Open Studios venue 3.

Aprons & vintage-style gifts.

From a very early age I have always had a passion for sewing and creating my own clothes. In the early years, even before leaving school, I was designing and creating my own them.

My college training in textile and design enabled me to secure employment with a well known company in their design studio.

In recent years my passion and skill has led to the creation of a range of children’s clothes and Christening gowns.

My most recent creations feature around the ever popular vintage era, I have created a wonderful exciting range of children’s and adults aprons. My range can be viewed on line at http://www.tillymintdevon.com

I look forward to seeing you at our open studios weekend.

Title "Aprons by Angela O'Brien"

Open Studios venue 10.

Paintings

Avril Pratt grew up in South Africa, where she studied art at Rhodes University before moving to a farming life in Zimbabwe with her husband Steve. As a secondary school art teacher over many years she encouraged students to discover their own unique style, and through this she feels she gained as much as she gave.

The sketchbook is a vital part of her creativity. During long years of waiting in petrol queues in Zimbabwe Avril honed her artistic skills, teaching herself to draw and paint with economy and speed whilst observing and extracting the essentials from the activity and scenes around her with warmth and immediacy. In her studio work she paints mainly in watercolours in a variety of styles - she especially enjoys developing decorative qualities in bold, colourful compositions.

After the farm was overrun in the political turmoil in Zimbabwe she and her husband moved to Devon in 2003.

Title "Lighthouse"

Open Studios venue 8. Paintings.

Diana lived & worked in London before moving to Devon a year ago. In London her work was mostly inspired by the energy of the city and especially the Thames at night with the reflections of the city lights in the river. Now that she lives in Devon it is the richness of the countryside and the sea that inspires her.

Preferring not to sketch on site Diana spends time observing and absorbing the essence of place then committing it to memory rather than painting a direct representation. Diana uses transparent glazes, impasto, and a variety of mixed media to achieve the effects she wants.

Title "Un-named"

Open Studios venue 7.

Photography.

I make photographs in order to see how a photograph looks – a moment in time. Still time.

Title from the "East The Water" series

Open Studios venue 4.

Textiles.

Awaiting artist's statement and image.

Open Studios venue 10.

PhotographicArt.

The natural world is full of surprises and discovering them is only limited by our powers of observation. There is so much more to see than meets the eye and this is what I try to discover and capture in my work.

Digital photography can enhance our powers of perception. I let nature provide the patterns and textures and the colours. I use technology to enhance what is already there. Sometimes I add to the picture by using natural objects found nearby. The results can be mysterious, vibrant, challenging and, sometimes, weird!

http://www.artgilbert.co.uk and http://creativetorbay.com

Title "Spring"

Open Studios venue 7.

Baskets and tea cosies.

I make a variety of sizes and shapes in basketry, from log baskets to tiny blackberry baskets. The willow is grown in my field outside Harberton. It is a satisfying ecological process to grow, harvest, store and soak the withies and weave them into useful rustic baskets with the natural colours of the different willow varieties intact.

I also make unusual tea-cosies!

Title "Gwen's baskets"

Open Studios venue 10.

Recycled crafts.

Awaiting artist's statement.

Title "Baskets from recycled materials"

Open Studios venue 2.

Prints and hand-made crafts.

I will be displaying prints and craft items in the Open Studios for the first time this year. I enjoy the overlap between craft and art. My prints are mostly collagraphs. Archetypes, myth and the connection between the spiritual and the earthly are a strong inspiration for my exploration. Another aspect of my work is the transformation of ordinary objects. I will also be showing my handcrafted jewellery made from vintage buttons and there will also be an exhibition of masks representing tarot archetypes. Items will be for sale at affordable prices.

Title "The Red Seeds"

Open Studios venue 1.

Jewellery and decorations.

