Layers upon layers everywhere I look

Whilst an awareness of developing an idea for a theme later on in this course plays, dances in the background, certain things are becoming apparent to me. The things I am attracted too. The ‘themes’ that keep presenting themselves to me. I sometimes look for, feel drawn too or I fall into time and time again throughout my work.

In every way I can think of ‘layers’ are there. Emotional, physical, sensory and socially. The act of ‘peeling away’ the layers to find that what is hidden beneath. Is this course not a peeling away and a building up of layers to find the creativity, ideas and ways of working?

The change of the seasons has always fascinated me. The drama of winter yet for me the subtleties of spring and autumn that takes us to that drama. The sensory overload through the seasons. Even someone not to overcome with nature can find sensory connections to a season.

The seasons extend through other areas of life. Through age, work, marriage and relationships. We attach the ‘autumn of ‘ and ‘spring chicken’ to imply an age, a stage and we all appreciate the analogy. We are gardeners of life.

So for me a feel ‘themes’ are finding or have found me. It is for me to put them together personally, individualistically, creatively. I feel a real connection with this idea creatively but also personally. Life guides us, influences us but ultimately we can choose which bits have a greater impact. We also get to choose how we respond to it’s influence.

Project Three Stage Three Recording Colours accurately Exercise Four

I choose a few items to work with a lemon, Lime and 3 stones and some golden yellow background paper.

chosen items

I decided to concentrate on the stones as only 2-3 objects were required and felt they would push me further with this exercise.

3 colourful stones

I was expecting tonal values to change in the shadows and approached the colours confidently but was surprised to what degree they were affected. They were also paler than I anticipated, more subtle.  There were many colours in the items themselves despite seeming on first glance a red/black, a blue/green and a black/white stone. There were all the tones in between too on closer inspection and found myself engrossed for over an hour. The shadows were the most enlightening very often not representing the background colour of golden yellow at all, more lilac-pale violet and blue green!

recording colours from 3 dimensional objects

It felt strange to not be creating an object and I still wonder if I have approached this accurately. I believe only brush strokes were needed. It did make a primitive piece of ‘art’ in its own right which also had its lesson to teach me. Analogies work as a progression of an idea albeit based on the colour, texture, patterns or a combination of some or all. It really started to loosen my head up, which I always knew would be an issue!

You can see by the strips of colours and the palette the wide range of colours used. I found the strips very useful in comparing the colours up close before committing to the colours.

making colours

I found this a very useful exercise to give me confidence in my ability to identify the colours and translate them effectively and give me the opportunity to do this. I found mixing on the paper in the background colours helpful. I am developing methods that work for me.

The limpets shell revisited

Oh how I do love shells. from the previous work in project one I think you guessed that. An opportunity within this exercise meant I could work a sample using different threads and yarns to create texture. I do find it hard to separate all the elements these exercises demand. They all correlate. The shell would lend itself brilliantly to this exercise. With shiny and rougher, matt even  dull areas and flecks and blocks of directional colour and texture. How could I resist. Using the viewing frame to focus my attention on a small area i choose a textural study this time to work from. One that was a little more abstract. It focussed on the colour elements, horizontal curves and vertical lines. It offered both shiny and matt areas having been worked originally in wax resists and acrylic washes.

It offered possibilities to incorporate some more unusual materials such as vhs tape and hand spun yarn from rose fibres. Using my trusted 21st century threads to blend the subtle tones and incorporate the contemporary element too. I found two potential fabrics but decided on the grey wool. It suited the texture I wanted to create and had subtle markings with black flecks ideal for the colours of my shell.

Although it was time consuming to build up the layers using satin stitch offered so much scope for variations and inclusions.

I twisted the vhs tape into a twine and couched it down then incorporated it into the sating stitch to achieve a more flecky result, more subtle. The rose fibre was incorporated by satin stitch but then further worked in using the silks. It offered softer textures against the hard lines of circular demarkation.

Stage Five Stitches that create texture

I had incorporated some of this exercise into the front cover and did feel I only scratched the surface. Previous experience of stitches gave me some firm favourites like satin stitch and herringbone but I also had opportunity to try out some more contemporary ideas. Mark making in Textiles Helen Parrott was a great inspiration as well as older more dated books I picked up in the charity shops and markets, encyclopaedias of embroidery mainly.

Finished cover ready for posting!

Using french knots loosely and tight.Loops and chevrons

Satin stitch and running stitch used randomly, uniformly and varying the spacings

Spirals in running stitch varying the spacings, stitch length and closeness

The same stitch but different threads achieve different effects. The silk reflects the light whilst the matt threads show more texture

Fly stitch, herringbone and chain stitch detached and random

I explored a couple of different effects here. Blending threads myself rather than using my prefered space dyed threads. I worked blanket stitch back to back producing a pleasing ribbed effect. Then cross stitch using the blended threads. I finally used different combinations of blended and solitary threads of two colours in different thicknesses to see what effects they made.

Here I used different thicknesses and variety of threads and yarns. Emphasizing the tail of the fly stitch, exploiting the variables in width and length too.

Using different threads but attached in a haphazrd way with couching by machine. Exploring curves and lines to create texture with the machine.

Using the machine again I worked circles in different ways watching the play with the light on the cotton thread dependent on which way it was sewn.

Crosshatching ideas using machine sewing. A trail of dots within a line.

I included the further textural stitch studies to the cloth sketchbook made for project two of assignment. It included machine worked samples made at the beginning of the project.

