This is a book review of Textile Seascapes by Alison Whateley and published by The Crowood Press. Alison is a mixed media textile artist who is inspired by the natural world.
Several of the textile art books I’ve read are focused on step by step guides for making set projects. Although this book does include 3 projects with step by step photos the first half of the book is focused on helping you find inspiration and covering the techniques you’ll need to create your own seascapes.
There are useful guides to topics such as image composition, colours and texture, incorporating hand stitching and embellishments, where to find ideas, tools and materials and mounting and framing your finished artworks. I felt like it was a toolbox, providing me with what I needed to go and create my own seascapes.
I found the finding inspiration chapter particularly useful, not only guiding you as to where to look but telling you the hashtags to use on various online platforms to find the kind of images which will inspire your work.
The latter part of the book includes instructions for making a simple small landscape, a larger scale landscape and an abstract landscape. These are followed by guides to adding hand stitching and mixed media to add texture and embellishments to your landscapes and finishes with details of how to mount and frame your finished artworks. Everything you need to start making your own textile seascapes.
Although it may be a small book (just a little larger than A5 and just under 100 pages) it is packed full of useful information which will leave you inspired to create your own seascapes. I’m certainly feeling the urge and will update this review with a picture of mine when I’ve had chance to make it.
You can order your copy of Textile Seascapes from The Crowood Press website here.
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