Lucie has been making jewellery for many years but has only recently started to exhibit and sell it. Her work is based on semi-precious gems and silver and specialises in bringing out the beauty and colour of the natural materials used. Recently Lucie has been experimenting with Fair-trade African recycled glass beads and recycled brass pendants, producing pieces that have an ancient, earthy feel to them.

Title "Necklace by Lucie Landoni"

Open Studios venue 10

Textiles

Marian Ash lives and works just outside of the village of Harbertonford. She has been working in textiles for many years and started off on the textile route with Susan Bosence a renowned textile printer and dyer. Natural fabrics, silk, cotton and wool, are mainly dyed in indigo. Having tried many techniques over the years Marian now concentrates on poetry scarves and trousers, napkins with sayings and quotes, table cloths and lengths of indigo dyed fabric. One of Marian's ventures is using the fleece from her sheep flock to make blankets. After shearing the fleece is taken to the Natural Fibre company in Launceston, Cornwall where it is carded and spun. From there it is returned to Beenleigh and dyed then sent to the National Woollen Museum in Wales where the spun yarn in woven into blankets. Each year a different breed of sheep from within the flock is chosen for the wool. These blankets are original and wonderful for all sorts of uses.

Orders can be taken for individual requirements in all textiles.

Title "Textiles by Marian Ash."

Open Studios venue 10.

Portrait Painter

I am a portrait painter who values traditional draughtsmanship and oil painting techniques and I work from life with the sitter in front of me. I do not use photographs except for small children and animals which cannot keep still. I work in a range of media depending upon the sitter’s preference and time availability and can complete a colour pencil sketch in an hour if the sitter’s time is very short. Oil painting commissions require a greater time commitment.

Portraiture requires a collaboration between the sitter and the artist which includes agreeing on the mood and feeling which the portrait is to convey and the means by which this is to be achieved. It is important to me to capture an accurate likeness of the sitter although I will generally seek to portray the sitter at his or her best.

Title "Lynda Newman-Miller, Shiatsu Practitioner"

Open Studios venue 10

I moved to South Devon in 2000 from the USA where I worked as a graphic artist, illustrator and calligrapher.

I love strong colour, pattern, composition, and a splash of gold. I have a variety of work from earlier years, including drawings and photographs, alongside recent paintings. My work is affordably priced, and commissions are welcome.

In 2007 I had the opportunity to teach watercolour and other art courses and finished a PGCE in adult learning. In 2010 I completed an MA in Arts & Ecology at the former Dartington College of Arts.

Using Goethean colour theory in my studies, I arrived at a way of painting that is phenomenon and multi-sense based or ‘haptic’ (meaning ‘to grasp’). I often work without brushes, or with my non-dominant hand, and sometimes follow printing processes. I use mostly oils or pastels, and my subjects are often dreamy images creating immersive narratives.

Title "Poppy and iris"

Open Studios venue 10.

Raku ceramics

My latest all consuming passion is for foraging and plant identification. My obsession is such that I have managed to combine this activity into my life long interest and occupation as a Potter.

Each piece has a plant or leaf impressed into it at the leather hard stage. After bisque firing they are painted, glazed and Raku fired before being immersed into sawdust at 1000c and then plummeted into cold water to ‘freeze’ the alchemical patterns emerging on the glaze surface. The best pieces are mounted and a description of the plant and its uses are written on the back.

I also produce hand-thrown pots and vases that have gone through a similar firing process.

Richenda Macgregor works as an Artist, Teacher and Facilitator. Has a studio called ‘The Potting Shed’ where she runs regular workshops in ceramics and glass with her business partner Natalie Elder.

Title "Raku Balls by Richenda MacGregor"

Open Studios venue 10.

Paintings & original prints.

Abstract and semi-abstract contemporary paintings. My work is influenced by natural land formations and elements, the flux of land and water, paths formed by erosion. Fluidity and solidity. Where things dissolve into each other - land, sky and sea. I enjoy the patterns and colours that I see in the landscape, often abstracting the essence of a place. Larger paintings often capture the feeling of movement, usually executed quickly and spontaneously.

