inspiration | Beth Emmott

This is the archive for the ‘inspiration’ Category

Scotland

September 20th, 2019

It was a whirl wind tour of Scotland. Starting in Queesnferry so Bob could finally see one of his favorite bridges, the Forth Bridge, and a bus into Edinburgh to visit Dovecot Studio.

Visit for each of us!

Then Skye—staying in Elgol for a boat trip and small hike to Loch Coruisk in the Cuillin Hills and in Dunvegan with hikes at Quiraing, and Neist Point.

Hikes in Skye

After Skye, up the west coast staying at Inverkirkaig—hiked a bit—very windy—and found the most wonderful bookstore/cafe, then across the top to the ferry to Orkney.

Orkney: Ring of Brodgar at dusk, Skara Brae, the sun came out as we bought our tickets, sheep, wool and dye sheds, a tapestry gallery, a scotch distillery, and more wind. I love wind, but this wind could, under certain circumstances, drive one mad. For us, in our short time, it was part of the adventure.

5000 year old Neolithic sites.

Ferry back and down the east coast and into Glendevon for a great dinner, another short hike and then the plane from Edinburgh. All I can say is WOW! Around every corner—more beautiful than the last—WOW, food and people—WOW, history, geology—WOW!

Beauty whether you look up or down

We had never been to Scotland and wanted to get an overview, seeing as much as possible in the two weeks we had. Bob did wonderfully driving on a different side of the road and on the many two way but one lane roads—with sheep on them! (There were signs.) He also researched and booked all our accommodations and to a one they were great! Three hotels and the rest B&Bs.

Cattle grids in the roads kept the sheep in their area but not off the roads.
Some were very cheeky and would play “I dare you”…

We didn’t seek out castles but they were everywhere.

Had to take at least one castle picture!

Didn’t hear a bagpipe but saw several guys in kilts. Stayed away from tourist sites as much as possible. Scotland is a very contemporary country and while I did want to see the Neolithic sites in Orkney I also wanted to experience Scotland today as much as possible in our short time.

Some how as I planned out our trip with post-its of where we would stay and what we wanted to see, I still thought we’d have time to hike every day and sit and sketch, and just feel where we were. Time doesn’t stretch that way so only a couple of quick sketches (one done in the car) and a few rather short hikes, but lots and lots of images and now that I’m home I wake up at 4:30-5:00 and hit the studio—so excited to download my brain into studies and paintings and spin the wool that I bought and just digest.

Maine Painting Retreat

August 19th, 2019

Just came back from a wonderful week long painting retreat with Michael Chesley Johnson in Maine—way Downeast in Lubec Maine and in Campobello Island in Canada. I took a workshop with Michael years ago. It was good to see him again!

Michael Chesley Johnson demo and Quoddy Head State Park

Finally unpacked, wash is done, house reclaimed and grass is cut. Now to think about all that happened. On the way north we spent two days on Monhegan Island with Holly and Stig—one takes the ferry—no cars—lots of hiking—lots and lots of hiking—beautiful forest and coast line—good food and beautiful music by a woman composer (whose name I’m sorry I didn’t get). She practices on the piano in the little church next to our hotel.

Monhegan Island—view from hike and a new friend

Then Sunday, back to rt 1 and north. We stayed at West Quoddy Station in a little cabin called “the Camp”. West Quoddy Station is a repurposed life guard station that is now lodging in one of the most beautiful locations in Maine. About a mile from there is the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse and Quoddy Head State Park which pride them selves as being the most eastern point in the US—the sun does rise early! We met Sunday evening with Michael and the other artists for orientation. Our plan was for me to paint as part of the retreat and Bob would go off and photograph—both happy!

Light house and our home away from home!

Michael mainly is a plain air painter as were most of the others but as this was a “retreat” as opposed to a workshop or class we were free to pursue our own directions. People worked in oils, watercolors or pastels. They came from all over the US and Canada. Days began with a sharing/critique of the previous days work and then we all headed to a specified location to paint. Some days Michael demoed and others he painted with us. Quoddy Head State Park, the fishing village of Lubec and Campobello Island all offered a wealth of locations—the weather was perfect—perhaps too perfect—post card days. Afternoons were free to continue painting, visit other locations, hike or just veg and soak up everything. Many peopled worked as long as there was light! On the third day I just sketched and photographed and took it all in.

Something around every turn!

I realize that I’m not a plein air painter but rather a painter who enjoys plein air painting as a resource for studio work. It was hot in the sun and working with warm oils was a relatively new experience—didn’t master that this week but I learned a lot. But I did bring back lots to work on and think about during cold winter days in PA.

Two of my quick plein air paintings.

