Sketchbook project - Part 3, Feathers section complete!

Continuing on from my previous blogs looking at how I am developing my 'Layering' sketchbook, I have now completed the Feathers section. It's funny as I thought I'd almost finished it before but I kept having more ideas - inspired by Christian Dior and my grandmother (see below!).

I had another look at a photo I took of some feathers I had collected on a walk recently and extended it using a black fineliner. It's amazing how many different styles, shapes, patterns and sizes of feather there are and that's on just one type of bird!

I was having a think about how I could develop my feather investigation into a product and decided to look at Dior's use of feathers in fashion over the years, some amazing pieces, particularly hats. It was then that I remembered something about my grandmother modelling hats in the 1930s so I had a chat to my Mum and looked through some old photos.

Apparently in her 20s, my grandmother worked for Reslaw Hats at their showroom in Gt Marlborough St, a stone's throw away from Liberty in London. This is picture of my grandparents on their wedding day and I love the feather in my grandmother's hat, I can imagine her being a perfect hat model as she definitely always had an air of sophistication about her!

I bought some feathers to play with myself and I just couldn't resist getting some peacock feathers as they are simply stunning in both colour and design, one of nature's treasures for sure.

I found a wallpaper print that is cleary inspired by feathers and had a little play around with the

shape, changing the scale and making a quick print block to create my own background using acrylic paint.

I was so fascinated by the peacock feathers that I got out my embroidery hoop and had a go at doing my own hand embroidered version using a range of threads.

I realised that I would need to blend the actual outer feather strands in as I couldn't find any similar materials to replicate them, painstaking work indeed!

Having got my embroidery hoops out, I decided to do an interpretation of one of my earlier pen drawings in a muted pink colour using a seeding technique that I hadn't tried before. I cannot tell you how therapeutic it is to sit and do some hand embroidery. Yes you do need some patience but it is very satisfying. At one stage I looked up to see my husband baking some bread so I said 'We rock!!' - it's the simple things in life that seem to bring the most pleasure!

I added a thicker thread to use as the feather spine and fluffed up some shorter pieces at the base to make it look more realistic and feather-like.

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I also hand stitched some small petrol blue/green feathers in a fan arrangement to show the layered plummage to full effect. I used a dark grey pewter coloured satin background which complimented the feathers beautifully so I decided to use this combination as a base for a neckpiece also.

I layered 3 different types of feather and stitched them onto a piece of satin which I then lined with some felt so it was comfortable to wear. I slipped a chain through a channel I created on the back of the stitched piece so that it was easy to wear.