Seagull eating chips- painted & hand embroidered

Silk Painting

I wanted to create the same effect as my drawings and paintings onto fabric so I experimented with silk painting. Working onto these with hand stitching.

A2 painting with ink & bleach.

Working back into my drawings with mixed media

Everyday Life

After a tutorial with Alison willoughby she suggested I should be more abstract with my work, experiment with composition, taking parts from my photographs and mixing them together. Here are a few drawings I did in biro trying to take this concept on. (I have photographed my work as I don't have a scanner, so the quality is not the best)

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside

To re fresh my imagery I took a trip to Great Yarmouth. I loved the tacky kitsch atmosphere of this seaside resort. Here is a selection some of the photos I took.

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside

My Great Yarmouth photos

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside

My Great Yarmouth photos

Biro drawing on patterned paper background

Ink drawing onto paper background

Ink & Bleach

I created this piece by working into ink Quink ink with bleach, trying to capture detail onto a loose expressive background

photographs I have taken for my project

Photographs I have taken to use in my project.

Fabulously British!

At the moment I am looking at everyday British life.

Coming from a Northern mainly working class town growing up I resented it and couldn't wait to depart to somewhere prettier. I find that after being apart from my town for so long that when I go back to visit my views are much changed. I see things that I used to hate in a completely different light. I love the simplicity and honesty in the mundane that I used to hate, looking for beauty in the everyday. Greasy spoon cafes, pubs, terraced streets, boarded up shops/houses, buses, graffiti, derelict, arcades, littered streets, working means clubs. I find comfort in the honesty and straightforwardness, they are what they are. There not pretending to be something gastronomic or putting on pretence. They may not be pretty and decadent but in there own way they are beautiful.

I am going to explore the theme of everyday life, looking at everyday, mundane, typical hard working class ideas and scenes. I want to look at peoples, places, objects, everyday scenarios. I want my passion for this idea and the feeling of my hometown to flow through the project from start to finish. Showing the beauty in something that may otherwise be overlooked.