Project 10 Stage 1a

Reviewing my work so far

My last pieces of work are with my tutor but I've collected everything else together and been totally amazed at the amount of work there is.  Some of it I had forgotten about but other things sing out as something I want to have another go at.

Although it made a big wodge of work I don't think I really made enough of the printing and dyeing element of the course and I'd like to revisit it some time.  

Things that have really caught my eye

Paper collage from Project 4

I liked this from the word go; it has lots of depth and interest.  I worked with the image again later but was unhappy with the outcome.  Now that I have more experience I thought I would try to combine more techniques and make a small sample.  I used this snip from the bottom left hand corner.

It's a very busy image with harmonising colours in autumnal shades.  I chose a colour range to reflect this.  I sponged textured, dark brown fabric with yellow and orange.

I tore strips of some patterned furnishing fabric and gathered them.  I laid two in strips and the third I formed into a disc shape.

The gathered strips didn't want to lie straight so I allowed them to fall into whatever place they preferred.  I thought this might detract from the angular feel of the image but unexpectedly the orange in the fabric seemed to form triangles which compensated.

I introduced some yellow net and deepened the yellow with extra net and plastic in one area.  I made darting, busy stitches in two shades of brown  and put some red stitching onto the torn strips.

I've used stitch, fabric paint, manipulation and applique in this, something I wouldn't have dreamt of  combining previously.  

Apart from the red the colours are pretty authentic to the original image  The slight hint of green in the strips makes the yellow paint look more green than I intended.  I have managed to retain the busyness and the work has lots of texture.  However, I don't find it exciting or satisfying and unfortunately I can't help but think the strips look like caterpillars!  I'll relegate this to Room 101. 

The next thing that caught my eye was from fabric manipulation.  What excited me at the time was the sewing and slashing of material and the wonderful changes that happened.  This is a snip of one of my favourites. This is made largely from painted newspaper with just a bit of organza.  

I've been tempted to cut the original piece into smaller pieces but then backed off because it's good as it is.  Instead I'm going to fiddle with paper.

I cut the paper image into 60 mm identical squares and experimented with ways to use them.

Each placement gave a different feel.

This looked like weaving

Most uninteresting

The sea?

The one on the right felt like the sea.  Dispersed (below) the sea feeling disappeared.

The sea no longer

This one felt disconnected even though the tiles were identical.

I once again painted newspaper then tore it into strips.  I put random strips onto my sketchbook page and placed the tiles on top.  

The yellow looked too predominant so I tore the newspaper into smaller pieces and pasted them at random.

I muted the yellow with a layer of synthetic material in lilac.  There's nothing remarkable going on with the optical effect; it's just the waviness of the paper due to the glue. If it dries flatter I'll insert another photo.

To some extent this satisfies my wish to see what would happen if I cut the original piece.  If this was fabric I'd now be looking at stitching into it.  

I could also use the cut up pieces to do a collograph print.

This has been much more satisfying than the stitching I did yesterday.  It has opened up new lines of thinking and helped to generate some new ideas.

Out of curiosity I put this same tile image into Paint.net (tile effect) and just look what happened:

I decided to try a bondaweb print and did it two ways.  First I printed directly onto bondaweb (x 4) then ironed it onto some curtain lining.  This gave me a very subtle almost sepia effect - very understated compared to the picture above.  It reminds me of an animal print. I made pleats in the spaces between the tiles but didn't leave enough space round the edge to make another pleat.

So I tried again ....

I had to decide how to manage the intersections of stitching.  Should I bend the pleats over or allow them their freedom?  Freedom won out and the result is a lovely boxy shape.  Once again this opens up possibilities for more work.  There's a wealth of options for the bottom of the boxes, the height or number of the pleats and so on.  I've got a good feeling about this one and the germ of an idea.

My second way to print using bondaweb gave a very different result.  First I printed onto paper and cut bondaweb to the same size as the print.  I ironed it onto the fabric and peeled away the backing. then placed the print, face down onto the bondaweb and ironed it on.  I left it overnight and this morning I wet the paper and slowly peeled it away.

Most of the browns seem to have disappeared and left behind lots of purple.  There is nothing of the sepia effect I noted previously.

True to the feel if not the colour

Up close there is depth

Between the two way to print I don't think there's a best way - it just depends on the purpose.  One thing that is worth remembering is to allow plenty of time for experimenting as the result (particularly on the second print) seem unpredictable.

I have also picked out as a favourite my quick print of silk spools.

I printed this using corrugated cardboard and the resulting shapes have an ethereal quality just like silk. I wanted to see if I could get this quality in another way.  This is the bit I chose to work with:

I used some special paper (a freebie from Patchings) because it had a rippled texture and acrylic paint mixed with PVA and a good bit of water.  I'm enjoying colour matching and this turned out quite accurately.  Sadly I didn't take into account the proportion of the image I'd chosen.  I selected a square and painted in a rectangle and it left gaps that I may yet work on.  I'll think about it.

Using a brush

I used a filbert brush and simply used the edge at a variety of angles. I had no bright pink paint so I used fabric paint instead and this seemed to work just fine.

First I did the orange/brown and I think this shows as it's less free than subsequent marks.  Seeing how much difference it made I wondered how I could continue with the "free" idea.  

I dripped quite watery paint onto my sketch pad and blew it with a straw in the direction the spools faced.

Spattered and blown

I think this is much more successful; there is a particular feeling of very fine silk.  The fabric dye (pink) is much more responsive to being blown than the acrylic paint.

On both of these pieces I yearn for a bit of blue.

I slept on this and decided this morning to introduce a gentle blue to both pieces of work.  I've put them beside the one without blue for comparison purposes.

In both cases the blue makes a huge difference.  The work comes alive.  I think some of this is due to the placement of the blue and the way it interacts with the colours around it particularly the green and the pink.

I've been pretty unhappy with the quality of my photo so I decided to scan some parts of this work.

It's a bit more long winded but the results are so much better.  

Thinking about my own design

Although I've still got to do Stage 2 I've been thinking about my own piece of work and considering what my strengths are and what will provide a challenge and hold my interest.

Until quite recently I would have said my strength was stitch but I'm revising that dramatically.  I'm comfortable with stitch I think as such I fail to be inventive. I'm starting to think my best work is in things that are new to me; where I have no history of right or wrong.  Whilst my project may well contain stitches I no longer think they will be the focus of my project.

A week or two ago I went to a talk by Ingrid Karlsson-Kemp at North Notts Creative Textile Group.  She showed how her work had developed over a period of 10 years and told us that it was always informed by her history.  One series of work that impressed me (I can't remember what it was called) used fabric from the attics of elderly relatives who had died.  Every piece had a significant memory. 

Ingrid used little doors to hide things behind and this is something I feel I could develop in the work I want to do.  The idea of a door has developed in my mind to become a book cover - on opening the book an array of recycled surprises awaits.  

This fake book came to me containing a gift at Christmas.  I think I'd like to try to make something similar using recycled textiles rather than cardboard.  I need to run this past my tutor.

There are one or two things that I'd really like to do

a) use recycled materials

b) make something interesting

c) incorporate several techniques 

d) be inventive and prepared to take a risk 

Combined with the work I've just done these things are starting to show me a path I'd like to investigate further.

I need to make some sketches but I don't want to jump the gun regarding Stage 2 and I've still to review Part 4.  There's lots of playing to be done.

Addendum

My tutor suggests that rather than the idea informing the technique I'm letting technique lead the way here and she's right.  Back to some serious thinking.

ingrid-karlsson-kemp.co.uk