I have recently been learning the craft of printmaking which exploits my love of materials and is a process that lies somewhere between sculpture and painting.

http://www.artgilbert.co.uk and http://creativetorbay.com

Open Studios venue 5.

Paintings and prints.

Now in her 91st year, Sophie was due to take part in Open Studios this year, but following a recent stroke, she is presently in a nursing home. However, she has agreed to her studio and garden being open in her absence. We wish to complement her art with a display of flowers, and to fill her studio with the music she loves. Visitors are welcome to bring garden flowers to add to the display.

Title "Still Life".

Open Studios venue 10.

Paintings.

Steve Pratt studied oil painting at the Rhodes University School of Art in South Africa and there worked and exhibited with the Grahamstown Group - an association of landscape painters committed to integrity and excellence in painting. He has exhibited in national and group exhibitions in major centres in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and has held numerous solo exhibitions in Zimbabwe. His work is represented in the public collection of the NationalGallery of Zimbabwe.

“For me landscape painting is a personal interaction between landscape and artist through the medium of paint. The landscape is alive with associations of exhilaration, pain and yearning; dread, nostalgia and hope. It’s a living thing with a pulse, a history, a memory and a soul. I paint landscape because it is a reflection of the human spirit - the outward expression of the landscape within.”

Steve immigrated to the UK from Zimbabwe with his wife Avril in 2003.

Title "Cathedral City"

Open Studios venue 6.

Original prints.

After two years working for an MA, my studio will look a little different to previous years and although continuing to make familiar landscape prints, my recent focus on oak trees and their ecology has resulted in more thoughtful work that includes printed leaf studies, images of moths, oak paper, artist’s books and cards.

“Oak Primer” is the title of an artist’s book offering an introduction to some of the abundant species living in relationship with oak trees in Britain. It employs leaf juices embossed into Somerset paper with oak-gall ink text inscribing the names of moths, birds, insects and other organisms. Its 175 pages are bound with an oaken ring.

Prices remain reasonable and I trust affordable for those who want to buy.

www.suedeakin.com

Title "Oak Primer"

Open Studio venue 10.

Paintings and drawings

My work is quite varied spanning abstracted landscapes and flowers to more fictionalised pictures of ideas, dreams, thoughts and feelings. I often don’t know what they mean until long after I do them and sometimes never completely understand them. The completed works rarely turn out like the pictures in my mind, so I follow the painting.

I am sometimes deeply moved by people and have recently begun thinking about and making portraits. I am always following the call of soul and spirit wherever it manifest – in the fleeting play of light on landscape, the soar of seagulls or the images conjured by a word or phrase. I sometimes work from photographs and sometimes the photograph stands alone – enough in itself. I never know what I will do next but love different mediums – oil/pastels/pencil and most of all colour.

Title "Cactus Flower"

Open Studios venue 9.

Paintings This year I will be showing colourful Watercolours, Oil paintings and Cards based on pencil drawings made outside which are reworked in the studio - a mixture of observation and imagination which has developed into a personal sybolism, inspired by Indian gouaches. There will also be details of new painting courses I'll be teaching. I trained at Wimbledon School of Art and went on to The Royal Academy Schools for my Post graduate training. Also I have recently completed the Certificate to teach in Adult Education. I exhibit locally and in The Rowley Gallery, London. Further information at http://www.axisweb.org/artist/suzyfasht

 Title "Magic in the Lane", Watercolour and gouache.

Open Studios venue 10.

Botanical Illustrations

Since an early age I have always had a passion for plants, I am a dedicated gardener and there is nothing I enjoy more than pottering in my garden. I never cease to be amazed at the wonderful variation of colours, shapes and textures so when I started to paint about 8 years ago it was natural that I should paint the plants I have grown in my garden and greenhouse. I have exhibited at various local venues over the last 4 years including RHS Garden Rosemoor.

Title "Pineapple".