Maps & More

This month I rejoined the Art Textiles monthly group at Littleheath Barn.  This years theme is Maps & More.

We started with a warm up exercise in our sketchbooks.  I'm using a 20cm square Pink Pig sketchbook.

 

 

We had been asked to take a map with us and I took a map of Venice - where else?  It was that or the canals of the UK.

 

The next exercise was to take just part of the map and draw 3 lines then 5 then 7.

 

 

We moved on to A3 paper, drawing with ink and adding watercolour

 

 

I made my second piece of paper square.

And add handmade paper to the piece I had cut off.

The last exercise was to draw with a wax candle and put a wash of colour over the top.

 I folded the square paper into 16 squares and cut them out and put them randomly into my sketchbook.

With the large rectangle I made a book (surprise! surprise!)

 
I made a zine with the added paper piece.

I used little brown paper bags as pockets to keep the books in. I had made a collage using the pattern from the 5 line drawing

 We made a Turkish Mapfold booklet with the wax and watercolour wash paper.

It doesn't help that the writing is upside down but I'm not going to worry about it.

It was a really enjoyable and productive day.

To be honest I think I make a dreadful student and feel really sorry for any tutor who has to cope with me.  I frequently want to be doing my own thing!

But before I went I promised myself that I would be a good student and do what Liske suggested.  And it worked.  I had a lovely time.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Batik experiments

At the Art Textiles group on Thursday, Liske had lots of ideas that we could try.  Sadly I had arrived without any oomph!  It seemed to leak out of the car during the 25 minute journey from home!!!

However, one of the ideas roused a little bit of curiosity.  I'm so glad it did because I really love some of the results I got.

Liske had a hot wax pot - actually an electic grill - and various tools including a cork, brushes, and a large cookie cutter.

This piece was originally splattered with acrylic paint.  I think it was probably newsprint that I had put under another piece of work I was doing.  I put the hot wax on and when that was set I put watercolour paint over it.  When that was dry I repeated the exercise.  With each of the pieces once everything was dry I ironed it between newspaper to remove the wax.

This piece was a part of a map with tissue paper glued on top.  I scratched into the blobs of wax to reveal the layer below but the scatches were not significant enough for the paint to bleed through.

On this paper I collaged some text and some music and tissue paper before adding the wax and the yellow paint.  Another layer of wax was added and then the turquoise paint.

This was an acrylic paint monoprint to which I added the wax.  I used black acrylic ink over the top.

This is a piece of thin white cotton material.

And this was the paper underneath the fabric where the wax and some of the paint went through.  I then added some more paint as there was quite a lot of white.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Machine Stitching

This week we had the next session of Textile Explorations.  You may remember that at the last session I used cold water paste to stick lots of fabric leftovers together.

In this session I cut the piece in half - mostly because the size it was made it awkward to use with the sewing machine!

On the left half I added foil.

On the other half I machined all over it with a preset stitch on my machine.

 

 

I cut the foiled piece into four pieces and put net over two of them and then machine stitched them.

I haven't decided what to do with these two pieces.

 

 

I cut two 10cm squares  from the right hand half after I'd machined it.

I didn't have enough of this piece to make 4 squares because of where I had chosen to cut out the above squares.  I decided to use the left over machined piece with some other leftover bits from the last session to make a long narrow piece which may become a scroll book.  The pieces are currently held in place by a small amount of Mistyfuse whilst I decide how I'm going to stitch it all together.

How would you stitch it?

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

And then . . .

I made some more!

Yes more 10cm square collages for the Textile Explorations workshop.

I'm trying to use up fabrics I have already made for previous projects.

Some of the collages are random.  Actually all of them are random! But some fit Liske's list of things to explore.  Below right is a log cabin square and at the bottom is paper lamination.

Actually paper lamination isn't on the list but I found some left over so I bonded it to some printed fabric.

And the next day I made 3 more.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

More textile explorations

At the October get together of the Art Textiles workshop I had a go at flour paste resist.  I've done it before but wanted it to have another go.

Normally I think you would use a darker colour to paint through the crackle but I wanted to stick with my colour scheme so used copper acrylic paint.  Plus I used already printed fabric so the contrast is not as strong as it might have been.

I love these serendiptous little trees.

Because all my collages to date had straight lines, Liske challenged me to do some curves.

I took the original collages with me to C2C to stitch in the evenings at the hotel.  That didn't happen.  I can see there's going to have to be a mammoth stitch session at some point.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

September - A new start?

To me, September 1st often feels more like a new start than January 1st.  I think it's probably because the UK school system conditions us to this, as the new school year starts in September.

I haven't had much motivation the last couple of months to be creative.  Left to my own devices I haven't worked on much.  I have kept my journal going and worked on ideas for a creative 6 week course at church.  But I need something to give me real impetus to make stuff.

So I've signed up for two online classes.

First Notice what you notice with Christine Chester.  I've done other classes with Christine so I'm really looking forward to seeing how this works with some of us on zoom and others in her studio.

Poetry of Decay (2016)

Secondly I've signed up for Hilary Beattie's Sketchbook Saturdays which sounds like fun.  I've also done classes with Hilary before.

Sense of Place (2018)

Plus there's a new theme Textile Explorations for the Art Textiles group at Littleheath Barn.  It will be great to do an in-person workshop at Littleheath Barn.

Wall hanging from the last group workshop

I feel there's some comfort in working with people I've worked with before.  I realise I need both the impetus for new plus the comfort from knowing the tutors.

What are you planning to do this term?

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Another piece finished

I previously showed you the large piece I was making for Text,Texture, Textiles as I was putting it together.

I'm really pleased to show you the finished hanging.

And a close up of the machine stitching

I'm going to have a rest from making textile hangings!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Finished

Remember this post: A Companion Piece?

Well here it is finished.   I used the preset stiches on my machine and added a plain binding.

The finished piece is 16 inches by 15 inches.  Irritatingly one corner is decidedly off kilter.  It may or may not get fixed!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

A new piece

Last month I showed you how I had added printed layers to my fabrics for Text Texture Textile.  On Thursday at the session at Littleheath Barn I started a new piece of work using the fabrics.

I started - let's all say it together - by cutting up the fabrics.

Then I started sewing them together - just picking randomly from the pile.

After ironing them I cut them into 6 inch wide strips and 4 inch wide strips.

As each strip grew I pinned them on the wall.

When I got home I pinned them onto the design wall - actually a drop cloth hanging from a wardrobe!

I cut up the larger pieces I had machined together (on the left and right of the above picture) and finished machining all the pieces together.

I'm going to leave it  hanging up for a while so I can think about what I shall do next.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Text, Texture, Textiles 2

This week saw our second Art Textiles Group day.  Much of the day was spent using fabric rather than sketchbook work.  Although we did end the day in our sketchbooks.   If you missed it, my post on our first day is here.

At a studio day I had dyed some fabrics, written on the fabric with dye and used a thermofax screen.  I had washed the fabrics so I was able to continue at this week's session working on top of these dyed fabrics.

I used Formusol which is a type of bleach to write onto the fabric.  You can begin to see the bleach working on this.

 When it was dry I ironed it and you can see how it took the colour out.

It didn't work so well on this piece because there wasn't a solid block of colour

In the afternoon we played at using different tools to apply dye to fabric.  We first put masking tape across to make different areas.  We removed the masking tape and left it to dry.  This is it washed and ironed.

I also overdyed some previously breakdown printed fabric

I painted a couple of pages in my sketchbook with dye and wrote on them with the Formusol.

I have no idea where all this going but it's fun playing.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice