'Folksy' cross-stitch cushion

 My 'folk art' inspired cushion...

After having designed and embroidered this cross-stitch design a while ago I've finally gotten around to doing something with it...! I bought a sweet red fabric with white hearts on it, so I decided to sew my embroidery onto this to make a cushion out of it, so that the red fabric borders the cross-stitch design and frames it. I added the red bobbly border to finish it off and add a bit more 'kitsch' to it!

The finished cushion, alongside other cushions I've made.

Close up of embroidery tacked onto red and white hearts fabric.

The embroidery before I made it into a cushion

Kiss kiss..!

I've been trying out a new style of drawing and painting that's different to my usual style. I usually paint using gouache, or I use a digital pen and Photoshop on the computer. I usually work in a very painterly style with lots of shading. I wanted to try and break away from this and try to work in in a much simpler, direct style.

I decided to try and draw a sort of 'fashion' style illustration, so I used a photograph of a models face from a magazine as my source material. I drew in the main features, leaving out any shading.

This is what I came up with... Not sure if she looks slightly cross-eyed! 

My final artwork.

 I began by drawing a pencil sketch, then I re-worked this in Photoshop, here's my original pencil sketch, so that you can see how I've changed it. (I made the eyes bigger, rotated the face a bit and changed some of the dimensions of the face slightly).

Birthday owl cushion

Red and green owl cushion

My latest owl cushion - made for my niece Chloe's birthday. The red and green colour scheme of the cushion is intended to tone in with the colour scheme in Chloe's room of pale lime green, red and white.

 The eyes are made from old buttons bought from a market stall in Brighton.

 I've done blanket-stitch around the eyes, the same as the previous cushions, to make the eyes stand out.

The 'wings' are made from red corduroy, which adds a nice velvety texture to the cushion.

Close up of owl's face

This photo shows the detail of the face. (Hand stitching and machine stitching for detail).

Owl on the bed

These are some little paintings I did for Chloe's room a few years ago, of a pink rose and a white arum lily.
They're acrylics painted onto canvas and are very small. The new owl cushion compliments the pink and red paintings and the rest of the room... :-)

Paintings hung next to each other.