VAL WEBBERLEY ARTIST OF THE WEEK

 

 

 

“Venice to the Lagoon” Painting in stitch.

This week our artist of the week is Dorset-based artist, Val Webberley. We asked her about three of her works.

‘Venice to the Lagoon’ is part of your series of works featuring Venice.  Can you tell us more about Venice as inspiration in your work?

“I took so many photographs of Venice whilst visiting that quite a large amount of work resulted.  I loved the fading warmth of colours, textures and the buildings crumbling into the sea.  All very atmospheric”

 

“Fall” A colourful picture in silk.

Bold and dramatic, ‘Fall’ features the sculptural form of a tree silhouetted against a sky ablaze with the colours of Autumn. What was your inspiration for this work and can you tell us more about your process of creation?

“I love autumn and I returned from Sri Lanka with a large number of silks in these vibrant colours. I am interested in Art Deco/Nouveau so decided to do a sunburst  “Odeon” background.  Having done this, I then found furnishing fabric which said “tree” to me, so added this on top.  Very simplistic but quite dramatic.”

“Quilts Drying”Fabric Collage.

Your vibrant collage ‘Quilts Drying’ is a playful work with an uplifting feel.  Can you explain more about the technical difficulties associated with ‘painting in stitch’?

” Quilt Drying” is one of many “Whacky Building” pictures I have made. I like them because I can use so many diverse fabrics all together -everything from heavily textured furniture fabric, cotton, organza, gaffer tape and so on. The stitch here is just to secure materials and add decoration.

When I say “painting with stitch” I mean That I use a free-form embroidery needle as a paint brush. Unlike many embroiders I never use an embroidery hoop as I found it restricted me too much. I sometimes may draw/paint on to the fabric before stitching. This uses a large amount of threads but gives an almost “paint-like” finish., which many people seem to like.