Landscape Into Textiles

Over the last three weeks, I have been working on a new textile piece.

This project is different again to my previous pieces, and is based on moving through the gorgeous British landscape. I love painting and drawing out in the hills, especially the craggy bits:

But getting time (and weather) to be out in the hills is not always easy so sometimes, if I find myself on a train passing through Edale, I try to capture the changing skyline, by doing mad-fast sketches through the window. I sometimes do the same thing as we drive through the Lake District. It's the dramatic undulations and rapid changes in shape, colour and tone which I find exciting:

It was all this which fed into the large pastel drawing I created in the studio a couple of years back. I had a lull in work, so spent about 3 weeks experimenting with semi-abstracted landscape drawings, working from my imagination, using my sketchbook work as inspiration. This is one of the most successful drawings, in pastels:

The textile piece I am working on uses the drawing's principle shapes and colours, but reinterprets the drawn marks through a combination of  layered organzas and hand stitching. This piece concentrates most of its attention on pure mark-making:

Unlike the previous church piece, there is no opaque fabric collage and none of the strong outlining which features in my earlier pieces. I  have for the moment kept the blanket-stitch 'scarring', which provides an interesting contrast, both in texture and direction of flow:

I underpainted the base fabric again but, unlike the 'commuters' and the church backgrounds, have begun using protean dyes, which are waterproof, but also should be more light fast than the inks I used previously.

Because the piece is rather large, it is hard to get a good overview when I'm working on it. I need to be able to stand back, which is tricky. I didn't want to damage to delicate surface by taping it to the wall, so I have rigged up a system, temporarily sewing a couple of Velcro-backed tabs to the top, so that I can stick it to the door. This way I can more easily view the overall effect:

It's not finished yet, but it's not too far off. As with drawing, I'm finding I slow up as I get nearer, as decisions are harder and more subtle. Most of the remaining work needs to happen in the lower left hand quarter. I'll show you when I'm finished. Hope you like it so far!