Sarah
Becvar of Sarah Becvar Design is my collab for the next adi & bert photo challenge on Instagram. Sarah, a textile trained artist, creates fabric art -
beautifully freehand machine embroidered, with simple nature-inspired forms.
Read
below about what inspires Sarah to create such lovely designs and to find out about her creative process.
Sarah also shares some tips for selling and online web design.
1. Sarah,
have you always been interested in creating and what inspired you to sew using
botanical/nature based themes?
SB: I grew up
on a dairy farm, surrounded by acres of beautiful Sussex countryside, orchards,
farm animals and plenty of wildlife! As a child I would gather handfuls
of items that I’d collect from my surroundings such as leaves, shells, tree
bark and plenty of flowers, and from an early age I would sketch them or make
collages of my nature finds.
2. What
artists inspire you and why?
SB: My
inspiration still comes from my natural surroundings. I often refer to my old
botanical guide books to identify flowers, but also love studying the botanical
drawings and the aged, muted colours. I was fortunate to find Sketches For The Flora which is a volume
of field sketches by W. Keble Martin (published in 1972) to which I refer. His
simple line drawings give clarity to the form of the flower I may be
drawing.
3. How do
you stay focused when you are building up stock for your website or a
market?
SB: I enjoy
each step of the construction of my products whether it’s a greetings card, bag
or artwork and it gives me great pleasure to hear the lovely feedback from my
customers which encourages me and keeps me engaged.
4. For
someone's starting down the track of selling art and crafts, what is the best
piece of advice you could give?
SB: Some
advice to someone who’s in the early stages of selling their work would be to
have confidence and belief in their product. I prefer to give a brief
description of how I make the product as I feel it’s important to explain that
the item is handmade, and it gives the product a ‘story’.
5. What
tips do you have for crafters/artists setting up a website or selling online?
SB: I
designed and constructed my own website which has been an enormous learning
curve, but I have fulfilled my brief of a site that is clear, simple and
sophisticated with ease of navigation. It is the product that needs to stand
out with a clear call to action. Keep things simple in a style that reflects
your work.
6. What
are you happiest doing creatively and why?
SB: I am at
my happiest creating a new piece of work, from its initial sketches through to
drawing it in thread on my sewing machine. I often sew straight onto the fabric
without drawing the design onto the fabric first, and find this incredibly
exciting! Seeing the lines of stitches appear before you, forming an image on a
blank canvas, is a wonderful feeling.
7. Where would
you like to be creatively in five years' time?
SB: I hope to
run freehand machine embroidery workshops where I’d love to teach my processes
and encourage people to try freehand machine embroidery themselves. As I have a
background in textile design I’d like to design more fabrics which incorporate
my sketches and have discussed publishing a book using images of my freehand
embroidery. I feel so fortunate that I enjoy what I do and am surrounded
by a constant source of inspiration enabling my creativity to have a constant
flow.
Thank you, Sarah!
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To celebrate Sarah's charming work, Sarah and I would love you to join us in a photo challenge on Instagram and the theme is nature!
Sarah is offering a beautifully embroidered
shopping bag and hand made card to the winner and two runner’s up will each receive one of her
enchanting sewn cards.
Be sure to follow the rules, to be
eligible:
2. Post
a new photo with a nature theme, to the tag #ab_the_nature_series
3. Invite
a friend to join
Comp
close on 30 April and is open worldwide.
Sarah will select the winners.
Have fun and we look forward to seeing your entries!
Claudia x
Photo Credits: Sarah Becvar
