Material Girl: Project 2 Stage 3 A Sample

For this task I've returned again to the work I did lifting marks out of a pencil background and it turned into quite an epic. This is the part I selected.

The finished piece

I chose it because it looked very varied and I could see that it offered me lots of scope to try out new things. The words I came up with when I looked at my selected piece were stark, dynamic, fast, clear, separate and busy. I like the idea of just two or three contrasting colours. My favourite parts of the image were the rushing marks at the bottom and the small teardrop shape and I thought I could focus on those things and leave other less interesting bits out.

I should have taken more notice of the manual instruction to choose my materials carefully because my first attempt was really bad judgement. My original pencil marks were of course grey but I hadn't any grey fabric that suited my purpose so I selected a cream that I considered to be "just neutral". I hadn't got far before I realised what a mistake I 'd made and I abandoned it

Although I didn't like the background I liked the "rushing" fly stitch very much and the thick wool I used looked really good. Hey ho.

I had another search around and found an old grey tee shirt in my recycle box and it was just the right colour. Unfortunately I didn't realise just how much the fabric would stretch. I put it in my hoop and tightened it as usual but every time I touched it it got bigger and baggier. This made the stitching very difficult to do with lots of baggy stitches. I was so concerned for the eventual outcome that I took a photo whilst the work was still mounted in the hoop and a very relived one when it came out.

Nothing an iron couldn't sort out

I looked at what had been successful in the last exercise and by and large it was the simpler stitches that caught my attention because they are so versatile. I liked the reverse back stitch and it was part of the reason I chose to increase the size of the teardrop so I could incorporate it in this design. I was mindful that I shouldn't just try to copy so I really tried to focus on the feeling of each component and the way the colours enhanced each other. I saw the chequered chain stitch in a book and thought it provided the smooth transisition of red and black that I wanted. I'm quite pleased with it but next time I'll not use stranded thread as it was hard to manage.

I particularly like the fly stitch but it was quite different to my earlier aborted attempt. Thick thread looked awful and didn't give the quick feeling that I was striving for at all. I ended up using just a single strand of thread.

Because I left some details out (I was afraid of clutter) the piece lost a lot of it's busyness and it makes me think I should have concentrated more on what I was to leave out and try to anticipate the effect. I chose the bits that were my favourites and I now see they are the less dynamic elements.

I have come across unexpected problems like the stretchy material and bad choices in this work. Like all problems they have produced some learning Whilst I liked the original idea the final effect isn't what I imagined and I don't really like it that much.