Back to drawing

It is lovely to be back at the Mary Ward Centre to draw with the inspirational Abigail Downer.  The first exercise is to consider two objects, a natural one and a manmade one, as “actors” in a composition.  My objects are a vase and a gourd, 

Many exercises later, I have a drawing of the vase,  a little lopsided, but a good start.

While studying the structures together, I was struck how overlapping multiple images of the vase mimicked the folds and rolls of the gourd.  That is what I am exploring next,

Corny

This year’s journal challenge has become a chore rather than a pleasure. I think this is because apart forth consistent size, I have not set myself a theme, but have just made any old thing that chimes with larger projects I have on the go.  A lesson to pay attention to I think for next year, if I take part.

September, corny

Inspired by a drawing of a corn cob.  Hand dyed cloth, highlighted with bronze fabric paint, appliqué, embroidery, machine quilting.  A bit squat for a corn cob, but with a squinted eye, could be interpreted as such.

Grids and trapunto

I've been exploring grids in combination with the trapunto technique.  My first attempt was a wonky grid with no trapunto - made in error by trying to follow this tutorial, but quite a useful sample to make, as it seemed to be very difficult to match up the corners of each wonky square in the grid.

The second attempt was much more successful, as I had the tutorial on screen as I cut and stitched, and I now need to work on making longer strips.  The setting-in of a sleeve at the pattern cutting weekend certainly helped with stitchings these curves.

I was experimenting with taking the grid in to the background and emphasising it with corded trapunto and blocks of quilting, this worked well.  

Not working so well at the top, was extending the grid lines  with quilting - not sure what to do after the point where the lines meet.   It doesn't help that I quilted one of the lines completely off where it needs to be.

The trapunto under the checkerboard strip shows up really well on this sample.

 

 

Design course at Morley continues

I was super inspired at this week's Morley session.

I was not even meant to be there, as I was booked to attend a conference in London.  Luckily enough, I had my suspicions that the organisation looked a bit on the unprofessional side, and I was proved right.    Supposedly for a start at 0900h, with over 50 delegates, at 0930h there were 10 rather bemused individuals wandering around looking lost, and no sign of the organisers.  I had packed my inspirational material for Morley in my bag, just in case, so I went straight over to Morley, even although I was dressed in full corporate garb rather than in my scruffy studio clothes.

My design inspiration is coming down to two areas I think: Paul Nash paintings and broken trees; sails and the America's cup.  Sails I have explored before, so I've returned to some of those shapes.  The broken tree shapes are also in my local parks as many horse chestnuts succumb to infection, and are pruned in an attempt to save them. 

Sails, cut from one piece of A4 paper, my favourite medium, with all smaller shapes cut from within the larger shape ( vaguely based on the principles of Notan)

Change of scale of some elements

Repetition

Torn paper tree

Colour inversion and repetition

Looking a bit like this well known quilt theme by Helen Howes

 

The printing part of the course starts next week,  but I will be in Dublin - at another conference.

Designing, more in my comfort zone with paper cutting

Back to Morley this week,  and we are continuing to generate potential print imagery, using a variety of design methods.  This week, instead of a pencil, we had scalpels in hand, so I was fully in my comfort zone.  Overlaying different tones of papers to get  design, the outcomes are shown below.

Just short of A4 size

Based on this photograph of bicycle handlebars,

the design below.  I wasn't happy with this, so am going to change it later.

We also tried cyanotype printing, but my result was too blurry to mention, but it did start with a flash of colour from some incredible abutilons in the Morley garden.  This post is too monochrome, so here they are.

Ledger, loving it, but I'm still on week one

I am absolutely loving this online course, but I am still fixated on the shapes generated during week one. I am applying some of the other techniques we are learning, but by now, I am supposed to she another design source, and a study of lace, with its derivatives. Still, Karen is a generous tutor, and is happy for us to develop our skills as we wish or need, and not to rigidly follow her curriculum. The week's explorations follow.


Overlay page and its inverse. The inverse is a photocopy, as I am using the inverse fabric piece for another ongoing project.


Shibori, indigo dyed polyester acetate, attached using Bondaweb, due to the narrowness of the stems / arms/ branches/ tentacles. FME, with rayon thread, using different patterns of stitching.


