Bell Pepper Allergy Campaign

“Symptoms of capsicum allergy result in serious situation like anaphylaxis or mild signs like asthma, abdominal pain, hives, eczema and head ache.”

Source: Allergy Symptoms.org

During #inktober I created my first bell pepper allergy illustration. I then saved this on my phone to show when ordering food in restaurants.

Watercolour painted peppers added to the original many language background

Now don’t get me wrong it’s not that I don’t like peppers. I find them deliciously tasty, but it took some years to pinpoint that being doubled over with severe stomach cramps, hot and cold sweats, three days when I couldn’t get out of bed, diahorrea until my system was empty, was due to eating bell peppers.

Bell Pepper Allergy and Intolerance Symptoms – Found through research.

Give me a chilli and I’m happy and fine, but a fragment of bell pepper or a pinch of paprika and I loose the next few hours at least. Until my body has painfully fought the peppers and kicked them back out of my system.

It was suggested to me by a GP that it may be IBS, which is why I believe some people could be thinking and dealing with what they believe is IBS when they might just need to drop peppers from their diet. 

Heatpressing hand painted peppers

Machine rendering after hand sewing

Now peppers are very nutritious for some people, but they can be anaphylaxic for some. However they are almost never listed on food menus and food packaging as allergens. Often they’re not written on food menus, despite them being part of the dish. Due to their colourfulness peppers are often used in ‘food on the go’ meals such as salads. Really helpfully they’re often finely chopped and written in minuscule font on the ingredients list on packaging. 

So I just want to make people, you even, more aware of the possible reactions and physical responses to peppers. Maybe this work can take away someone’s pain or discomfort. 

So I’m asking people to think before they eat and serve bell peppers and paprika, I’m asking food retailers to think before they add bell peppers and paprika and to make it as an allergen, and for restaurants to always state where bell peppers and paprika have been used in their dishes. And please use a different chopping board for peppers.

Thank you for reading to the end. Next time you eat peppers just observe in the time afterwards how you feel. If you have any of the symptoms listed in this article you might want to see if the symptoms clear up or cease. 

Eat happy, be happy, consider pushing aside the peppers. 

Free Download – I’ve created an illustrated download for those with Bell Pepper allergies and intolerances. This is for use in restaurants, hotels at home and abroad. Please feel free to print and/or share this with someone that it may help, and to raise awareness of this food allergy. Card size set to 9 x 13cm.

Bell Pepper Allergy Advice Card

Advice Card – Front

Advice Card – Reverse

See more on my Facebook and Instagram

Related work: Work that relates to the techniques is at the following links. I often find that the work is stepping stones to the next creation, like a bright creative path where the next step is revealed upon completion of the present one. These creative projects led to this work.

Bird and Flower Cushion

Steel Company Brand Art

Satin Cheese Plant

Next Step – in the campaign is to use the content created with supermarkets, restaurants and through PR and social media to raise awareness of bell peppers as an allergen.

Mini Case Studies – If you’ve a bell pepper story please email me as I’m collecting personal accounts and experiences that can demonstrate how this intolerance can affect individuals.

Links that may be of use/interest:

https://www.livestrong.com/article/279402-bell-pepper-allergy/

https://allergy-symptoms.org/capsicum-allergy/

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321883.php

https://www.healthline.com/health/allergies/nightshade-allergies#treatments

http://research.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/informall/allergenic-food/index.aspx?FoodId=58

https://wwws.fitnessrepublic.com/nutrition/healthy-eating/does-bell-pepper-cause-stomach-cramps.html

If you have a reaction to chillis…

https://metro.co.uk/2018/02/19/chilli-peppers-capsaicin-intolerance-affect-7315577/

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Passion for Textile Flowers

Everlasting passionflower lovingly crafted from textiles.

The satin cheese plant I made led to my decision to make a textile passion flower….

I studied the beautiful flowers that I have been growing in garden for 15 years.

Some all-white varieties surprised me in the garden this year.

Passionflower study in coloured pencils

Monochrome study aiming to simplify the forms.

Watercolour study of passiflora.