The finished additional page

My rough sawn log

For my last study I chose the log that had been sawn to make a textural sample of. I really enjoyed this one. Full of earthy tones I was able to incorporate some organic methods into the finished sample including tea!

I am a bit disappointed with the quality of the photograph but delighted with the sample.

I used plenty of natural materials to capture the rough surface. Words such as patchwork, mosiac spring to mind for the bark formations. There were plenty texturally to work with. The moss patches soft com[pared to the edges of the bark patterns. The smoothness within each mosiac of bark. Circles bubbling from the callouses. Deilcious materials to work with. 

There was limited but very important stitching achieved here. Lots of stab stitching and couching to attach the fabrics. Followed by rough satin stitch using plant dyed hand spun wool in a random mosiac pattern interspersed with pure silk needle felted  between.

I used various handmade rag yarns that were plant dyed and twine to wrap and circle, couched to give the knobbly circular feel. The lace fabric was crying out to be used adding a great textural perspective but was too stark white in colour. Unsure of the fibres in the material I did not know how it would dye but after a day soaking in a cup of tea it did the job beautifully!

I feel there is still much more scope in this log for further studies. The words helped to focus on aspects I wanted to express.

The rusty water wheel revisited

The dilapidated waterwheel offers such richness in colours and textures. Pitted and smooth areas mix together with seamless connections into different colours.

For me the surface of this particular area was reasonably smooth. By using irregular satin stich I was able to successfully translate this. It was not completely smooth, making it a perfect background to blend colours too. I used a pattern background as I wanted to explore the effect a choice of fabric had on the overall effect to

o.

Further adventures of the ‘mossy studies’

The mossy adventures definitely lends itself beautifully to the requirements of this exercise. It offers the subtleties of the texture and offers scope for capturing these in stitch application of different threads,fabrics and beads.

I do not think I made it clear in the previous blogs regarding this exercise that we were asked to think of words to describe the items that distinguished their textural qualities. I am able to put these on my cotton pages by ‘Bonaweb’ a wonderful, albeit man made invention to iron on and glue different mediums to fabric. Some of the words I choose for the mossy studies were billowy, feathery, soft, greens, yellows and golds.

I selected various fabrics for their colours or textural applications. Some were eco dyed, a method where plant material is used in such a way that a chemical reaction takes place with natural dyes and the plant material and leaves an imprint. One very good subject for this method is rose leaves.

This was a very tonal inspired piece. Working spontaneously with the machine to attach pieces of different fabrics using a zigzag stitch. I then slowed the pace down using herringbone, random running and satin stitch to build up a textured effect using soft colours of greens, yellows and browns. For the soft billowy feel I added french knots and beads. An addition of some hand spun slubbed wool in green and yellow helped too. With the french knots I made some tight and some much looser. I was overall pleased that I achieved the desired effect in a spontaneous way

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finished ‘board’

Stage four second choice – An exhausted red painted door

The final page for assessment of the  painted door

I found several possible fabrics that I could have used, perhaps in a mosiac way. However, I decided to have another go at a shibori dyed piece. This time using madder and a folded and tied resist. I also used madder dyed hand spun yarns to add texture. I used a different stitching approach. I attempted some machine sewing, building patches of different shades of machine ‘sulky’ variegated reds in proportionate quantities to the sketch work. I worked with the variations moving the sample when the colour changed. It gave it a more spontaneous result to work with the thread. I was overall pleased with the results. Once the machine stitching was completed, it was then that by hand I used the hand spun madder yarn to apply more texture in random satin stitch.

The limpets shell

I am fascinated by shells, Their shapes and intricate markings with no two ever being the same.

From a previous sketch and the object itself I was able to develop my previous work further in this exercise.

The assignment presented

I made further sketches of the different individual markings with pencil and fineliners. Then explored the imagery created form a quick glance of vertical lines and horizontal curves using acrylics and a brush and then with a larger page, watercolours and wax resists. I used the differnet coloured crayons to over emphasize the colour glints in the shell and the vertical markings, whilst using the fluidity of the watercolour medium to create the tones and curves.

The ‘crafty’ textures of a sawn log

I tried my hand at a sketches or should I say a series of sketches, Drawing not being my strong point but with recent lessons via the ‘You Tube’ Channel and consulting various drawing books listed inn the bibliography I am gaining a little more confidence.

A confidence in sketching being a work in progress but used here for this exercise

I then tried to take aspects of the log textures that appealed to me and capture them by different mediums. I really enjoyed this exercise as I felt an achievement having sketched the different aspects in the first place and then I enjoyed printing and collage particularly to make a mark record of them.

a collage using natural materials

printed patterns using acrylics and handmade blocks from foamboard

I made block prints from foam board that through careful use may be able to be used again. Something I would like to develop further into fabric prints.

foamboard printing blocks

Using newly acquired oil pastels I thought they might lend themselves to this study. I took a few textural marks and used them to create a analogy. Predominently the patchwork effect of the prominent bark coloured with aging and weathered some displaying moss from being previously sheltered on the north side. The marks were two fold both vertical and more square and even depth both horizontally and vertically. There was also very prominent markings around the calloused severing of the branches in previous years. Irregular markings some deep and some shallow.

The notations speak volumes

I hope it is evident that I really feel more at home with nature. I really enjoyed working so close to a forgotten log still giving so much to us visually. One of my favourite exercises and varied so far.