Author: Linda Kemshall

As you may remember, since I’ve had the loan of an embroidery machine from Husqvarna Viking, I’ve been experimenting with using both the built in designs and those in the library of My Sewnet. The rosebud design shown here provided a perfect opportunity to add fabric paint within the stitched outlines of the flower and its leaves. I worked this in a grey Madeira rayon thread onto hand dyed cotton fabric, layering the fabric with cotton batting and a cotton backing so the stitched design quilted the layers rather than just embroidering on a single layer of cloth.

Sometimes I’ve chosen filled designs instead of outlines. They showcase the lustre of the threads and create beautifully rich and detailed surfaces. I’ve extended the digital designs with more fabric painted rosehips, rosebuds and leaves.  Lots of my examples are stitched onto old quilts that I’ve recycled. Embroidering onto an existing pieced and quilted fabric adds interesting colour and texture don’t you think? Of course it does present some problems too but I’ve chosen to ignore the existing quilting and simply work over it with both stitch and paint.

Working onto a quilted surface does mean that my leaves and especially the pears in the final image have strange linear patterns but I rather like the serendipity of that layered effect. The additions are hand painted with either fabric paints or artists’ acrylic paints mixed with textile medium. I particularly like the gleam of metallic paints!

I haven’t heard of anyone taking commercially available digital designs and making them completely their own in this way but, you know me, the control freak rears its head again! If you are interested to see more the Summer Issue 2022 of Quilting Arts Magazine has a feature.

Bye for now,
Linda x

I tend towards the obsessive – once I discover something I like I have trouble resisting the urge to indulge completely. Watercolour ground is the latest obsession! The roses I’m showing here today were painted from photographs I took on a visit to David Austin Roses before lockdown. You’ve probably heard of the very famous garden centre I mean. If you visit in early summer the gardens are a treat for the senses with the perfume as heady as the sight of the flowers. The June day we were there was perfect – hot and sunny. I can’t wait to visit again but in the meantime I can enjoy the photos and use them to make a painting. The unconventional support I’m working on has an interesting origin itself – it was a panel taken from an old wardrobe we were getting rid of. When the wardrobe was broken up to be taken away it seemed a pity to waste the panels although, at the time, I had no idea what I’d use them for.

I mentioned watercolour ground in my previous post but then I’d only used it on canvas. When I spotted the wardrobe panels in a corner of my studio I thought they’d be ideal candidates to see how the ground would work with wood. The panel was very dark so the first thing I did was to give it a coat of white acrylic paint. Once that was dry I added a layer of the watercolour ground to the raised central section and put it aside overnight. It’s difficult to photograph anything that’s just white but the picture here shows the rough surface the coarse ground produces. That’s the effect after one application but you can add more or even create more texture if you prefer. Depends on the sort of painting you intend to make I think. I’ll let you know how I get on with a more textured landscape painting soon!

I often make a pale pencil sketch before I start painting with watercolour but the surface I had created was quite coarse and didn’t really lend itself to much of a drawing, so other than to mark vague outlines of where the flowers would sit, I didn’t spend much time on preliminary marks and just went straight in with the paint. This is still very much a work in progress but I am itching to get back to it and add more detail to the petals and more deep darks to the shadows between the leaves and buds. I’ll also be tidying up the border frame of the panel with another layer of acrylic paint.

It’s curious to discover how different it is to paint onto the surface prepared with the watercolour ground than it is on rough watercolour paper. I’m still learning how the paint reacts but  I’m loving it!

Bye for now,
Linda x

At Designmatterstv we’ve been focussing on Laura’s 31 Days of Art Journalling course lately and I have loved working along with her prompts into a little sketchbook but it has meant that my other painting has been neglected. I’m not sure if it’s the return of spring and all that means in the garden but I have been inspired to get the canvases out and get stuck in! Our magnolia blossom has been gorgeous during the early warm, sunny weather but sadly, with the return of frosty nights, the delicate petals have suffered – not before I had time to try and capture their loveliness in watercolour though. That’s the beauty of a painting – the flowers will always be perfect! The still life shows a few of my favourite possessions with the orchid from Marks and Spencer that my mom gave me for my birthday nearly four years ago. It’s getting a bit unruly but flowers its heart out every year.

