Owls in embroidery hoops

From my last post owls hanging nursery mobile I decided to make some more simple gifts using the same owl characters. I sewed the pieces onto some pale grey needlecord (left over from my dungaree dress which I made - blog post to come when I get around to photographing it!) I stuffed some wadding into each owl too to make it a bit 3D, then I framed them in a painted embroidery hoop and hanged with a matching ribbon.

Please do get in touch if you would like me to make you anything similar :)

 

 

Owls hanging nursery mobile

Recently I created this set of cute owls to make into a mobile to decorate the nursery of a friend, which has a woodland theme.

I used lots of scrap fabrics but with a similar colour scheme, sewing 4 stuffed owl characters and 4 different kinds of leaf. I tried to add some detail to the back of each owl too, using buttons, felt and different patterns of stitching to stimulate the small person whilst they look at it!

I'm really pleased with how the owl characters turned out and maybe I can make some more of these little characters soon! Please do get in touch if you would like any similar things created for you.

 

 

 

Eden Project Botanical Illustation Course

Last week I attended a Botanical Illustation Course at the Eden Project. This was my second time doing a course there and this time it was a whole 5 days of drawing and painting, and learning a bit about plants.

The course started with us learning all about the different parts of plants and flowers to help make more informed drawings. We had tours of both the outside and tropical biomes from members of the horticultural team at Eden which were really interesting. 

We began the final piece by choosing something to draw, there were plenty of interesting plant materials to choose from, I chose this Globe artichoke (Cynara scolymus) because I love the colours and shape, plus I thought it would be achievable to complete a painting of this in the time. Next we made a scale drawing of the item, which we shaded in using graphite on some tracing paper. The original drawing was then transferred to the watercolour paper using tracing paper before being painted with watercolours.

Our teacher was the lovely Laura Silburn who is a botanical artist working in Cornwall, and a Fellow of the Eden Project Florilegium Society, whos beautiful paintings we were able to view at the end of the course.

My completed Artichoke botanical watercolour painting

Initial sketch of Artichoke

Dissecting a daffodil

Daffodil Ovary!

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