Textile Landscapes demonstrates how to develop your approach to textile art with a focus on using found objects and paint and stitch on cloth and paper. 

Cas explains how to exploit the contrast between the hands-on textural quality of working with fabrics and threads and the spontaneity and movement of brush marks to lend a painterly quality to your work.

She begins with the basics – keeping a sketchbook to generate ideas, painting and stitching on cloth and on paper and working digitally; Inspiring Landscapes looks at natural and urban space, the changing seasons and great landscapes as well as intimate spaces and travel diaries; Painting and Marking with Cloth explains the practical aspects of painting and dyeing cloth and how to make connections between paint, print, dye, stencil and stitch; Stitch-scapes looks at the different forms of landscape, experimenting with photographs and prints and how to translate those images using ink, stitch, abstract and collage techniques and then at how to transform the image using digital techniques; On Closer Inspection covers using elements and details from landscape and the environment as found objects and for research; finally People and Place explores the relationship we have with the outdoors and the built environment, as well as personal interpretations of place.

The book includes artworks by the author that explore the UK, USA, Europe and Australia, as well as works by other internationally renowned textile artists. A creative guide ideal for textile artists of all levels – students, teachers and practising artists and makers – to make unique and beautiful work inspired by the world around us.

About the Author:

Cas Holmes is one of UK’s most renowned textile artists. She exhibits widely and runs courses at West Dean College in West Sussex. She is the author of Textile Landscape, Stitch Stories, The Found Object in Textile Art and Connected Cloth, also published by Batsford. She has also written for magazines and websites including Embroidery, The Quilter and TextileArtist and for The Festival of Quilts. She lives in Maidstone, Kent.

The events of your life, from local walks to exotic trips, can provide endless inspiration for textile art. This inspiring book shows you how to record your experiences, using sketchbooks, journals and photography, to create personal narratives that can form a starting point for more finished stitched-textile pieces.

Acclaimed textile artist and teacher Cas Holmes, whose work is often inspired by her life and the journeys she makes, helps you find inspiration through your own life and explains how to record what you see in sketchbooks and journals, which can often become beautiful objects in themselves. She explains how you can use photography, both as documentation and as inspiration, and sometimes incorporate it into the work itself, along with found objects and ephemera.

Throughout the book are useful techniques that can be harnessed to add extra interest to your work, such as methods for making layered collages, how to 'sketch' with stitch, and advice on design and colour. If you want to create beautiful, unique work inspired by your life and travels, this is the perfect book for you.

About the Author:

Cas Holmes is one of UK’s most renowned textile artists. She exhibits widely and runs courses at West Dean College in West Sussex. She is the author of Textile Landscape, Stitch Stories, The Found Object in Textile Art and Connected Cloth, also published by Batsford. She has also written for magazines and websites including Embroidery, The Quilter and TextileArtist and for The Festival of Quilts. She lives in Maidstone, Kent.