These fabrics have been lying loved but unused for too long, so I decided to use them in some improvised, curved piecing exercises, trying to be logical in my order of cuts. Each unit ended up being cut to 5 x 9 inches.
Interesting to look at the blocks in black and white to see that the red reads as a medium/dark value.
I am so glad I got my energy back to finish this challenge. The successful parts of this for me have been learning how to colour cloth with watercolour pencils, testing out various types of bonding materials, and actually following through on a theme. Next year's challenge is due to be announced soon, so I hope it will be one that I can learn from.
Merry Christmas all.
….not a creature was getting on with her Christmas wrapping as she was intrigued by a method for making thread-painted trees, as shown here. This was a surprisingly straightforward technique. In process,
Cut away from the hoop
Stitched in dark thread
Mounted for a thank you to be give later today.
I'm racing to a finish on the contemporary quilt group challenge now, having lost momentum in September. A real benefit of doing the design course at Morley is learning to resist the urge to plunge straight in to the mounds of fabric, and start designing at the sewing machine but instead to get some initial ideas sketched out on paper, or ideally of course in a sketchbook. For once therefore, I can show the sketchbook and the stitched journal piece.
Raw edge applique, bonded applique, machine quilting, couched edge. This was my first experience of using Heat 'n' Bond which gave a much finer finish than Bondaweb.
Very close to home. I have lived in the same street for 20 years. My children went to the school at the bottom of the road, my neighbours are great and it will take a lot to make me move. Our door is the only one with stained glass, designed by my sister's partner and installed by one of our neighbours.
This is straighter than it looks, but it was tricky to get a photo without a shadow. Critiquinq this now, I think the 'doors" should have been longer and the "road" down the middle narrower. Thank goodness it is only 8 x 12 inches.
I was going to quilt in several of the requests that have come up during those 20 years, such as “ Can you sew my pantomime cow costume?” and “ Can you check my hair for nits” and “ Do you have a pie plate? ” but decided the space available didn't do them justice.
I really admire paper cutting, as is evident from this blog. During my tour around Europe, and I was lucky enough to have my silhouette cut by the very talented Charles Burns. In less than 2 minutes, a very realistic image.
No Morley today, so a chance to catch up on a few exhibitions that have been on the "must see" list for a while. First up, "Threaded Stories" at the Stephen Friedman Gallery.
Painstakingly overpainted woven cloth - the camera focussed on the paint and not the cloth, hence the blurring. Each of those dots is an individual dot of paint and the piece is about 100cm x 130cm.
This exhibition did nothing for me I'm afraid and having listened to Grayson Perry's lectures about not having to like it all, I'm happy to declare that here.
Next a swing in to the galleries on Cork Street. Lovely paving outside Browse and Darby
and a wonderful mixed display inside of 19th and 20th century art. If money was no object, I could have spent a lot in there, particularly on the painting of Euphemia Lamb by Augustus John
Then on to The Redfern Gallery to see the superb series " The Thames Revisited" by Kurt Jackson. I love the fact that his work done in the open air can includes bits of dust and feather that happen to land while he is painting. Several of his paintings are like musings from his sketchbook, with descriptions of the sounds and smells added as annotations on the work. He also doesn't ignore the more gritty, urbanised bits of the Thames, and there is a striking study of the M25 crossing the river. Really worth seeing and on until 23rd January. (There is a very good write-up about his published sketchbooks here.)
Next, to the Bernard Jacobson Gallery to see an exhibition by William Tillyer, " The Watering Place" that seems to have been extended. These are really fascinating pieces of art, but I'm not sure whether they are paintings or mixed media pieces, as the paint is applied to a mesh in various layers, the mesh is then mounted to the canvas, and on occasions, more paint is applied from the front. Very interesting textures that cannot be conveyed in a photo, although there are some good images here that can be zoomed into. The colours were wonderful on a grey day.
From colour to a lot of monotone, at the Herbert Zangs exhibition at the Mayor Gallery. The cloth works here were a lot more interesting to me than those at the Friedman Gallery.
Up to the Royal Academy and some thought provoking bronze and marble sculpture by Kevin Francis Gray. I loved these sculptures, and enjoyed seeing that he works in bronze and in marble. The heads are on an enormous scale, while the figures are life-sized.
Natural sculpture on the tables of the Royal Academy cafe.
Lots of amazing decorations around in London, with snow globes a bit of a theme. The amount of snow in the ones at the bottom depends on the power being expended on the bicycles around them.
Three more squeezed in, Andrew Stock at the Mall Galleries and then at Somerset House, Stanley Spencer and Julian Stair, but they are for another post. Whew!
The tree theme continues this week, experimenting with using print pastes on a polystyrene print block, rolling, painting and applying with a foam brush. My polystyrene sheet wasn't long enough, so I had to split my tree. Paper seems so much more straightforward than cloth. Where is this going - still not sure,but plenty to ponder over the Xmas break from the course.
