Josef Frank Patterns-Furniture-Painting At The Fashion And Textile Museum London

Have you been to any art exhibitions that you have really loved lately? A couple of weekends ago I went to the Josef Frank Patterns-Furniture-Painting Exhibition at The Fashion And Textile Museum London and loved it.

Frank is widely thought of as one of the founding voices behind the Swedish Modernist aesthetic and you can totally see why at the exhibition. This exhibition showcases some of Frank's iconic fabric designs during his time working with Estrid Ericson at Svenskt Tenn and also his lesser known watercolour artwork too.

It's full of his wonderful large motif designs and gorgeous use of colour, which although some of the pieces are other 70 years old they still look fresh and inline with today's trend.

One of my favourite things about this exhibition was that some of the fabric patterns were along side the original artwork and I loved seeing his annotations and colour scheme swatches as he worked out the basic pattern repeat.

A lot of his work was inspired by nature and had floral themes but there were a couple of his non-nature inspired work in the exhibition too like this pattern based on the Manhattan map.

Another thing I loved was his layering of colours in some of the pieces it added a lot of depth and interest.  Like in this Vegetable Tree piece, where he had given the tree and fruit a three dimensional appearance with the layering of block colours and some dot texture. Just so clever, the work looks naive but it is actually quite complex.

 A few more of my favorite pieces:

I've just shared some of his textile work from the exhibition. There was also a collection of his watercolours which were interesting to see too upstairs as well as a small collection of designs from 21st Century Swedish textiles designers.

It is definitely worth going to see if you are a in London or planning a trip to London before the 7th May, when it finishes.

Top Visiting London Hack - The Fashion and Textile Museum is on the 2For1 Entry offer with National rail. If you are coming to London by train anyway then it is a good deal and you just need to fill out a form online and print it off or pick one up at your local station. If you use Oyster cards to get into London, you can't make use of this offer but do the maths 'coz it might work out cheaper to get two paper tickets and the 2For1 if you travel by national rail anyway!


Have you seen this exhibition? What did you think?

Kim

***

Come And Connect With Me:

YouTube

Instagram

My Shop

Join My Newsletter!

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Tuesday Tripping

Is that two consecutive blog posts with something about tripping in the title? Think it might be! Got a busy week ahead, lots of commissions to finish and get in the post before the Olympics start messing with the mail.  So I thought I would drop by to show a couple of piccies from the weekend as a small diversion.

We had a lovely weekend catching up with more family members that we had not seen for a while, and what glorious weather we had. YAY! Summer is finally here. Not wanting to turn into a weather blog but I have to say I do like a bit of sun.

It was full festival mode on Sunday at the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank, it's one of David and my favourite places for a walk and it seemed to be everyone elses' favourite place as well on Sunday.

I've been in London many years now and it is fascinating watching how areas have changed over those years and with the Olympics there has been some accelerated change to areas that is like watching years go by in just a few months. 

Life is Change, Change is Life

Embrace the Change!

There is a little spot under the Royal Festival Hall that was an unofficial skating park, but I think it has been there so long now that it is now an official skating park and people stop to watch the bikers and skaters. I always watch in awe. 

I love the years of tagging on the walls in the area, it is just so vibrant. The Royal Festival Hall is great for Parkour too, we have spotted them a couple of times. Keep your eye out for them in the quieter areas whilst you are wondering around looking at the various art instillation they have at the moment.

Ok so enough diversion and time to do some work.

Apologies to anyone dropping by my blog yesterday to see a La-La Land Crafts post from me, it will be back to normal services next week but don't forget to pop by the La-La Land Crafts blog to see the lovely DT inspiration.

I also have a digital card make on the Studio12 blog today if you are interested.

Have a totally tripping Tuesday.

Kim

Day Trippers To The Transport Museum

Yep we have a blog post! So that is a full week of blogging, told you I had lots to share this week! Today I wanted to share a memory. It's a page from my Smash / Notebook, you know the one I showed you on Monday with the little sketching practice. It's the same notebook but this time with a little memory layout from the long bank holiday weekend in June.

Ok so bear with me, I have a lot of photos, but the page is all interactive and everything!

So David and I went on a little touristy trip to the London Transport Museum in Covent garden. You know how it is, you live somewhere but you rarely do the touristy things. But there was a two for one offer and I couldn't remember if I had been before and David was sure that he hadn't. So perfect opportunity we thought.

If you were worried that we went all the way into town to the Transport Museum just to take pictures of each other then fear not! Lift up the top photos and you will see the Museum! Told you it was an interactive page. I'm not sure that you can spot that I've stylised all the photos on the page with Photoshop.

I've used Heidi Swapp No Limit papers and a cute glittery Heidi Swapp Destination Paper Pennant along with a map page torn out from an old London A-Z. I masked off Covent Garden and gessoed the map then circled the spot with Kuretake ZIG Cartoonist Sumo ink to highlight the museum.