Part of the rekinding of my passion for painting has been the discovery of a watercolour ground that means almost any firm surface can be prepared to accept watercolour paint. I understand this product has been around for quite some time but it’s been a complete revelation to me and I’m always up for new experiences! The manufacturers say it can be used on wood, cardboard, plastic and even glass but I’ve applied it to canvas panels and I’ve loved experimenting to find out how similar or different it is to painting onto paper. We’ve added a little video about it over on Designmatterstv if you’re interested to hear more details but essentially, the ground is applied to the canvas and allowed to dry – the surface will then resemble the texture of watercolour paper. I’ve used the course ground made by Schmincke but lots of manufacturers have their own versions. One of the advantages of working this technique is that a canvas panel that has been primed for use with acrylic or oil becomes receptive to watercolour paint and of course, a deep edge box panel doesn’t involve the cost of framing. As long as the finished painting is sealed with cold wax it’s protected and ready to hang without the need of glass or frame. I’ll definitely be making more of these paintings on canvas but there is always room for traditional techniques and the two paintings of jugs of flowers sitting on lace cloths shown here are pure watercolour on watercolour paper. I’m not decided yet which I prefer as the paint reacts differently on the ground to how it works on paper – only way to decide is to keep painting I suppose. At the moment I love both!

Bye for now,
Linda x

PS If you fancy owning one of these original paintings all of the above are available to buy in my Shop!

Since I last wrote about being loaned an embroidery machine by Husqvarna Viking scarcely a day has gone by when I haven’t embroidered something – no old quilt or scrap of hand dyed fabric is safe! You can see here a small hanging I’ve made where the branch and some of the leaves are digital embroidery and the lemons and extra leaves are fabric painting. The close up shows how I’ve free motion quilted the background fabric in angular lines of cream on cream and finally created dimpled texture in the lemons with tightly spaced circles or meanders.

I’ve done a similar thing with the olive branch but in this piece I hand worked tiny seed stitches around the motif where the raised surface of the digital embroidery meant I couldn’t get in close enough by machine. The leaves in this design are meant to be cut back to create the texture of velvet pile but I’ve decided to leave them uncut because I prefer the lustrous shine of the threads. (I’m using Madeira threads gifted to me as brand ambassador for all the embroidery). You can see, I’ve also made another  version of the lovely fern design I showed you last time but I’ve painted into this one with a coppery metallic fabric paint mixed in with a little of the olive gold. I think the copper complements the variegated colour of the embroidery thread and also contrasts well with the colour of the fabric. I’ve also painted bunches of grapes and extra leaves into a fourth piece that’s worked onto a digital print of flaking paint on a building. I really like to layer pattern on pattern. Most of these pieces are yet to be completed but I get so excited I have to start another embroidery while I’m still painting or quilting the last one! There’s great satisfaction in multi-tasking – picture me carefully painting as I sit next to the embroidery machine as it whizzes away on the next piece! The final photo here shows how I’m stitching out more leaves and branches ready for more painted fruit. I can’t imagine this obsession ending any time soon but I’ll let you see how I get on!

Bye for now,
Linda x

First of all although a little belatedly, Happy New Year! I hope you are all rested and refreshed and raring to go in 2022! I don’t want to sound like a complete misery but I’m always pleased to get back to a normal life as soon as the decorations are down. This year particularly so because, as a Brand Ambassador for Husqvarna Viking I’ve been loaned a top of the range Epic 2 embroidery machine. It arrived 3 days ago and has hardly been idle since then. It’s so exciting getting to know what this beast is capable of and I am really impressed with what I’ve discovered so far. It’s early days and I’ve only tried the tip of the iceberg but I hoped you’d be interested to see my first forays.

One of the first designs I chose to try out was the lovely big fern ‘line drawing’ you can see details of above. It’s already built into the design library of the machine. I’ve worked it onto a digitally printed pastel drawing of mine which I had partially free motion quilted. I chose the outline fern because it gave me potential to add paint in the leaf shapes – you know how much I like to add a bit of paint! I’ve used Jacquard Lumiere paint in metallic olive gold for this.

The daffodil and tulip piece above and to the right is another of the built in designs which looked very sketchy and hand drawn – just like a pen drawing I might have made in my sketchbook. I stitched this onto a scrap of a quilt Laura had chopped up to make purses. It already had quite a lot of linear quilting and digital embroidery but I chose a dark thread that would show over the top of the initial layers of pattern. The design was worked in a single colour of Madeira rayon thread but once the embroidery was finished I added colour to the blooms with Inktense pencils and water.

The leafy embroidered branch on the right is looking very plain right now but my plan is to add painted lemons – I’ll let you see if that turns out as I imagine it. It’s looking great in my head but I just have to make it happen on the fabric now!

Thanks for reading this today – hope you’ve enjoyed seeing how I’m keeping busy in a cold and dark January.

Bye for now,
Linda x