I then took the designs into stitch. This was the first iteration of the passion flower with a little fused Angelina fibre panel for the centre.

Free motion embroidery and ribbon couching to create the second flower design.

After considering different fabrics I decided to use satin with scrim behind for the third flower experiment.

It was important that I create depth for the flower’s corona filaments, anthers and stigmas. I used felt, a bead and embroidery silks.

My intention whilst working at Chelsea College of Arts at the start of the month was to create screen printed designs that I could later add 3D passionflowers to. 

A passionflower couldn’t exist without its leaves. I created this one using satin that I have designed and printed using Colourcraft products, with felt behind/underside made at Stitched Up and Fleeced in Sheffield.

The final addition was the tendrils shaped with a little love as inspiration. Photographed in the sun, which is what prompts the passionflowers to reveal their striking beauty.

Thanks so much for reading to the end. I’m delighted with this work and will be looking at the display of it. So watch this space by popping your email address in the box at the top of the page to follow my blog. Normally a maximum of one post per week, a little bright creativity into your inbox

Here is the work that led to the passion flower creation.

Bird and Flowers Design

Satin Cheese Plant

Textile Print Design at Chelsea

And finally here are flowers I painted in pomegranate juice (and a little green watercolour). The juice was a stunning pink so I could resist making art with it. The work is inspired by a great book I’m reading The Joy of Watercolour by Emma Block.

Additional inspiration from the Botanica book by Uppercase magazine. A delightful treat of a book.

Textile Print Design at Chelsea

Had a great week at UAL Chelsea College of Arts, working in the Textile Print and Dyeing Room. Here’s my favourite work – screen prints (including foil) and silkscreen painting.

This two colour screen print was created using cut paper.

Experimenting with foil

Silkscreen print, from hand painted design. My earlier screen potent can be seen where they had marked the cloth.

Design inspired by element of passion flowers, as part of ongoing study of this plant species. I love how this came out and like the tendrils.

A productive few days work.

My final and favourite piece was using cut paper and three colours.

I’ll be developing these pieces and creating with them so pop your email address in the box at the top of the page to see how they develop.

If you’re interested in this work here are other related textile work I’ve been busy with…

Fabric Cheese Plant

Bird and Flower Cushion

Designer Dog Coat

Thanks to Lara Mantell for all her help at Chelsea.

Designer Dog Coat

Personalised Pooch Weather Proof Coat

My four legged furry buddy isn’t keen on walking in the rain. So to stop this little guy…

…ending up looking like this…

I decided to make him a bespoke coat. As he’s a Lhasa Apso with a long body shop coats don’t fit him so off the peg wouldn’t do the job.

So using his silhouette and paw print, captured on a snowy day, I designed a repeat pattern.

I painted the design in dyes using wax relief…

Then heat-pressed the design onto fabric and cut out the shapes from the paper pattern I had created to fit my furry fashionisto.

The good weather took the sewing and quilting of the layers al fresco.

I love reflective fabric so used used this for back panel of the dog coat.

My lovely Bernina sewing machine made light work of the creative quilting and edging tape sewing.

I don’t think, for me, sewing can get much better than making with fabric I’ve designed and printed myself.

After attaching the pieces and adding Velcro and a button fastening the coat was ready for “walkies”.

The collar up option for heavy rain is quite David Bowie/spacey.

The collar down option for chillier but less wet days.

You might want to see these dog inspired projects:

Drawing With Silks – Cute Dog

The Dog Who Wanted To Fly

Maltese Dog Portrait

Dog Portraits in Acrylic Paint

I’d like to thank my fabulous furry fashion model, Borrow My Doggy for the introduction and you for being here.

Make a new furry friend through Www.BorrowMyDoggy.com

For more fun makes follow my blog, my Facebook page and Instagram feed.

Thanks

Kim and Willow xx

Satin Cheese Plant…

I had an idea to make a cheese plant, this was inspired by seeing the cheese plant when doing Yoga With Adriene. I didn’t want a cheese plant that would grow too big or might result in soil spilling onto the carpet, so decided that a mini one would be ideal.

