Welcome to my website! I hope you’ll enjoy looking at the drawings, prints and the fabrics and items for the home.
My online store can be accessed here
It’s Cambridge Open Studios time, and my studio at The Old Manse, 87 High Street, Guilden Morden, SG8 0JS, is open to the public from 10am to 5pm on Saturday July 26th and Sunday 27th July. So do come and have a look around my studio gallery where I spend most of my time working in this lovely village. (It has a couple of nice friendly pubs too!)
This year, the work on display includes some recent monoprints that I have been producing at the Curwen Press Study Centre, as well as acrylics on canvas, cyanotypes, watercolours, and a number of digital collages. I’ve also produced some 60’s inspired geometric abstract designs for fabrics which are available as a variety of bags, scarves and stationery. So there’s plenty to see.
And of course, as usual it’s really nice to talk to visitors about my working methods and there’s always cake and tea and coffee and cold drinks if the weather is hot! so it would be lovely to welcome you here.
It’s Autumn and I am having a great time painting using watercolours this season. I teach watercolours to a mixed ability group on Wednesday mornings at Comberton Village College and have really enjoyed doing this because it’s great to have such an enthusiastic bunch of people come along and discuss the work of watercolour artists and have a go at creating their own artwork. It makes me re-think my approach to painting and drawing too and prompts me into producing more images myself.
If you would like to come and see my work, I’m having a Winter Open Studio on the weekend of November 23 and 24th here at my studio gallery at The Old Manse, 87 High Street, Guilden Morden, near Royston Herts. SG8 0JS, from 10 – 5pm both days. I have invited other artist/makers to exhibit their work alongside mine too. So, plenty to see. also Mulled wine/apple juice and nibbles will be available.
It’s summer and the art season has started. I’m using this cyanotype print that I created for some of my fabrics and am going to be turning it into a cushion cover design which is waterproof and washable and can be used with outdoor seating.
Here we are, March already! There are glimmers of Spring and the blossom on the trees is really beginning to take off. Soon the garden will be speckled with the confetti of petals swirling down from the cherry trees and the grass will be strewn with them, looking like the aftermath of a wedding celebration.
January was spent mainly in Spain and I had to come back to teach both Watercolours and Sustainable garden design here in Cambridgeshire. And that seems to have taken up most of my time during the second month of the year.
A lot of drawing and painting has been put on hold and that always leaves me feeling half alive. So I am hoping that March will allow me to get back to it in earnest.
I have been experimenting with cyanotype images and I hope to do more when the sun begins to shine more regularly! The image above is an early attempt at this medium.
The Christmas Open Studios at my studio went really well and I sold three pieces of artwork. Two digital collâges of “Spanish Bowl with Plums” and the ‘Hogweed and Teasels”. I shall have more artwork to exhibit in the New Year, but I am now going to have a couple week’s break catching up with family and friends. Working 12 hours a day, six days a week takes its toll.
Do people still buy Christmas cards? I’m not sure that the under 30’s do. is it because it has become so expensive to send Christmas cards that this feels like a diminishing area of art. Nevertheless, I decided to carry on and produce a couple of designs, one rather traditional and the other a little bit more whacky.
So, this is a digital collage of a Christmas cactus tat my son gave me a few years ago. I like playing about with patterns and shapes and trying to produce something original. It’s available from my online store
It’s Autumn, and with that comes the increased workload as I get ready for exhibitions and fairs happening from October through to Christmas. I’ve been trying out oil pastels and seeing what I can create using them. The fields around here look really interesting at harvest time because they change so rapidly from the golden textures of ripening wheat and barley to chocolatey brown when they are ploughed and ready for the next crop. The pattern they make across the landscape also is very enticing to draw.
And there’s the rare opportunity to draw the sea when we go on holiday. Most of the time I’m usually chasing after my daughter, making sure she doesn’t get into too many scrapes, but our last holiday was relaxing enough to allow me to do a quick sketch of Cromer beach.
So the images below are my first attempts at oil pastels.
The textures of the cut straw always look interesting because of their varying colours and the shadows they create.
I think I should have some people in the foreground, but then again the emptiness was what was rather lovely about the scene.
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Convincing myself that I should get back to drawing has been difficult. Sometimes, when I see all those wonderful images of other artists’ work on Instagram, I lose heart and wonder why I bother. So it becomes a bit of a painful process starting a new picture.
I returned to doing life drawing on a regular basis last year, because I was finally able to leave home for a couple of hours on an evening, without worrying that there would be mayhem when I got back or that I was going to have to return in haste half way through the session. Matt, the life drawing tutor was excellent at being encouraging and constructively critical at the same time. So I soon began to enjoy mark making and more analytical drawing as well as beginning to play around with different mediums because of the very supportive atmosphere at the sessions.
For a long while though I wasn’t transferring my thought processes into creating images back at my studio, and then a few days ago I thought I would draw things in the same way as I do life drawings and so I am no longer quite so frightened of a blank sheet of paper.
‘Late Summer’ is a piece of artwork I produced earlier this year to use for soft furnishings and cards and perhaps scarves. I wanted to create an image which was grainy and a bit like an aquatint etching. I would love some feedback! I am attempting to produce a new piece of work each month.
At this time of year my attention is divided between gardening and art. There’s so much to do and it feels like there is so little time available to do it!
The image below is my latest piece of artwork, influenced by my recent trip to Spain. I love the patterns of traditional Spanish ceramics. I felt the colours of the plums, which I grow in my garden, matched the colour palette of the bowl. It’s the sort of image which I hope would look good in a kitchen or dining room setting.
If you are interested in buying any of my work, you can access my online shop here:
YASMEEN FAROOQUI 