In the Garden

I spent time in the garden looking at the fruit developing on the medlar tree.  We've never had fruit on it before and it has quite a reputation for being an acquired taste!

I feel I need to practice my watercolours more so that is what I did.

Medlar flower starting to fade

Brown tinged petals

Fruit starting to form

A multitude of medlars

As the fruit forms I'll be adding to this little grouping.  I'll never be a botanical artist but I quite like these and it's given me a bit more experience.

Project 7 Collograph workshop

From not knowing anything about collography to doing a workshop took exactly a week.  Wikipedia has a comprehensive description of the process:

Collagraphy (sometimes spelled collography) is a printmaking process in which materials are applied to a rigid substrate (such as paperboard or wood). The word is derived from the Greek word koll or kolla, meaning glue and graph, meaning the activity of drawing.
The plate can be intaglio-inked, inked with a roller or paintbrush, or some combination thereof. Ink or pigment is applied to the resulting collage, and the board is used to print onto paper or another material using either a printing press or various hand tools. The resulting print is termed a collagraph. Substances such as carborundum, acrylic texture mediums, sandpapers, bubble wrap, string, cut card, leaves and grass can all be used in creating the collagraph plate. In some instances, leaves can be used as a source of pigment by rubbing them onto the surface of the plate.
Different tonal effects and vibrant colours can be achieved with the technique due to the depth of relief and differential inking that results from the collagraph plate's highly textured surface. Collagraphy is a very open printmaking method. Ink may be applied to the upper surfaces of the plate with a brayer for a relief print, or ink may be applied to the entire board and then removed from the upper surfaces but remain in the spaces between objects, resulting in an intaglio print. A combination of both intaglio and relief methods may also be employed. A printing press may or may not be used.

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/collagraphy

I did the workshop with Carol Eason at the Bean Coffee Shop and Gallery in Bolsover.  The following photos chart the day.

The start of Carol's demo plate

Further progress

I used the image of the melon from my theme book as a basis for the shapes.

Layers of texture

I got layers by cutting and taking away the top layer of the card (the brighter white).  I put snippets of lace, shredded credit card pieces and spots of PVA on.  When the spots had dried I covered it all in PVA the consistency of single cream and when that was dry did the same on the back and sides.

Inked up

I inked up with a violet and an orange ink.  I put the ink on with my gloved finger. The shapes I had made were really hard to work with and there was a mix of the colours which I was assured was OK.
After the ink is applied it takes some time to wipe off the excess.  This is done with newspaper first and then finally tissue paper.

On the press

Carol was kind enough to let me use some lovely paper.  The paper needs to be soaked prior to printing so the shapes sink into it.  I placed the plate on the press with no real idea of what to expect. 

Surprise, surprise
coming of the press

Carol was delighted with the result but for me it's a bit messy (as is the whole inking up process).  Some of the detail is lost and I think it would have been better to stick with one color.  There is a real need to touch this print as it is very tactile but 36 hours on it is still wet in places.

The  completed print

The lace is on the left

The credit card marks

The plate after printing

The last picture shows the plate after printing.  In the centre the PVA coating has broken down and needs to be repaired before another print is taken.

I had to leave the workshop early and I felt a good deal of pressure from this.  If I can get hold of a small quantity of ink I'll try printing from the plate again because several can be taken from one plate providing it is cleaned straight after printing.

Project 7 Fruit skin

Hitting the wall

For the first time I've really hit a wall with my work.  I've found myself stuck and thinking I'm going backwards.  In my last report my tutor suggested I choose a line of enquiry to pursue and I've found myself devoid of ideas.

In an effort to kick start myself I've been looking at the natural wrapping of fruit; the skin.  It's interesting that we take the strangeness and beauty so much for granted.  Fruit skin is so everyday and often discarded and we take little notice of it.  I'm looking.

Watermelon

Watermelon

Whole watermelon

I played with the whole watermelon on the computer by changing colours.  The dark shape is reflection. 

I've got used to fiddling with images but they are usually my drawings.  I found it quite disconcerting to change a familiar fruit to this very unfamiliar colouring.  So much so that I quickly reversed it.  It just had to have some green.

I enhanced the original quite striking markings with the Paint.net paintbrush but concentrated on the very basic colouring of the fruit; the outside and the inside, hence the pink.  When I changed the tone of the pink using an effect it once again altered how I felt about it.

I much preferred the depth of the previous image so I took a snip and added some seeds.

I wanted to push this on a bit so I selected some fabrics and set to work.

I used calico as a background and bondawebbed some shiny green dupion onto pink poplin and began to machine embroider in a swirly pattern on the green "skin".  I planned to add black seeds made out of felt offcuts.

Then I began to wonder just what I was about.  It felt as though I was just copying the manipulated picture and abandoning all I had learnt over the past few months.  I have put this work to one side in favour of trying something else.  I was sorely tempted to just pretend this hadn't happened but there's lots of thinking to be done about why this should be.  My initial ideas are that I've just not followed the process.

Melon skin

I'm trying another fruit skin image; once again a melon.  I'm going to articulate the process so that I don't miss stages out.