My favourite fabric at present is satin, I love how the light catches it and used it recently for the Bird and Flowers Cushion. The cushion featured leaves and so I can recognise the idea flow through these projects.

The Bird and Flowers Cushion

Following this commission project I made a bookmark, a pretty lady emerged, and then an eye mask.

So botanics were a theme flowing, or should I say ‘growing’ through my work, largely this was inspired by Botanica – Encyclopedia of Inspiration by Uppercase Magazine, a book I love. My garden is also a huge source of inspiration and vital to my creative process.

Here’s the cheese plant creation process in a one minute video. Including a quick animation that I was inspired to make. This quickly shows the steps to creating the miniature cheese plant…

This video and my growing collection of art videos can be seen on my YouTube channel.

I’m really pleased with this outcome and eager to see where this leads on to, I have some ideas but not ready to share them just yet.

Cheese Plant in Satin – Copyright Kim

Related creations that led to this work are:

Bird and Flower Cushion

Eye Mask

Mini Bunting

My Life in Paper

Thanks so much for being here. If you know someone who would enjoy seeing my work and maybe they like creating too, then please share this with them.

Enjoy creating…

Bye x

All the images are copyrighted.

Football Themed Gifts

Football themed iPad rest. My latest project completed.

I was asked to make an iPad rest which would be a gift for an avid football fan, to use when watching his favourite game on iPad.

I created a unique design with football players set in a ball pattern on the main panel (above) and handpainted pitch with the lines stictched for the underside (below).

Watch the creative process in just 30 seconds…

As part of the development of this idea I made a drawstring bag for the same customer.

Also made last week was this phone charger bag, featuring the Barnsley FC painting.

Related posts:

Football Fan Commissioned Painting

Football Fan Charger Bag

Thanks sooooo much for being here. Share this with your friends and football (soccer) lovers. 😊

UK followers have chance to win this boxed canvas in a competition now on my Facebook Page…

Have a great day. 😊👍

Bird and Flowers Cushion Design

I was asked to make a colourful cushion featuring a bird and flowers with this drawing from a lovely customer:

I thought about whether I might seek such a fabric design, but I didn’t have the desire to go hunting for a fabric, so I designed my own.

Having found painted designs that the dye colours can mush together I decided to try a collage technique, as developed in some of my favourite work, my paper cut pictures.

I firstly prepared papers by  carefully painting them with transfer dyes then cut and assembled pieces to build a design. I liked the composition on a cute practice design (above), but felt that the colours lacked texture and depth. So I tried wax relief frottage techniques learned at UAL Chelsea and also hand-painted my favourite flowers inspired by our own garden and a visit to the wonderful tulip gardens of Keukenhof and the Botanical Garden in Leiden earlier this year. I challenged myself to limit colours to the wine red, golden yellow and turquoise Colourcraft Transfer Dyes.

I cut shapes and enjoyed assembling these to form the design for the main panel of the cushion.

See the design process in this one minute video…

Earlier posts that relate to this:

Paper-cut Pictures

Inspired Bags

Blackpool Icons Cushion

Life in Paper

I’m creating new things all the time, which I post on my Facebook Page and Instagram. Hope to see you there.

Embroidered Dog Portrait

White dog portrait created in silks, yarn and thread on dyed fabric.

Lhasa-Apso Portrait of my little buddy in embroidery silks

After the success of the embroidered portrait earlier this year I decided to try to create an embroidered portrait of Sam, the white dog that has featured in a number of my paper artworks, and whom I painted previously in acrylic paints before, paintings which became an illustrated children’s book.

Hand painted portrait of lovely Sam which became a page in the book

I chose a teal/ turquoise cotton fabric that I had dyed. I chose the colour as it was the colour of Sam’s favourite toy, and echoes the style of the portraits that I painted on bright bold coloured backgrounds.

I gradually built the design using hand sewing, deciding to add fluffy white yarn that was left after I knitted the jumper on jumbo needles.

I was struggling to get a likeness and lost momentum in the project so decided to inject some energy by continuing the piece on my sewing machine with a transparent foot, and also with a darning foot to use free motion embroidery techniques.

