Mono printing with Gelli plates is one of my favourite techniques.  I have used it in many of my works including some of my Poppy pieces "Poppies Sown in Thread", my series of journal quilts based on the Southbank Centre, which can be accessed with this link -  2015 - and my SAQA entry for the Made in Europe travelling show to be found here - News.

​I recently ran a workshop on using the Gelli plates and prepared various samples for the class to demonstrate the techniques used and effects that could be obtained.  Of course, rollers need cleaning between each print to prevent the paint drying on them, with often disastrous results.  But instead of cleaning off the paint with a rag I keep a sketchbook next to me and roll off the excess paint onto a page.

These are a few examples of the pages created by cleaning off the rollers.  
I was pleased with the results and might use the pages as backgrounds to other artwork.  Or I might just enjoy looking at the abstract patterns and the colours.
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​I cut out strips - no ruler or scissors, just a rotary cutter, freely slicing through pairs of fabrics, then another pair, joining up the pairs to make curvy blocks of colour, some in warm earth tones of reds, oranges and browns, others of greens yellows and the occasional purple.

The blocks were sewn together in strips then joined to make a whole piece. Now the question - which way round should it be -  vertical or horizontal? I  had concentrated on the block and colour placement knowing that I would be pleased with the end result but not thinking about orientation - part of the serendipity of making art.

I played with the piece in all directions, thinking about the irregular shapes of the edges and whether I should straighten them out by cutting them off.  But then it would lose its organic feel....  I decided it looked more like a landscape rather than a forest.  So a horizontal placement with undulating horizontal lines of quilting 

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And how to bind the edges?  The answer was obvious - just tidy up the edges, keeping their free form and finish the quilt with a facing, not a binding.
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The finished quilt - "Red Earth"

Helen Parrott is a textile artist whose work I've admired for a long time and when I learnt that she was giving a workshop following on from her talk to London Quilters in September I was the first to sign up!

The workshop on mark making and hand stitching started out with exercises in collage, then critiques of everyone's compositions.

The next exercise was to draw 'blind' - that is, to draw with candle wax or white crayon, making bold and gestural marks roughly on a theme you've picked, or not.  The drawing was then painted over with a solution of Brusho and water, resulting in deep colours which revealed the image.  I found this liberating as I think the images are rather looser than they might have been if I could have seen the marks as they were being made.  They look rather crude but may well be inspiration for a new body of work I am planning to make                                                                                                                                                                        

We then explored running stitch and its variety and texture depending on the type of thread, the fabric and the length of the stitch.   These are my samples, highly textured and evocative of landscapes
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All Threaded Together is a group of ten textile and mixed media artists.  We originally met at The Bramblepatch in Kislingbury on courses run by Brenda Boardman.  After her retirement from teaching we continued to meet to share our knowledge and support each other, as well as showing work at The Bramblepatch and Compton Verney.

In January 2015 we moved to larger premises in Kislingbury and called ourselves Threaded Together, but on discovering that there was another exhibiting group by that name, changed ours to All Threaded Together.


The new venue was ideal for showing work so we decided to have another exhibition!  There was no particular theme to the show as a whole except that we were to make one work 12" x  12" mounted on a canvas.  It had to incorporate as much or as little of a batik fabric as the maker chose and the piece could be interpreted freely.  ​This is the fabric we agreed to use for these pieces

Our inaugural exhibition on 30 April 2016 was held in Kislingbury Village Hall and the space was large enough to share with two other textile groups, Weedon Bec Contemporary Quilt Group and Layered.

It was a fine spring day and there were over 70 visitors, tempted by beautiful textiles, books, cards and ceramics.  Tea, coffee and cake may also have played a part!  Here are some of the visitors clearly enjoying themselves:

And a selection of some of our work:

And now we are all working towards our next exhibition, which will probably be held in 2018.

The annual show at Olympia has become a fixture in the calendars of many textile and mixed media artists.   This year's show had some wonderful exhibitions and it was a privilege to be able to talk with the artists who gave their time so willingly.  And all artists generously allowed photographs to be taken

The wall hangings by Michelle House were vibrant and painterly, in clear colours which called out to the viewer "Look at me".  I loved the clean lines and colours.

To quote from Michelle's handout, and with her permission:

"Inspiration comes in many guises, often the pattern and geometry within architecture and the landscape spotted on walks through London, also the physical act of mixing and layering of colours, the texture of fabrics and the printing process.  I use dye pastes, pigments, and sometimes pigment discharge to screen-print and paint onto a variety of textiles...I am increasingly using the computer to design and plan, and for adjusting and editing sections of photographs before they are transferred onto screens."

The Portfolio page on Michelle's website at www.michellehouse.co.uk shows her wonderful work.  In the meantime, here is a selection to whet your appetite:

Louise Baldwin's show of stitched textiles and collages, "Two Worlds", was a wonderful collection of artworks - combining hand and machine stitch to create rich imagery, the "Please do not touch" notices were necessary as the pieces were highly tactile and practically invited the viewer to handle them!

The photographs below show some of Louise's works.  We wait eagerly for her website....

I loved the works in the two-woman show of Mary Sleigh and Jan Miller, "Somewhere in Between".  Hangings, book forms and artworks made out of reclaimed and recycled materials were rich in memory and history.  And, naturally, I wanted to touch the books, turn the pages, feel the textures.

                                                  

I was delighted to learn that White Cube, one of the world's most prestigious and well known commercial galleries, was exhibiting textile works, including Amish and Gee's Bend quilts, as well as modern conceptual pieces, at it's Mason's Yard venue.  A visit to the show didn't disappoint.