Campobello and Quoddy

September 25th, 2018

After a day of regrouping and lazing about (I did do my little tapestry as well as some nature prints to record our time – can’t slow down in one day… after that we headed out early to Canada and Campobello Island—nice lunch and then walks on the beach, photographing rocks and seaweed.

Campobello Island.

The next day we headed to Maine’s Quoddy State Park. We’ve done the light House and really wanted to hike in the forest along the coast again. Much is high above the water, some closer and some through the forest it’s self.

Quoddy State Park.

Was glad to have our hiking siticks as there was lots of elevation changes as well as some muddy spots. But every where you looked there was something to enjoy and want to bring home to work with on long winter evenings…

Quoddy State Park.

All good things end and the next day found us 12 hours on the road heading south… not the plan but how it ended up – by the time you hit NJ you want your own bed…

Weaving on the Road…

June 28th, 2018

Off to Virginia to stay with Fletcher and Cooper while their parents were away and I took my Hokett Loom, yarns and design materials. I knew the boys would have their noses in the World Cup and I would have time to indulge in weaving.

I pack my weaving supplies in translucent bags that all fit into a larger bag. One for my Hokett with the tray I use it on, one for a selection of yarns and one for little bits of equipment. My design supplies go in a small shoulder bag with watercolors, sketchbooks etc. With these two bags I could set up a little studio space and was set!

Got out my sketchbook and watercolors and came up with my design. I’ve been sketching trees and leaves lately so decided on stylized leaves. Next to warp my little loom and prepare my weft yarns. I did bring the little spinner thing that I got from Rebecca Mezoff to un ply my Harrisville yarns. BUT… my design called for black and I forgot that while I needed to un ply the blue and green yarn, I needed to double the black and didn’t bring enough… You can see where I ran out of black yarn in the image above!!! Always something!!!!

I did have more black at home and was able to finish!!! So all is well with one part of my world, at least…

First Real Tapestry

March 22nd, 2018

Well, I’ve taken the little looms class and attended the little looms workshop in the mountains of Colorado- both with Rebecca Mezoff. I’ve done a number of small tapestries on my Hokett looms and felt I knew what I was doing enough to sign up for the Unjuried Small Format Tapestry Exhibition through the American Tapestry Alliance. I worked on my design, did some samples on my 8 epi Hokett and ordered yarns from Harrisville. I thought I had simplified my design and thought Harrisville would be good as I do know I’m a beginner. WELL, the real world works to keep me humble. I still like my design, but should have explored more ways to do the veins in the leaves. There are slits all over the place to the point of making it unstable. I’ll try stitching them but…

Anyway, here’s my process – I do still like my design and will rework it after I pick my self up… I may do a series – I like the simple concept of friendship and nature. I call this one, “Have a Cup of Tea with Me”.

I had a watercolor sketch that I had done of leaves in a jar and liked it’s spring like quality and colors. I selected my colors based on it and ordered them – it was exciting when they arrived!!! Much of my work is with low chroma colors so these bright hues were a big deal for me!

I knew the watercolor was beyond my abilities as this was my first real tapestry so I redrew it, cropping in and eventually cropped in a lot more. I wanted this to be a friendly, cosy, spring like design, so the jar changed to the suggestion of a cup of tea. I then scanned the color sketch and redrew it in Illustrator to flatten it and to simplify it even more. Once sized, that became my cartoon.

I made samples. First, testing how yarns could mix to extend the colors I have, then adjusting the values of the greens to get the feeling of the tea cup under the leaves and finally exploring various angles I could achieve. I considered weaving this side ways, and perhaps I should have but I thought I could get away with a vertical design as I wanted the texture to be vertical and not horizontal.

Finally I got started. I had warped my new loom when I got it to make sure I understood how. I didn’t use the shedding device as I used my fingers and it doesn’t seem to make a very large shed anyway. Also when I attached the cartoon to the back it made the shedding device unusable. I attached it with some bag clips from my kitchen – need to research how others do this. I re did section after section as I began to understand how the weft packed down – think I might be packing too hard??? My main problem was the vein lines in the leaves. My original design didn’t have them but I felt they were important to describe the leaves. I tried different blues (limited to the blues I have) and eccentric lines, and wrapping a single warp yarn. I ended up using anything that seemed to work – resulting is a fabric with too many slits. I thought I could stitch the slits but there is a problem with the wrapped warps – perhaps if I had stitched as I went along…but I didn’t. When it lies flat the problem doesn’t show but when I took it off the loom…

So, I have a lot to learn and I learned a lot.

Bark Park

February 15th, 2018

Working on a tapestry design of tree branches and spent the morning at Morris Arboretum sketching trees. Came across an area I didn’t know about called a Bark Park.