Currently…

My current project is still finding it’s feet and so am I.

My summer project was inspired by a field trip to London last academic year in which there was a visit to the Herbarium at Kew Gardens to study the library of specimens. So my project was based on gardens; flowers, plants and garden features such as gates, archways and rockeries. I drew from three separate gardens: my own, the holiday home I stayed at in France, and National Trust property Shugborough, in Staffordshire. These were all just initial drawings/sketches mainly working monochromatically in pencil or biro.

However, when I returned to uni in September with my three sketchbooks full of initial drawings I hit a block. I couldn’t develop them. It just was not working for me at all. It wasn’t until my first tutorial when I was prompted to think back to my strengths of last year that it hit me. What I had been doing was far too literal and involved very little texture. My strengths of last year were texture, quilting, and white work. In fact, the theme of my work was never obvious at all.

So it was back to the drawing board for me.

I went back to my gardens sketchbooks & picked out four key drawings, which I thought I could develop. Each involved texture and pattern. ..

Kew Gardens

France

Shugborough

My next step was to go to the library and research contemporary gardens, looking for images involving pattern and texture. It was from this research that I discovered the link between formal garden designs and interiors in particular wallpaper, architectural features, and carpet designs.

Mader, G. & Neubert-Mader, L. 1997, p.86



Fleming, L. & Gore, A. 1979, p.74



Mader, G. & Neubert-Mader, L. 1997, p.88

Mader, G. & Neubert-Mader, L. 1997, p.163

Wallpapers:

References:
Fleming, L. & Gore, A. (1979) The English Garden, Michael Joseph Ltd, London.
Mader, G. & Neubert-Mader, L. (1997) The English Formal Garden, Aurum Press Ltd, London.