This was the page I really didn't like , so I've covered it up with an overlay, but still kept it so it can be seen.


The orange piece is screen printed paper, reinforced with lightweight Vilene, and machine stitched with wool thread. The marking on the magenta page was seeing if I could continue the "quilting" lines on to the overlay.


Top sheet is painted paper backed with very soft Vilene, with embroidered inserts. This overlays an inserted panel of the same paper, ( also reinforced with Vilene) . The background paper is coloured with Inktense blocks, and stamped with lettering from an acrylic blocks set found in a charity shop - some letters missing, so I had to improvise. The paper shapes are the left-overs from cutting the paper stencils for the screen-printing. I like their floppy characteristics, so I stitched them together and included them in the ledger.


Mounted with a piece of paper from an old music book, and lots of ideas spinning in my head from the two stitches added to the music.


Underneath - stitched paper, inserted in to the background paper.

Papercuts, moving ahead

No printing this week, but lots of planning, for my new photoscreen and for a design for a piece of cloth on the theme of the Olympics. The cut shapes have developed, and today was time to work on layout ( approximately A3 size). The advantages of the mobile phone are very apparent at this stage, as it is possible to quickly rearrange elements in a composition and then record them in a photograph.


Tiered, linear array


Tiered, linear array with inversions


Linear array, offset elements


Diagonal array


Random array


In the end, with the help of the saintly Marian, I've gone with none of these, but with a cluster or elements and some straying pieces, in the hope that this will give me more variety in the use of the screen. The phone ran out of battery, so pics of that will need to wait.

Also today a return to the Olympics project. I have been so unenthusiastic about this, I've really struggled to get to an image. Eventually I've gone with sailing because: I have sailed myself; sails are very graphic and come in lots of shapes, sizes and colours; Britain has a great Olympics sailing team. Again working with cut up paper, tissue this time, overlapping. Inspiration came from lots of images of sails, and playing about with overlaying colours of the tissue. This starting model is about 60 cm long.



I hope to match these colours using the dye recipes from the workshop last weekend and to exploit the transparency of the Procion P dyes.

Celebrating Diversity

A challenge from the Contemporary Quilt Group to make a 20cm square piece celebrating the diversity of Britain.



This piece has turned out to be more interesting than I thought it would, mostly due to my inability to cope with the “back-to frontness” of using Bondaweb.

Biscuit cutter silhouette of the British Isles, with scraps of different fabrics that are, or were, made in Britain: tartan, wool, linen, cotton, silk, lace and hand embroidery. Arashi-shibori dyed cotton background, indicating an increasingly stormy sea and the ropes that lash ships to the shore. Machine quilting of the names of textiles of importance to Britain. Backed with a fabric showing old suitcase labels.

The white cliffs at the bottom, looking rather tattered, indicating erosion and change. Fortuitously, as it turned out, Britain has ended up facing in the “wrong” direction, leading to wondering if we will maintain our diversity by facing away from our neighbours in Europe, or if we will start to become more homogenous due to continued influence from the USA.

Design briefs – feels more like twisted knickers

I have two current design briefs, one for the Morley course and one for my local quilting group.  They are respectively, “The Olympics” and “ My local area”.  As I was unsuccessful in the bid for any Olympics tickets, and the only immediate impact on our family I see is total traffic chaos on the days of the cycling events, I’m not wildly enthusiastic about this topic.

I’m considering the architecture of the Olympics, as each one seems to bring a surge of new building.  I wish this design, Ron Arad,  was being implemented for London.

More inspirational is “ my local area” and I’m veering between The Sackler Crossing at Kew Gardens, by John Pawson ( lots of inspiration in these sinuous curves)

and the madness   of The Great River Race, an annual rowed race on the Thames that for the past few years has finished in Twickenham.

Phrenalico

Another head, this time stitched on calico, with the heavy wool thread for the outline and features and then the words and dividing lines in a lovely variegated brown/ orange thread. I did some false trapunto under the head and left the rest of the front of the cushion as plain calico.

The wool on the back left a ridge at the seam allowance that looked unsightly, so I stitched around the inner edge of this to give a better finish. Another "design solution" to an unexpected problem.