Sea Pictures

At the moment, I am working directly from my sketch book, which is filled with observations  of studies I have made of the Mediterranean sea.
Listening to Elgar's "Sea Pictures" and Debussy's "La Mer" I am transported back to the shoreline, using all my senses I can see and feel the shapes in the music.
I will be working on this piece during Warwickshire Open Studios at the end of June, where I will be exhibiting along side the artist George Wagstaffe.

Blue Sonnet

Blue Sonnet, a photo by kayla coo on Flickr.

Another stitched piece.

On My Shelf

On My Shelf, a photo by kayla coo on Flickr.

Small sketches in threads.

Mastering The Art Of Embroidery

            My Four Season Cards

 

 

         Two of my landscapes

 

My "Abbey Fields" above image

  Image 3 is by Viv of Hensteeth

I have just returned from my holiday, a lovely sunny week spent in Nice France where I spent many hours sketching, I will share photo's and sketch book pages with you soon.
Whilst I had been away I had received in the post a copy of a new embroidery book entitled  "Mastering The Art Of Embroidery" by Sophie Long.
Sophie is a graduate of the Royal School Of Needlework and this book covers many different technical aspects of stitching.
It's full of beautiful photographs of a range of embroidery styles, a great introduction for the beginner and the sheer quantity of visuals will inspire you.
It was lovely to find that the publishers had selected some of my images for the machine embroidery section in the book.
I also found that a few fellow bloggers that I know, had their work featured, including Viv from Hens teeth with her lovely vintage inspired creations and Karen Ruane from Contemporary embroidery with her delicate stitch work.
The back of the book contains a list of contributors with their blog and website details which will be exciting to explore!

You may like to know I have recently added a range of my greeting cards to Etsy and I hopefully will be adding more items soon.

Michala

Fashion, Embroidery, Stitch 2013

Hello,
It's a week since I set up at the NEC for The Fashion, Embroidery, Stitch show and what an eventful week it has been.
Firstly, where has Spring gone??
The weather could not have been worse, with snow on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday ( I woke up to a blizzard on Sunday morning).
Luckily I managed to get in OK, driving very slowly through the country roads.
Despite the weather I had a very busy few days, although predictably, Sunday was much quieter and both my sisters who had planned to come then could not get there, due to the icy roads.
I met some lovely people, so many enthusiastic stitchers and I'm very grateful that they had battled to get in.
The show had some fantastic exhibitors with such a wonderful inspiring array of work, I wished I had been able to spend more time looking.
Thank you very much if you came to see my work and if you could not get in I have a video which you can view, my very first time on You tube! See Here
Now it's time to get back to my stitching, I think I'm going to retreat into hibernation!

Homage a' Matisse

I have a very busy week ahead organising my work for The Fashion, Embroidery,Stitch show at the NEC in Birmingham which opens Thursday next week!
One of my textiles I will be displaying is Homage a' Matisse which stands 8ft tall and took me around two years to complete. ( featured in the March issue of Embroidery Magazine)
The piece is developed from studying the rhythms in the work of the French artist Henri Matisse.
I observed the musicality in the way in which he placed colours and shapes, I took particular interest in his paper collages, "The Snail" and "The Kings Sadness", I combined these themes with my own painting which then led to this work.
Throughout the piece I have layered different threads in machine and hand stitching, emphasising areas of the work which became three dimensional.
I then manipulated those areas further by stitching the work on to a large blank canvas.

On Wednesday I will be transporting ( hope everything fits in the van)! and hanging all my pieces.
I will also be running free one hour workshops at the show everyday, places are limited to ten and need to be booked on the day of the show.
Hope to see you there!

Michala

Sketch book

Here is a recent page from one of my small sketch books, they are for me a vital tool.
A diary of my own visual language, a link between, thoughts, actions,feelings and dreams.
How do we see nature , as it is or as we want it to be?

I took all my sketchbooks and textiles to a small village near Banbury this week.
It was my very first talk for The Embroiderers Guild and The Cherwell Valley branch made me feel so welcome.
I was more nervous of trying to find the location than the actual talk!

last week I also finished putting together a new website which you can see here http://www.michalagyetvai.co.uk/  I have updated it with information on exhibitions and workshops.
I hope you will enjoy visiting it.
Now I will return to my stitching as I have only three weeks until I display my work at the NEC!