Prehistoric rock art

I'm using the opportunity of a mixed media sketchbook class at theyard:ARTspace in Cheltenham with Sue Brown to play with ideas for a future BBs exhibition on the theme of Inhabit.

Here, I’ve been looking at prehistoric British rock art and exploring the marks, possibly symbolic, to be found. 

The plan is to develop some of these into stitched samples & see where that leads.

Corrine Renow-Clarke

Visiting Marrakech

Wandering the souks of Marrakech (a favourite haunt of hers) yesterday afternoon, Linda found these exquisitely embroidered textiles.

A close look reveals the simplicity of the stitches used, cross stitch on one and chain stitch on the other - timeless and without boundaries both of them.

It just shows, you don't have to be complicated technically or break dramatically new ground to make an impact!

Linda Babb

Replacement

Brunel Broderers will be taking their Bloom exhibition to Illminster in the autumn of next year, augmented with some new work.

I'm continuing to develop the work previously shown in Cheltenham and to replace some pieces which sold. Currently, I'm completing one piece I was working on before the exhibition opened but didn't have time to complete.

45 cm square when mounted and framed

It feels as if the next step now is to try out all sorts of other ideas using the same core images but with a different approach since I want all these pieces to relate to one another and to be part of a developing series. In Photoshop Elements, I've been manipulating the big rose tree shapes, working on them in black and white and then colorising, distorting, and layering them and playing with opacity levels.

So far, these have materialised ... but I'm right at the beginning of this whole idea!

And, I suspect there is much more to come before decide on which path to take and begin work in earnest ...

Margaret Robbie

Moving On

 'Bloom' has been put away until it is shown again next year in Ilminster  [details given nearer the time]. So now to move on with ideas for a new collection of pieces with the word 'Inhabit' in mind.
After a busy year making large scale work including a commission for St. James Church Chipping Campden Liz is trying to refocus, still with the images of Gothic churches in her head. Too early to come up with any plans the way forward seems to be to simply stitch, and enjoy the process, but on a small scale.

Thinking of the colours of medieval stained glass seen in the rich tracery of church windows simple blocks of colours are used with the addition of machined lines carve the shapes in the surface.

One thought leads to another and the reading of a magazine article suggests the use of a rather neglected Embellisher to indent colour in and through the surface.

Lets see where this might lead!

Liz Harding