which is the delicate pencil drawing below, was made in situ on the beach. Then I made several others, extracting shapes and lines until I felt I was ready to stitch. The final piece in no way copies my drawings but I hope shows the developing ideas

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beach Umbrella sketch 3

I visited France on a field trip with students, Chartres and the Matisse chapel at Vence were just two venues. Here are some designs I did after looking at Matisse’s amazing windows.( the on site sketches are difficult to show here) I eventually did a series of embroideries based on stained glass but with my own take! So you see. I didnt always makw landscapes! Art evolves all the time– The embroidery below was onto calico that I painted and then stitched.

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Spanish Studies

02 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by in Drawings, Inspirations, Spain, stitched textiles, Textile Art

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Four weeks away from home in our favourite Spanish haunts gives plenty of time for drawing, absorbing and thinking about art. Each area we visit has its own charms, from the sierra south of Salamanca, to Sepulveda and Covarrubias, both stunning  little medieval towns, and finally to Isla in Cantabria in the north. Here are a few drawings that might simply act as my visual diary, or could lead to further work on stitching on my sewing machine. I have 35 years of sketch books in my studio. Maybe in my next post I will revisit some of those.

Las Batuecas, parque nacional de la Sierra de Francia

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Sepulveda

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The road from Santo Domingo de Silos to Covarrubias

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and our favourite beach in Isla in Cantabria

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Art in Action 2016

07 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by in Exhibitions, Inspirations, Spain, stitched textiles, Textile Art

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I am really lucky to be demonstrating and exhibiting at what is going to be the very last Art in Action at Waterperry, in Oxfordshire from July 13th-17th. This extraordinary event was started 40 years ago and has gone from strength to strength. It is surely the best of its kind in the UK and will be sorely missed. Where else can you see hundreds of artists working in every media imaginable, showing you how they create their work, alongside concerts, performances and lectures all held in the stunning grounds at Waterperry. So if you havent got a ticket and can make it come along and see it, its your last chance! You can even watch a flamenco performance this year! So if you come along you will find me in the textiles Demonstrators Marquee working on my sewing machine!

I’ve been busy making new pieces all year, from small portfolio ones to a range of stitched and framed canvases. Here are two of the smaller pieces.

“An Abundance of Poppies” 12cm x 15cm aprox (South Downs UK)

An Abundance of Poppies small

“Amber Glow” 11cm x  14 cm approx (Spanish memories)

Amber Glow

News Update June 2016

18 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by in Drawings, magazine articles, Spain, Textile Art

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It’s been a busy few weeks for me with some great promotion. Firstly my first spread in an Australian magazine, TFF (Textile Fibre Forum) #122 June 16, which shows the way in which my work has changed and progressed over 40 years of making and exhibiting, and then a piece from the wonderful Diana Springall collection of contemporary embroidery was featured and discussed on “MAKE! Craft Britain”, an hour long programme presented by Martha Kearney, on mainstream UK TV BBC4 June 9th 2016. This foray into the world of stitching set about de-bunking the theory that embroidery is craft  rather than art, and Diana eloquently explained why  Britain is still at the fore of embroidery. From the mid 1950s art schools taught  embroidery students alongside the painters and sculptors. Students had to draw, and had to acquire the same skills as well as heir own technical expertise, and I was lucky enough to study at Goldsmiths Art School in the mid-late 60s in this way. Drawing has been fundamental to my own personal progress in textile art, and I have all my sketchbooks since 1980 in my studio, a permanent  reference library, as well as a visual diary.

Here is Spanish Lavender, the piece featured on the TV progamme, 43cm x53cm approx.Spanish Lavender DS collection

and here one of my many drawings Drawing Castille 2

and another

Cepeda drawing001

Land and Sea

27 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by in Drawings, Inspirations, stitched textiles

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A quick post to catch up after three weeks away charging my creative batteries in Spain, and I’m now thinking of my next series of machine embroideries. This year both the wonderful landscape of the meseta and the Cantabrian sea at Isla have offered me ideas. I have used Spanish landscape on many an occasion, but this year dramatic changes in the weather on the northern coast produced some wonderfully contrasting sunrises. I hope to start a series of small images that explore sky and sea as well as land. Here are just some of the sunrises and also an amazing red field seen in Castille, with a drawing also from this area near Covarrubias, so look out for future developments. Light and shadow, sol y sombra so difficult to capture but what most of my work is really about. The final image is called “Sol y Sombra” that is sun and shadow and is from an earlier series. It found a new home this summer

Isla 2

Isla 4Isla 1

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sol y sombra, size of embroidery 32cm x34cm approx

Naylor, Sol y Sombra