Melon skin

The lines are bumpy, jagged, uneven, broken, organic, raised.

The colours are subdued, hard edged with white, slightly shaded

The texture is rough, matt, broken, ridged.  The green looks very deeply recessed.

I played with the image.

I spent some time doing a collage based on the original picture.  I reversed everything except the colour.  The pale marks on the skin were indented and the green skin was in relief.  The jagged feel changed to soft and sinuous and instead of being disjointed there was lots of interconnected lines.  Rather than being matt it is shiny.  And it hasn't photographed very well at all.

It's not frog spawn!

Stuffed bubbles, exposed holes and embroidery

I used bubble wrap which I stuffed, flattened, slashed and stitched on.  This is a technique I've used before but I developed it a bit more this time.  The end result bears no resemblance to the image.  How effective is it?  It's got plenty of texture and interest and the colours are good.   Remarkably some of the bubbles remained unpopped but I think there are rather too many of them without embellishment.  Compared to the work I ditched this morning at least I can live with it.  I hope it's helped me through what has been a bad patch.

Dents effect

I played on the computer again.
I used an effect I've used successfully before called dents.
This didn't do anything for me at all.  The image lost all of its lovely definition.  I'll be leaving this alone.

The next one is an ink sketch effect and this heightened the definition.

I superimposed a facility called "curves" which introduces colour.  I'm unsure of the science but all things seem possible! The beauty of this adjustment is that I can play about to my hearts content in relatively little time.  Just as with the watermelon colour changes the whole feel of the image and I think it looks like a view from space.  It looks like a machine embroidery project might be in order.  

These are both recognisably the melon skin but I like the change.  It makes me think that my unwillingness to accept the "foreign" colour in the watermelon was because the image was still a water melon.

Still using the melon skin image I imposed a "tile effect" and this one made the image unrecognisable. It used the ridges but placed them in the centre of a tile grid.  No two shapes are the same.  

I used "curve" again to alter the colours.  What I now have looks like plastic bags. 

 I tried to make similar shapes with heat gunned bags but it wasn't particularly successful.

I took a snip.....

 ....  then outlined the shapes in a contrasting colour.

Another colourway

This suggests lots of techniques.  Some, like printing, would give a repeat pattern if the shapes were standardised somewhat.  I can see weaving or fusing within a mesh as well but I think this is beyond my current skill level.   I feel positive about it the amount I can get out of this.

Pineapple skin

I've looked at lots of images of pineapples and been amazed at how different varieties have very different skin.  This one is comparatively regular although once again no two shapes are the same.  Every cell is six sided but there the similarity ends.  There is a smoothness to the dark green section but lots of tiny indentation towards the centre.  There are no sharp points on this particular fruit.

I wanted to move away from the computer so I got out my water soluble crayons and made a sketch.  I made no attempt to copy the image but simply drew a six sided shape with central texture.

I used small pieces of hairy wool secured with brads in the middle of the cells.  I'm happy with this especially the colours.

Theme book Research project

Fruit in art

I saw this picture in The Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/mar/26/fabrice-hyber-baltic

It's by Fabrice Hyber who has an exhibition at Baltic, Gateshead until 30th June.

The review is somewhat less than complimentary

Standing among it all is a life sized man made of fruit and veg, like an Arcimbolda painting come to life.  I guess the point is that we are what we eat.  The whole thing is tripe, really, as unoriginal as it is indigestible.

Whatever your opinion it made me smile and wonder what other artists used fruit in their work.

I recalled seeing people represented as fruit a long time ago and did a Google search.. The artist I remembered was Guiseppe Arcimboldo 1527 - 1593.  He was born in Milan and his father was an artist who  worked in the Duomo.  He was commissioned to design stained glass windows and draw the cartoon for the tapestry of the Virgin Mary which still hangs in the Como Cathedral.  He is best known for creating portraits heads made of such objects as fruits, vegetables,flowers, fish and books.   

He arranged these objects in such a way that they made a recognisable likeness of the sitter.

Vortumnus (Vertumno)
http://www.giuseppe-arcimboldo.org

The image below has a duel purpose.  It can be viewed one way as a bowl of fruit and reversed to be a portrait.

Vaso reversible
http://www.giuseppe-arcimboldo.org

These are surreal at a time when the surreal artists were years and years away. Whilst he was lauded by his contemporaries Arcimbolda sank from view until Dali took an interest.  Artists such as Shigeo Fukuda have been influenced by Arcimboldo's style.

I'm afraid the work isn't to my taste, in fact I find it quite horrible, but I have to admire the skill involved and the mastery of the double meaning.

Completely different is Carravagio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit (1593).  Carravagio was interested in painting exactly what he saw, warts and all.  Professor Jules Janick of the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture has analysed the contents of the basket and was even able to identify infestations and fungal infections on the fruit.

Carravagio (1593)
Boy with a Basket of Fruit
http://www.famous-artists.net

Carravagios' luscious fruit

Watercolour artist Ann Abgott also uses fruit in her work.  I looked at her work earlier in the course because I liked the way she mingles her colours.

