William Morris stitched portrait.

William Morris, ‘The Maker’, finished.

Since Easter, I have been working on a couple more portraits. My portrait of Isaac Rosenberg, the First World War poet has been started but put on hold until hopefully this weekend and whit week, when I might be able to get my teeth back into it. But, my portrait of William Morris has been a wonderful roller coaster ride and now it is finished. I do find I get obsessed by projects and therefore find it difficult to do other things which I am meant to be doing like feeding the children, working on ‘work’ projects, remembering to pick the children up from school…And this has been no exception!

William Morris, the beginning.

I decided to make a portrait of William Morris for many reasons. The first being that I had so much fun with my ‘Green Man’ and his beard, I wanted to create another piece in which I worked in a similar manner. Secondly, because his body of work – poetry, writing, design, arts and crafts, hand-working, philosophy – inspire me constantly.

Acanthus leaves drawn onto the background of the finished sewn portrait.

Unlike my war poet portraits, I wanted to ensure this portrait was full of colour, almost psychedelic but I like to keep the face of the portrait down to very simple expressive lines, which allows the viewer to create their own feelings about the character of the ‘sitter’.

Hand stitched acanthus leaves, painted with acrylic.

I had a lovely time drawing out the acanthus leaves which were then hand stitched and finally painted with acrylic. The hand stitched is slow and methodical, but very meditative in nature.

Finished acanthus.

Originally, I had intended to further embellish the acanthus leaves but I was so pleased with how they looked when I finished painting them, that I decided it would be rather ‘over egging the pudding’ if I did.

Waistcoat and shirt detail.

It was difficult to decide upon colours for his waistcoat and shirt, as obviously photographs of Morris were in black and white and in paintings he tended to be seen wearing dark, dull colours. So, I did some research on Victorian costume of the 1860s to try and get the right tones and colours.

‘News from Nowhere’ quote.

Hand stitched around Morris’s collar is a quote from his ‘News from Nowhere’, a book which encapsulates his idea of utopian socialism.

Portrait stretched on a frame for painting and stitching.

Before choosing the colour of Morris coat, I painted his beard and hair in fabulous tones of orange and brown, only then could I decide upon his coat’s colour.

Hand stitched tweed.

When I had finished painting his coat, I decided to hand over stitch a check, using colours I had already stitched into the acanthus leaves. You can see I also hand stitched oak leaves into his shirt – this is an ‘homage’ to his love of using the oak leaf also in his design and the William Morris designs often used in Liberty print shirts.

Detail of Morris’s hair and beard.

The stitching on the shirt was the last piece of sewing to complete the portrait. The last two weeks, I have been busy getting the picture framed – I have chosen to use the same style frame I used for the ‘Green man’ – and to get my first set of Giclee prints done, which I am very excited about.

Giclee prints of my portraits.

This weekend it’s The Late Shows in Newcastle and once again my studio is open, which encouraged me to promptly organise some prints of my work, as visitors had asked if I had any of my ‘War Poets’. I was absolutely delighted with the results and now just need to pick up the picture mounts and they will also be ready to then go onto my Etsy site, too.

‘The Maker’.

‘Mad Cat’ lino prints on Etsy!

Well, this week the cutting tools and printing roller have certainly been very busy! And so has the computer today, as I put this bad putty-tat up on Etsy!

Mad Cat in Fuchsia!

(Hehe! I’ve also just noticed I’d spelt ‘fuchsia’ wrong on Etsy – that’ll get noticed!!)

A couple of weeks ago, I had been doodling some drawings for the girls and one of them was a ‘Mad Cat’. At the start of this week, when needing more printing paper for my ‘craft’ inspired prints, I also picked up some rather fabulous paper in vivid colours – this inspired me to create ‘Mad Cat’!

‘Mad Cat’ in vivid green.

As you can see, I’ve been having lots of fun with colour!

‘Mad Cat’ in bright yellow!

‘Mad Cat’ in silver.

‘Mad Cat’ in red.

Craft themed lino Prints

I really enjoy lino printing and the last two days I have been hand printing more copies of my existing craft prints and hand cutting some new ones. Each print, as they are hand processed, can work beautifully or be a complete disaster, so it can be time consuming. Plus, each letter is individually hand printed, so each print is quite unique in it’s design.

‘Knit’ Lino Print

The series of ‘Craft’ lino prints are, as you can imagine, inspired by my love of making in so many senses of the word. The ‘Knit’ print above symbolises not just the preparation for knitting but also the tradition of ‘gansey‘ knitting. The letters of the word ‘Knit’ are set out like a compass around the spokes and steering wheel of a boat. I have knitted, just squares, symbols from ganseys in the past, as they were to form part of the Shipley Art Gallery’s handling collection. Working on such fine needles, with extremely dark blues, with such intricate designs is extremely hard work and many of the women and men who made them were often also trying to do other jobs at the time – I take my hat off to them!

‘Hooker’ lino print.

I think I have discussed this before in one of my posts about ‘hooky’ and ‘proggy’ matting. ‘Hooky’ is the term used for ‘hooking’ the loops up to make a hooky mat. And, when I teach workshops on mat making, there’s always a joke made by someone that we are ‘hookers’ – which we are in the crafty sense of the word… It is a great, traditional technique which recycles old fabrics and often brings friends and family to work together on the mat.

‘Patch’ lino print.

The crochet inspired print below, I hand cut yesterday. Crochet is a very tricky technique to draw out and, like the other prints, the design is representational rather than a true illustration. But, as I find on many of the sites I follow, crochet – like many crafts- is addictive!

‘I Am Hooked’, crochet lino print.

Tomorrow, my new prints will be up on my obsesivcreativ Etsy page and I am hoping to approach some of our local craft/gift shops to sell them… as I am very pleased with how my ‘Heart’ prints are now selling at the Sage Gateshead.