Project 7 Theme book intro

Theme book

Introduction

I've been thinking for some time what to do for my Theme book.  I've looked at images of rust and and marvelled at the beauty of devastating viruses.  An obvious choice would be my garden that is going to claim my attention before too long.  But I've chosen none of those things.  As I sat doing my pleating and gathering I looked up and saw my fruit bowl and the decision was instant.  The colours and textures were fabulous and the flavours are such an essential part of my life I couldn't resist.  When I thought further I realised how wide the scope was - even including the fruit of the vine!  I may well have to rationalise a bit.

Having learnt so much from my Marrakesh sketchbook I'm going to make the Theme book mine by working on a cover for it.  I want to use something I have done that has a fruit theme and I've chosen this image;
 

I have used Paint.net again and used the "twist" distortion x 2 at the default setting.  I then printed the image on some paper with fibres in it.

I'm pretty happy with this. Now that it's on my book cover I'm beginning to wish that I'd embellished it with some stitching.  Maybe this is something I could pursue.

I have used fruit images in my work before.

An early drawing...

Another early drawing

Still Life with Apples, Cezanne
www.ibiblio.org

Francoise-Loumagne, 2006

I've spent a bit of time looking for images that are a bit out of the ordinary and found macro photography by  Estonian artist Heikki Leis who has a taste for the bizarre.  The turnip below is just one of several surreal images which can be found at:

               http://www.heikkileis.ee/fotod/afterlife/

Rotten turnip

Developing my Theme book cover design

I've been itching to begin some work on this design.

Holey paper

The paper the book cover was printed on is integral to the design so I somehow wanted to retain it but also give myself something to stitch onto (the paper is very, very holey).  When I printed for the book cover the paper went through the printer without a hitch but on subsequent tries it became jammed.  I got around this by putting the paper onto bondaweb and printing it that way.  I'd then got a piece I could iron onto fabric and stitch or embellish as I wish. This is what I did:

My materials were hand dyed silk embroidery threads which were varigated, tiny pieces of silk ribbon and bits of organza.  The curly bits are the wire edging from organza ribbon.  I'm quite pleased with this, it seems to make the print come alive and I'm happy with the colours.  I'd doubts about the pink but it looked OK on the print so I just went with it.  The green silk ribbon mirrors the print colour as well and is a bit of a saviour for the acid of the organza nearby.  I chose my colours in electric light and didn't realise just how acid it was. It is a long way from an apple.

Tellier-Loumagne,  Francoise,  2006, The art of embroidery.Thames and Hudson, New York.
Wolff, C. 1996, The Art of Manipulating Fabric. Krause Publications, Iola, Wisconsin

 http://www.heikkileis.ee/fotod/afterlife/