Pear by Ann Abgott

Plums by Ann Abgott

From the textile point of view William Morris is something of a hero of mine.  The whole Arts and Crafts Movement is a style I love and there are times in my life when I've pushed the boat out so that I can have a William Morris print.

The most famous design is probably The Strawberry Thief which was inspired by Morris watching  thrushes stealing his fruit.

Strawberry thief

This design used to be known as Pomegranate but is now Fruit. It was designed in 1864 and shows peaches, oranges, lemons and pomegranates arranged in a tile format.  It was designed as wallpaper but has now been adapted to tapestry and embroidered silk as well.

Fruit

http://www.william-morris.co.uk
www.annabgott.com
www.giuseppe-arcimboldo.org/biography.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_with_a_Basket_of_Fruit

Project 7 Theme book Citrus and circles

Citrus and circles

I've been looking for interesting images of fruit, particularly those that might offer me ideas to develop.  I found this lovely one and it's certainly good enough to eat:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACitrus_fruits.jpg

It suggests all sorts of things; printing, applique, stitch and some of the lovely manipulations in Wolff (1996).

I've taken a series of photos of some dried fruit slices I had as decoration at Christmas.

A funny thing to put into a hurricane lamp maybe but they look pretty

With the wikimedia image in mind I  chose to look particularly at the citrus fruit:

Then I did them separately

There are oranges, lemons, limes and blood oranges here. I suppose we don't often consider how fruit actually looks and I was surprised that these pieces all looked so different.  There's the size issue and the skin colour, with or without pips, the thickness and colour of the pith and on and on. The pith on the second to bottom photo has a real softness.  Some of the fruit has dried to look oily but one or two look quite dessicated. 

Very dry fruit looking feather like

I spent a few minutes doing a pencil and crayon sketch.  This still doesn't feel like my natural territory but I think it looks like a very bitter but juicy piece of fruit.

I have also been playing with the idea of fabric manipulation and trying to find a way to make something circular that emulates the segments of an orange.  I've done a mock up in newspaper to see if it would work.

I'm happy enough with this to take it a bit further. It needs a lot more layers to make it look "juicy".  There's very little room between the stitches as they meet in the middle so I  might try some slashes that go just half way down.

I painted up several layers of newspaper, and found some orange organza, yellow lining and an orange net.  I took my sketch as a pattern t guide my stitching and with vilene as a base I stitched my lines.

The back

Remembering not to slash all the way through (almost) I found it hard to cut into the middle. I ruffled it up a bit.

This looks very effective for something with such humble origins.  The more fabric you can squeeze in the better but the centre really did become very congested and hard to work with.  In my sketchbook it faces the first image of this section and the colours are gratifyingly similar.  It is very powerful.  Only very vaguely does this resemble an orange.

I've used this piece to explore image transfer with Bondaweb.  I approached this with some scepticism.  I found the Bondaweb got a bit snarled up in the printer and left a black mark on the print but by and large I'm delighted.  It gives a diffused, hazy result that will be wonderful to use as the basis for some stitching.  I'm not at all sure what I'll do and I'm in no hurry. I'm so enjoying playing.

Image transfer using Bondaweb

I've been inspired to try my machine now that it's sewing well.  I used this image with some wadding, backing and organza and made this:

I started with yellow because that was the palest colour and infilled some spaces.  I did the same with the darkest colour. The organza was a lovely dusky pink that seemed not to lend any colour but when I tried orange thread it was awful and I had to use a pink.  I'm pleased with this.  I like being able to trace back to see where it came from, see similarities but huge, huge development of an idea.

I seem to have become interested in all things circular and I remembered the Yo yo's in Wolff's book.  I had a go.

They are easy to do

Wolff suggests that these could be joined together and used as edging.  I think with some good fabric choices or skillful dyeing they could be pieces of citrus fruit.


I thought I'd see if I could print using my slices of dried fruit but it didn't work because the shapes didn't reach the paper.  Instead I did some rubbings:

On my sketchbook paper

This one shows a lovely metallic looking relief but I had to be persistent.  It confirmed the difficulty I had when I tried to print.

On printer paper

The printer paper was much easier to get an impression on.  The image was crisper but I didn't get the relief.

I'm going to take this image and practise my free machine stitches on water soluble fabric.

I printed the rubbing on A5 paper and drew the shape on the fabric which I mounted in a hoop.

Orange

or grapefruit?

This gave me lots of practise making textures. I was conscious of mark making whilst I was stitching. It actually felt like drawing at times.  I used different colours in the bobbin so the back looks more like a grapefruit than an orange.  In the centre the plastic gave way so I just put in a patch and it seemed to work.  There is a bit of instability on the rind at the edge where my stitches don't quite connect.  I am feeling much more confident as I practise - albeit with a temperamental machine.  I enjoyed doing this and am pleased with the result.

Image from my sketchbook

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Citrus_fruits.jpg
Wolff, C. 1996, The Art of Manipulating Fabric. Krause Publications, Iola, Wisconsin