The exhibition is in two parts - the historic pieces in one display and the modern ones in another. 

Seventeen old quilts and two pieces by Alighiero e Boetti are shown together.  Three of the quilts are hanging on the wall in an unconventional way, as if draped on a hook, with a spotlight on each of them.  The other quilts were laid out against a long wall, on blocks creating a step, each overlapping another or being overlapped.

It was frustrating not to be able to see the full quilts, especially those from Gee's Bend.  One in particular, Geraldine Westbrook's Housetop, was tantalisingly worn and dirty, which made me want to see the rest of it.  It was also alarming to see that the quilts had been fixed in place with large staples.  And several trailed across the floor, ready to be trodden on.  I feel that this display should have been laid out in such a way that the full quilts could be seen.  Hanging them against a wall would have enabled a full view without damaging the textiles.

Complaints finished!  The quilts were a moving display of women's creativity, ingenuity and skill.  Scraps of fabrics, worn and grubby, made up a large part of the Gee's Bend quilts, many with asymmetrical piecing that appeared to add to their spontaneity.  One of the oldest pieces, Coxcomb Flower, was beautifully appliqued and quilted; Log Cabin, described as third quarter 19th century, had an unusual half square triangle centre.  And the mariner's compass, also attributed to the same period , was stunning.

The second part of the exhibition had some very interesting pieces.  Danh Vo's cochineal-dyed rug was ablaze with colour, almost hurting one's eyes with it's brilliance.  Mona Hatoum's 4 Rugs (made in Egypt) had images of skeletons, reminiscent of burial  plots.  I loved the idea behind Mike Kelley's Carpet #5 - (probably cheap) acrylic carpet painted with acrylic and mounted and framed to create an artwork.  Likewise, Sergej Jensen's hand knitted pieces were bold minimalist pieces, bringing knit into the world of art.  There were many canvas embroideries by the Italian conceptual artist, Alighiero e Boetti, cleverly using text in his work.

So, one can hope that this exhibition might help bring textile artworks into the mainstream art world.  We wait and see.

The annual show at Alexandra Palace is one not to be  missed for stitching and knitting afficionados.  I went on Wednesday 7 October, the first day of the show opening, queueing up to get in as the doors opened.  The greatest pleasure of the show is being able to speak with the artists exhibiting their work - and I was not disappointed.

Amanda Clayton and Viven Prideaux's installation of beautifully dyed pieces and sheers was made in response to the poem by RS Thomas "The Other".  The translucent hangings and stitched books were particularly attractive.

Stella Harding's exhibition of forms used basketry techniques to transform discarded and recycled materials into geometric forms displayed to show their shapes, which were highlighted by their own shadows.

Michala Gyetvai's "Enchanted Landscapes", large pieces on felted and stitched blankets invoked the atmosphere of mysterious and magical places, the stuff of fairy tales.  Although not permitted, these pieces were crying out to be stroked...

The SAQA exhibition, "Food for Thought", examines the role of food in daily life.  And Kate Jenkin's wonderful "The Stitchmongers", with its display of knitted, crocheted and sequined seafood made every visitor smile with pleasure.

New Zealand Contemporary Textile Art was a large showcase of artwork with a range of techniques, themes and sizes, reflecting the diverse cultures of New Zealand.

"The Fiber Lands" by DAMSS Fibreart greets the visitor on entering the show - the large display stretches for several yards and is composed of individual panels to make up the whole.  Based on the cliffs of Ligura, the visitor has a rather vertiginous bird's eye view of the coastline and sea.  You are left with the feeling that you are there.

After a two year absence, I managed to see this year's Summer Exhibition with a fortnight to spare.    The first thing that struck me was the large number of people taking photographs.  I officiously told someone it wasn't allowed but an attendant corrected me - this was the first time that the Royal Academy had allowed photography.  So my mobile was pressed into use and I was able to capture images of some of the works which caught my attention.  Resolution for next year - take good camera with full battery!

The Small Weston Room was handed over to William Kentridge in recognition of his election as an Honarary Academician and the space was used to show his recent works on trees of Africa - linocuts, Indian ink and digital prints on dictionary pages.  The ink marks were particularly well suited to the subject matter.

An unexpected surprise was a display from Tom Phillips' The Humument, showing the development of individual pages.  And a large display of 40 prints by Norman Ackroyd was stunning. 

Apart from a large Grayson Perry tapestry and a small embroidery of a parrot, I didn't see other textile works.  Perhaps textile artists should make a concerted effort to flood the selection committee with works on textiles so that we would be hard to ignore..........

I have never understood the point of battle re-nactments but the exhibition "Unseen Waterloo - The Conflict Revisited" opened my eyes. 

 The exhibition consists of 70 life size portraits taken by the photographer Sam Faulkner, who has attended the annual Waterloo re-enactment in Belgium since 2009.  Each participant makes their own historically accurate uniform.  The photographs were taken in a pop-up studio on the battlefield against a black background; the dramatic lighting evoked forgotten faces and emotions.

To quote Sam Faulkner - "Unseen Waterloo: The Conflict Revisited" is my attempt to re-interpret and imagine the non-existent portraits from 1815. ...we don't have personal images of the men who actually fought and died that day. ...This work attempts to reclaim the Battle of Waterloo for the valiant 200,000 who have been lost to history".

The exhibition runs until 31 August and is well worth a visit.  To whet your interest are three pictures from the exhibition:

The exhibition at Somerset House, "Beneath the Surface", fittingly displayed in the subterranean Embankment Galleries, is a selection of pieces from the V&A's extensive collection of photographs.  The exhibition shows prints rarely or never before exhibited, by both both nineteenth century pioneers and contemporary artists.