Debbie Lyddon Workshop

I was fortunate to be able to attend a Waxed and Stitched Collage workshop given by Debbie Lyddon at InStitches. My work on the two days was based on one of my Summer School 2016 designs (see blog posted 24th July 2016).

Starting with a base of three colours (Image 202) we painted papers and fabrics and produced three collages - one paper (Image 203), one paper and fabric (Images 204 and 205) and one fabric (Image 206).  These were machine and hand stitched and waxed using paraffin wax.

Bearing in mind my research theme is 'gulls, with an emphasis on shadows' I was particularly please with the result of the fabric and paper collage (Images 204 and 205).

P.S. Yes, I'm still twining 'pods'.  Regard this as an early Easter Egg - one you don't have to search a DVD for!

Diploma Module 1 Chapter 5 - Colour Study continued

This section contains further work from my sketchbook related to a range of coloured papers.  As many of the pages in my sketchbook could be expanded to produce interesting papers for design exercises I have only worked on a few additional ideas for papers here, some of which expand the use of textured plates made for earlier sketchbook pages.

Images 194 and 195 are papers washed with blue black Quink ink and then discharged with thin bleach using variously a cocktail stick, cotton wool bud. Text from Joni Mitchell's Song to a Seagull and an appropriate quote from Debbie Lyddon's blog were also added.

Images 196 and 197 show various papers.

Images 198 - 201 are pockets from my sketchbook made to hold rubbings taken from stitch samples. The texture was created using emulsion applied thickly to give texture and then rubbed with metallic rub-ons from Art Van Go.  I was rather aggressive in my rubbing and managed to remove a few layers of skin from my finger - Health and Safety warning!  It did produce a sense of movement on the page though.

A Little Diversion

Since the Summer School the minutiae of everyday life seems to have been getting in the way of progress on my Diploma so this section contains some of my recent course related work - just to show there has been some thought and work going on in the background...in fact, as you can't go far without seeing a gull, I find myself constantly thinking about them.

When my Foundation/Taster coursework was displayed at the Summer School I realised how blocky and disproportionate I found my second resolved sample, Foundation Module Image 70,

so I took it apart and reworked it as three pieces, each containing one of the pieces of paper yarn weaving and adding dense kantha stitching.  The result is more pleasing in many ways, primarily that you take one apart and get three better ones! (Foundation Images 75 -77, each approx. 23cmWx43cmH).

At the end of July after attending an inspirational talk on Fabulous Surfaces by Lynda Monk I returned home to find a space had become available that weekend (due to illness) on her two day Fabulous Surfaces workshop at the Craft Arena. Deciding it must be meant, I booked.  Three of the techniques sampled during the weekend used design work from my Diploma.

Diploma Image 56 - both positive an negative images from the design - used to make a sketchbook cover.

Images 187 and 188 - sketchbook covers in progress.  Procion dyed pelmet vilene, dressmaking pattern tissue paper (Vogue works best) and heat transfer foil. 29.5cmWx21cmH.

Image 189 shows a piece which is a development of Image 177 using heated Tyvek pieces on duck cotton canvas machine quilted on a base of thick blanket.  Gull patches, hand-stitching and needle weaving have also been applied.

This was then coated with gesso (Image 190),

and painted with Koh-i-Noor dyes (Image 191).

Big mistake, so I gave it a coat of household emulsion to hide the error of my ways and then carefully rubbed it with an Deep Indigo 1100 Inktense Pencil.  The mistakes are coming thick and fast, as in hindsight I should have used a Markal Paintstik as, so far, after trying many products I have been unable to make the Inktense pencil permanent.  Once Inktense has been wet and then dried again it is permanent but if I wet this piece it will spoil the look of it as I love texture the dry Inktense is giving me and the marks it is making on the surface.  Each time I touch it I get blue fingers...so I'm trying not to touch it.

Returning to Image 51 which used distressed muslin, another technique bonded muslin on to Tyvek which provides textural distorted muslin.  This was applied to a background as described for Image 189, plus gesso, and gives wonderful surface texture. Image 193 shows the surface of the piece.