This worked and I was able to sew into the design, develop the likeness and then finished the final elements by hand. Here’s a 43 seconds short video of how the work developed.

I’m pleased with the final outcome and can now decide how best to display the work in my gallery.

Related posts which feature Sam or similar techniques are here…

Painted Dog Portraits

Drawing with Silks – Cute Dog

Illustrated Children’s Book

Paperart Pictures

Jumper on Jumbo Needles

Thanks so much, I hope you’ve enjoyed being here and if there’s something bespoke you’d like me to create for you then best way to contact me is to email inspirebykim@outlook.com 😊

Instagram Highlights

April was a bright and creative month, here are the highlights from my Instagram feed. Enjoy!

Better late than never!

First up was a cupcake themed cushion that I made for a close relation.

Lush pink, grey and teal design. It was a huge pattern repeat so I made a booster cushion with different parts of the design front and back. As I know I’ll be asked the question, the fabric was from Direct Knit and Sew in Sheffield.

Ta da! Here’s the finished cushion. It really was a work of love as it was for someone I love and I love the outcome. The pink ribbon edging the cushion really makes the colours pop.

I started work on a second hand sewn dog portrait. This time featuring Sam, who has been in many of my papercut paperart collage artworks and was the protagonist I’m my illustrated storybook.

I made pretty bunting for my sewing space. Dyeing the fabric using sublimation inks and then stitching into and embellishing the panels. The satin ribbon feels gorgeous.

I used trational machine stitch, love the clear acrylic foot – it’s an essential tool for me, and also used free machine embroidery.

The little boat and clouds are from fabric that I dyed at a workshop last summer at Stitched Up And Fleeced textile studio in Sheffield.

I tried something a little different with my Paperart on one of my favourite icons for a happy day, Ice-cream.

I repainted my Maison du Monde Smile sign to make it more me, white emulsion the flicked my favourite paint colours.

This large canvas happened out of a study for another piece. As it was drying we decided we quite liked it so this is how it is completed, for now. 😊

The above canvas artwork was created using a drag method I had been playing with.

The final make of the month was a peg bag using bright screen printed fabric, printed by a fellow student.

Here are stories that relate to these artworks. Enjoy seeing the backstories.

Sam’s storybook

Cute Dog – portrait

Paperart Pictures

Thanks for being here. Better late than never on this post. Hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Love, and peace to you, Kim xx

Drawing With Silks – Cute Dog

As a small sofa-friendly project over the easter weekend I decided to embark on a small embroidered portrait of the little dog that spends some days with me.

 

I found a high res picture that really showed the detail, and began first to represent the darkest areas gradually and carefully colour matching the different tones with embroidery silks, and representing the different textures. I took a drawing in silks approach, using drawing techniques that I use in life drawings.

 

I was pleased with how the embroidery began to take on his likeness and reflect some of his character. I added a paw print, from a picture I captured of it whilst walking during a snowfall.As I liked how the portrait looked in the embroidery hoop I decided to turn that into the frame, giving it a collar effect using a football boot lace (ssshh!)

The little dog is a lhasa apso with a lovely coat and sooo cute. He’s a great little guy who it is fun company.

The little dog’s owner was really pleased with the picture and how it captured the detail of his face and coat.

This is not the first cute dog that I have had the pleasure of capturing in art, I previously used acrylic paint to illustrate a children’s book about a white dog called Sam who wanted to fly.

Illustrated Children’s Book – The Dog Who Wanted To Fly

More related posts are at these links:

Art Challenge 28 –  Dog Portraits – Maltese

Sewing into Art

Have a n-ice day! Sewing challenge

I later created another dog portrait – here is the link to the story and a video of the project. 

Its been a pleasure to share this story and its fab to have you here, please share my site with friends who’ll enjoy it x

I write my blog as story by story I’m logging my creative journey and writing my book. If you’d like to read the chapters as they are created you can follow this blog. It’s presently a small and select group but it would’ve lovely to have you join us. 😊

Kim x