Textile nature - anne kelly

Textile Nature
Textile Techniques and Inspiration from the Natural World
Anne Kelly
ISBN 978-1849943437
Published by Batsford Books
www.pavilionbooks.com
Price £22.50
 
This book is coming out at just the right time for the reader to sit in their garden during a lovely summer and savour the delights that it has to offer.  Anne Kelly produces such beautiful work inspired by nature and she has gathered together work that details the prolific relationship between this world and textile artists.
 
It is a workbook on how to approach nature art and uses many examples from her own work and a whole host of local, national and international artists to illustrate.  The preponderance of local artists ties in very well with the idea of connecting to both the natural world and local community.  There are well-known textile artists such as Lindsay Taylor, Pauline Verrinder, Alice Fox, Kim Thittichai and Lesley Patterson-Marx with those who work predominantly in paper, such as Jennifer Collier and Louise Petiffer. 
 
It explores how all these artists work and guides the reader on how to do the same, whether by creating your own ‘nature table’, making larger scale pieces so you are forced to look more closely at the finer detail or sampling through stitch.  My particular favourite section was Taking Flight which looked at the use of birds and insects as motifs. 
 
This is one of the most beautiful books to come out this year and is definitely worth delving into.  We get to see a huge amount of beautiful and varied work by the many artists involved but it has the vision of Anne Kelly guiding us through the subject matter that makes this a must-have.
 
In June 2016 issue of Workshop on the Web