The story behind "Low Newton II"

I'm doing a series of blogs with a little bit of background information about some of the Harris Tweed "paintings" in my exhibition. at the Bakehouse Gallery in Alnwick this summer.

This one of my favourite views in Northumberland, looking down the hill above the village of Low Newton across the beaches of Newton Haven and Embleton Bay to the ruined Dunstanburgh Castle.
In Northumberland the sky always seems massive and I wanted the sky to be a real feature in this picture. I used three different shades of blue Harris Tweed for the sky to represent the way the colour of the sky deepens from the horizon upwards.

​The building on the right of the picture is known as the Rocket House, now a holiday home, but previously used by the coastguard used to store his boat and rockets. In the middle distance on the right of the picture you can see Newton Pool, a freshwater lake, now a nature reserve for wild birds.

 My line drawing for Dunstanburgh Castle III                        Being "helped" by Marilyn to needle felt.

The line drawing above was cut up and used as you would a dressmaker's paper pattern to cut out all the pieces of Harris Tweed for the picture. These pieces of tweed are then pinned and needle felted onto the background piece of Harris Tweed (the darker blue tweed in the above right hand photo.) All the details are then needle felted into place using wool yarns. As you can see on in the photo on the right, I have quite a lot of blue wool yarns in my stash!

"Low Newton II" has now sold but the image is still available as a greetings card or a giclee print in 2 sizes (£25 & £75) from the Bakehouse Gallery or our online shop.