The banner uses the Heidi Swapp Color Magic Letterbox Resist Alphabet Stickers with some spray inks and slightly riffs on a song title from the Beatles (but not the meaning of that song - if you are worried!), don't know why that was in my head when I made this. 

Did you spot the faux London transport sign with the Transport Museum written in Kuretake ZIG Cartoonist white ink? Oh and the ticket we used to get there is on the page too. And under the moving photos is lots of space to journal the day.

It was a fun day! I think we might have had to stop out for some Szechuan dumplings too as we were in town.

Have a fun Friday.

Kim

Sunday Round-Up - Dear Diary

David and I haven't had any time off for good behaviour in a while so yesterday we treated ourselves to a blowout day in our home town of fun, funky London for a bit of relaxation and to recharge the creative batteries.

We tried to fit in as much as we possibly could starting with some performance art at the Wellcome Collection in Euston. I am a HUGE performance and instillation art fan, love it and this piece from Sheila Ghelani called Covet Me, Care For Me was an audience participation piece.

(Photo Copyright Sheila Ghelani via the Wellcome Collection website)

With 50 'mongrel' objects encased in sealed glass hearts, you pick a heart and then sign a receipt. You then dress in safety mask, apron and gloves and kneel before a cutting mat with your chosen heart and a hammer and break the glass to retrieve the item. Sheila then helps you to remove the safety clothes, which is all part of the performance, and hands you the object to take behind a screen where it is cleaned and wrapped with care by another performer at a desk with a draw and an old-fashioned standing lamp.

The idea is that you are encouraged to think about love, the passing of time, dissemination and cross-fertilization, and for me I felt like I was part of art and had participated in something very special and I was very grateful to be able to join in.

I'm going to look after my 'mongrel' item and wear it over my heart from time to time!

As we were in the Wellcome Collection we took some time to look around the exhibitions and, both being reformed scientists, it was nice to dip a toe into the history of science and I would recommend it for all, not just scientists! Their tag line is 'a free destination for the incurably curious' and I can definitely hold my hand up to being 'incurably curious'!

The Euston/King's Cross area is home to one of our favourite restaurants -  Red N Hot - a yummy Szechaun restaurant on 37 Chalton Street, NW1 1JD. It was Snazz Szechaun but has recently been bought by the Red N Hot group but the food is still gorgeous.

After filling up on dumplings and 'Hot Numbing Beef', we set off again, jumping on a bus towards Blackfriars and cutting through the inner sanctum of Temple to get to 2 Temple Place, which had an exhibition of work from a collaboration between William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, which I didn't know was going on. We were curious about the house, so it was a total bonus to see such amazing work including embroidered panels that had taken 8 years to complete.

By now it was starting to get dark and we decided to walk up to Charing Cross Road to check out the second-hand book shops and stop for a cuppa. We cut through Somerset House where they have one of the Christmas Ice Skating rings set up and I took the opportunity to get snap-happy and take action photos of skaters, well until we get told that unless we have friends and family on the ice, we aren't allowed to take photos - erm? Why?

And we popped past Covent Garden...

Ooo Sparkly - makes quite a Christmas card picture, doesn't it?

Our last port of call was a small production in a theatre above a pub. So we hightailed it up to Camden High Street for the Etcetera Theatre above The Oxford Arms to see Stand-Up Comics by Michael Eckett and the Sigil Club production company. A very enjoyable comedy set in a comic book shop and with lots of comic book references whilst we look at the relationship and development of the main characters.

After a drink in The Oxford Arms we set off home... I think we managed to make up for a lot of missed relaxing in our one day!

And before I go, just thought I would say a BIG thank you to those folks who have seen my recent article in Simply Cards and Papercraft Issue 91 about the freestyle / free-motion sewing and have been dropping me such lovely messages about it!

You guys are the best! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!

Oh and I've been playing about with making my own photograph masks, as seen on my photos above, what do you think?

Right I'm off, hope you all are having lovely weekends. 

Kim

Sunday Round-Ups around the blogs - Update: Check out Debbi for her Sunday Round-Up.

Calling All South London Crafty Folks!

Are you looking for something crafty to do in South London this Sunday (7th August)? 

Well I can highly recommend the SW Craft Club Summer Pop-Up event, it's a free entry make and take and a great chance to meet some new crafty friends and try your hand at some new crafts.

It's being held at 12- 4pm The Landor Pub, 70 Landor Road, SW9 9PH

I helped out at the July event, there was all sorts to do including cupcake decorating, badge making, clothes altering, fabric flowers and you could even try your hand at mosaics, all being facilitated by local designers and artists.

There will be a whole range of things to do again at this event and you can find out more by checking out the SW Craft Club Blog or go say hello to Zoe, who runs the events, over on the SW Craft Club Facebook page.

Scroll on down if you are looking for this week's WOYWW.

Enjoy!

Kimx