Wednesday 6 April 2016

Diploma Module 1 Chapter 2 – Use of Sketchbook...yes, still visiting

This section resulted from what had appealed to me so far: neutral palette; non-symmetry; ripped and cut edges; layers; extended shape.  Using these I prepared a background (Image 156) just less than A4 size, made up of papers - gelli printed brown paper, gelli printed Anthropologie tissue, tea bag paper, mono-printed photocopy paper - all both ripped and cut and backed with iron-on vilene.


Rather than stitch straight in to this background, I scanned it and then made marks on the scans using Stabilo CarbOthello colours and came up with the following ideas for stitching:


Image 158 has blue gulls and stitching added.





Image 162 has a small amount of blue stitching added.



Image 164 was my last sample and my favourite.  The influence in most of these trials has been Boro textiles, the running/darning stitch marks both to apply additional parts to the design and as marks in their own right.  This one is the most pleasing to me.  Had I gone straight to stitch I doubt this would have been the result.


Image 165 - The stitched piece using the prepared background based on Image 164.  The white thread is flower thread and the blue is one strand of stranded cotton.  I used a sashiko needle for the first time and this coped with stitching through paper far better than any needle I had used previously, quite a revelation.  Once completed I gave the whole piece a coating of acrylic wax as I wanted to make the surface of the piece shine as though the cloth had been beaten in the traditional way (and yes, I did sneak downstairs in the middle of the night to see if I had achieved the desired outcome).
Note how the wax has given the teabags another dimension as it has made them translucent and picked up some of the colour underneath, not something that happened with the brown paper.  A similar result has been obtained using tissue paper previously.


Image 166 - we have no secrets: the back!


Image 167 - I seemed to be on a roll so I kept going...using the other half of the gelli printed brown paper similar papers were added, this time including the negative space from the previous cutouts. Once again the final image was waxed. I never cease to be amazed how this really brings out the colours.


Image 168 - the back.


Image 169 - the background was small pieces of blue paper ripped from the Autumn/Winter 2014 John Lewis Home Catalogue (now I can justify keeping it all this time).  The gulls were cut from a paper printout of a piece of indigo dyed fabric I made earlier. Everything was held in place by ironing on to light weight vilene.  Using a small piece of sponge I gave the surface a light coating of very dilute white acrylic and then covered it with heavy stitching in the style of kantha.  This image is before waxing.


Image 170 - above after covering with acrylic wax.


Image 171 - the back.  Note how you can see what was on the reverse  of the page.


Image 175 - I made a sheet of A4 paper in the Boro style and gave it a coat of Mod Podge to hold it all together. This I copied on an inkjet printer.


Image 176 - Taking half the copy from Image 175, I ripped the edges, ripped a large gull shape from the centre which was placed top right. I painted all the ripped edges with dilute brown ink.  Gelli printed paper was placed behind the gull-shaped hole and a small cut gull was added to the bottom right. Influenced by Peter Lanyon's 'Thermal', this was then dry sponged with acrylic paint (white, Payne's Grey and Ultramarine Blue) to give a sense of movement. Finally it was stitched and, to make the colours richer, given a coat of acrylic wax.


Image 177 - Just one more on this theme (as long as I can restrain myself as I love doing these) - took the idea to a fabric sample using scraps - and stitched a mini fabric boro.