"the days betwixt "

We like the few days betwixt Christmas and New Year's Eve. There is a quietness, almost a relief. Walking and  watching clouds and water with camera and watercolour box to hand, trying to capture their transient beauty . Walking in the woods, sketching and watching the birds feeding or hiding amongst the tangled undergrowth has provided space before the work of next year begins.  Paul and I have been very aware of the preciousness of our time together this year and have enjoyed sharing some of our thoughts and work with you here and on our social media sites. The web site has been updated today and space made for new work to arrive onto it when the holidays finish. We wish you all that is good for 2015 and look forward to sharing the journey with you.

Winter lines

 As deep Autumn travels into Winter I have enjoyed the emerging stark lines - bare branches, dying bracken, skeletal seed heads and grasses. A favourite walk with the dogs around Laide Woods feeds my soul all the year round, but especially now.

 My latest sketch book is filling up nicely with lines and shadows. A new body of work in embroidered lines is taking place.

In the long dark evenings I have been enjoying the textured lines of crocheting a new blanket for the cottage.

context

We have just enjoyed a lovely week in Dorset, time to recharge the batteries and time for reflection.

Dorset with its famous Jurassic coastline and rolling chalk downs, its hidden villages nestling in valleys and beautiful trees. A very different landscape for us and a different pattern and sense of community and everyday life.

A visit to the sub - tropical gardens at Abbotsbury was inspiring. Leaves were falling in these first days of Autumn, I picked up a few oak and eucalyptus leaves and took them back to the cottage.

I had already enjoyed browsing the Vintage market in Bridport and bought lovely pieces of linen and cotton textiles. Time to steam the leaves in the cloth along with plants found in the hedgerow beside us. A lovely way to imprint a landscape in cloth and into my memory. Textiles carry so much meaning - the hands and skill which created them, the beliefs of a people, the colours and marks of a landscape, the reality that so often the textiles were used to clothe a body or to adorn a dwelling. Now we are back in the mountains of the far north and the winds are blowing and Autumn is well underway here. A perfect time to create a Bojagi cloth with my Dorset textiles adding stitch, my own marks onto a landscape which offered us rest and peace.

bojagi wrapping cloths

After the sneak peek of using eco dyed fabric last week - here is the finished article and my first textiles video ever !

Fencing and fabric - a synchronicity

When we took on a croft eight years ago that had not been worked or looked after for decades you wonder where to start ! Fencing is an annual job as we replace rusted barbed wire with Paul's wonderful rail and post creations. Not exciting ? well to me it is when lovely old hinges off broken gates become available.

The cotton fabric was fetched and with a spray of water and vinegar added, the cloth was carefully wrapped around the hinges. The fabric created is just wonderful.

When used alongside my eco dyed work I am very excited about a new range of textile pieces being created for Studio Inscape's shop. To create fabric with marks from the croft I live on and love is the best kind of diary keeping I can imagine.

Here's a sneak peek at the first piece just finished !

eco dyeing

Ever since I was a small child I have loved  flowers.   Newly married  we walked along the Cornish and Pembrokeshire coastal paths identifying plants and birds as we walked. Now with more time to pursue the things we both love doing perhaps it isn't surprising that plants and birds have re entered our work.
My sketchbook continues to fill up with mark making in response to bird song heard on and around the croft and Paul has been able to capture a few of the birds in his photography. You can follow this work on the web site under the bird song gallery page.

The summer has also been filled with experiments in eco dyeing paper and fabric and Paul has been documenting some of the plants I have used from the croft. This image of devilsbit scabious is a favourite.

The dyeing process onto paper has taken over my life and our kitchen these last two weeks and an installation of the pieces will be photographed over the winter as part of our ongoing collaboration. We are both excited to see where this project will take us.

We have gone cuckoo here !

silk and velvet devore stole

Our photographic and textile work arises from all sorts of starting points. Every so often we decide on a theme and both begin to produce work "in conversation" with one another. Currently that work is centred around the phrase "bird song", as I explore making marks in stitch and paint which respond to specific bird calls. Mourning the departure of the cuckoo at the end of June I began working with the visual and audible material related to the cuckoo. Paul was wondering where the choice would take him photographically when we had two days of amazing sightings from our window, overlooking the croft. A cuckoo - just fledged, flying past the window flanked by two smaller birds. Then this morning there was our young cuckoo being fed by the parent birds as we watched and held our breath as Paul rushed for his camera .

What an amazing time we  had, we wanted to share the images with you. We think the parent birds are a pipit - but are not sure, so if you know please tell us !

 The inspiration for the themed work just went through the roof this weekend !!

Summer fun

Well fun in the sun has really  been happening - even here in NW Scotland ! Lots of time to work together has been a real treat. we have a newly designed website here:
http://www.studioinscape.com/
Please pop by and leave us your feedback.

winter trees

I have neglected the blog for too long having been caught up in writing up work for my degree over the start of the New Year. Paul's photography goes from strength to strength and he has caught some lovely images over this winter. My own work is more like the bare winter trees, a time of new life gathering pace underground. I have spent 18 months on the watercolour and drawing work and it has been a steep learning curve. I am so looking forward to seeing how it translates back into my textiles this coming year. In the meantime enjoy the shape and intricacy of this tree.