Project 2 - Stage 1

Project 2 - Stage 1

Stitches! The theme of the project will be to translate our marks into stitches. We got the task to raid our material first and sort it into colour themed bags - red, blue and greens, white, earth colours, yellows and orange, white, black. I have loads of material and everything is in a special order so I skipped this task for now. I just can't afford the time to rearrange my work place and can't afford to occupy even more space in the study without risking a major row with my dear ones. Anyway, I started with stitches with the sewing machine. To be honest, even that was a decision I made with my tight time schedule in mind. But I got carried away and made some nice little embroideries or drawings on fabric or doodles. I used a few decorative stitches from my machine but love the normal stitch the most.

The yellow shape is said normal stitch. I need to find out hoe it will be to do loads of rows beside each other, maybe altering the colour or change direction ever so slightly. Exciting!

The red shape is free machine embroidery with the special foot and no transport. You can see how the fabric is puckering which is nicest effect. I didn't use a loop but my hands so the fabric was not that tight. I really like the pulling of fabric and the texture I achieved (unexpectedly!).

Project 1 - Stage 4

This is the last part of project 1 and will be finished with this evaluation of my progress so far. There is a set of questions I had to contemplate - my achievements, about the work and the medias used, about new skills, about fears, questions that rose and things that I discovered or want to develop more.

Project 1 - Stage 4

Still finding different ways to express textures...

Inspiring Photos - Contrasts

Inspiring Photos - Colours

Project 1 - Stage 4

For this stage I have to work from my sketchbooks and works up till now. I chose a few of them and did some exercise of the texture of my work.

Inspiring Photos - Textures

Project 1 - Stage 2 - Exercise 1 and 2

The task was to create surface texture with marks. First of all choose an image, then apply a viewing frame 8cm by 8cm and choose an area of the image. I chose a painting of Friedensreich Hundertwasser and tried to re-create the texture with different medias like wax crayons and blocks and lead pencils. I looked at the picture and concentrated on different aspects: left top was colour distribution, below left the dark light contribution, top right the texture on a first sight like direction and strength, right below the overall colour scheme.

Then we have been asked to look around and find interesting textures and sketch them down. No lingering! You see a glass lamp, basketry in two pictures and the regular pattern of our radiators.

Project 1 - Stage 2 - Exercise 4

The last one for this stage. I played around with my materials again. I used the plant colours again, but added cornstarch to thicken it. That looked nice, but once it dried it started peeling off. Then underneath was a surprise - unexpected new colours! I did some wax resist, blowing the paint with a straw, made soap bubbles and used salt to create interesting surfaces.

Thoughts

The sample of Project 1 will be done with embroidery. I have a fairly good idea what exercise from my work I want to do and it's with machine embroidery. Though today I did some more research and came across a fantastic textile art webpage - one of the best resources I have seen so far. I would like to incorporate some couching and some hand embroidery. Just fabulous what's possible, even more now that I have a proper reason to play with my materials. Ha!

Project 1 - Stage 2 - Exercise 4

The mentioned book about flowers in water colours on one side and some beloved company on the other I attempted to do some painting exercises. Now I really love flowers and I make them out of textiles but not really so much in paintings. The six images on the left are done with water colours, the ones on the right with acrylic colours. This was my least favourite exercise by far. Still I think I learned a lot. You need to have a good eye for form and colour nuances to bring flowers to life. The water colours are better to work with as you can layer them to bring depths and natural shades. It was difficult not to make it too symmetric for example. So is was hard work but worth it.

Thoughts

At the end of the course there will be a theme book I have to create and I'm already collecting ideas and inspirations. For example two weeks ago I was driving down to Edinburgh and it was quite a nice day with blue sky and sunshine. On this long drive and during a traffic jam just before the Forth Road Bridge allowed me to admire all kind of clouds and cloud formations. So 'clouds' ended up in my notes amongst others.

Book Review

I bought the book that's mostly recommended in the course materials - 'The New Textiles' by Chloe Colchester.

This book is firstly printed 1991 and then re-printed a few times. I think some of the textile art appears a bit outdated though. Nevertheless quite amazing pictures. I wish they would describe how they made some of the effects. This book is more about art history and the artists. I do believe that it will come in handy when I'm further with course if alone to use it as source of inspiration.

Thoughts

I went to the library to get a scoop of craft books. Unfortunately there wasn't much. I will need to go to the main library in town then. I have seen on their catalogue that they have loads of what I could need. Anyway, I brought back one book about painting flowers with water colours and decided to do one A3 sheet with flowers only.

Project 1 - Stage 2 - Exercise 4

Thoughts

I really like this exercises. Playing with paints and all the materials is very fun. I feel like I could go on and on. I can really imagine using this later as inspirations for textile samples. Exciting!

Project 1 - Stage 2 - Exercise 3 and 4

Exercise 3 and 4 - continues from the last post. I played with all materials that came to my mind: Plant colours, wax crayons, water paintable wax crayon, ink, water colours, soft pastels, oil pastels, handmade paper, tissue paper, glue, thread, felting wool, felted wool, acrylic paint.

I tried different techniques: painting, printing, sponging, finger painting, ink writing, rubbing, scratching, splashing, rub throughs, resist, collages with materials, printing with tissue paper, bubble wrap, cling foil, colour blowing, coloured soap bubbles... and still going on!

Project 1 - Stage 2 - Exercise 3 and 4

Exercise 3 and 4 - continues from the last post. I played with all materials that came to my mind: Plant colours, wax crayons, water paintable wax crayon, ink, water colours, soft pastels, oil pastels, handmade paper, tissue paper, glue, thread, felting wool, felted wool, acrylic paint.

I tried different techniques: painting, printing, sponging, finger painting, ink writing, rubbing, scratching, splashing, rub throughs, resist, feathers, stencils, collages with materials, printing with tissue paper, bubble wrap, cling foil, colour blowing, coloured soap bubbles... and still going on!

Project 1 - Stage 2 - Exercise 2 and 3

Exercise 2 was about light - dark drawings. Again I used the stencil and different pencils.

Exercise 3 is a big one. It's a repetition of the first one but this time we can use every material we like: all kinds of pens, colours, crayons, sponges, etc and all kinds of paper. That should be very exciting. I started with colour crayons.

Thoughts

I'm still not much further with my decisions what kind of learning documentation to choose, really! So far I document as much as I think is appropriate here, then I collect my exercises in a dedicated sketchbook, I write a personal diary with thoughts and scribbles, I will make big scale sketches on A3 paper, I will probably have another sketchbook for daily use and ...? It's seems so much and different kinds that I fear to loose a cohesive way of work. Then again as we have to send our work away I quite fancy the idea of not mixing course work and all my other work.

I really need someone taking my hand for some first steps.