Summer School

After an uncomfortable two days of extreme heat for the UK, I spent two cool days (in both senses of the word) at Littleheath Barn with Liske's 'Art Cloth: Maps and More'.

We spent the two days trying out various techniques with a limited palette to produce some fabrics that sit well together.  My colours were basically rust, slate grey and a little charcoal dye.  The aim was to produce fabrics that were dark, medium or light.

Sadly the photographs don't really show the true colours of the fabrics.

For this fabric I put some white acrylic paint through a bought stencil.  I put narrow masking tape on a screen and printed through it.

right side

reverse

Liske had demonstrated how to make a breakdown screen which I used.  It didn't breakdown as much as I thought it would.

right side

reverse

This is muslin which I wrote on with dye.  I scraped dye over the one end and used a thermofax screen on the right.  I cut it into two pieces.  The top part shows the results of using flour paste as a crackle which I put rust dye over.  I scraped pale rust over the the bottom piece.

I used soy wax and drew lines over my screen and scraped dye through the screen.

right side

reverse

I made a screen by spreading a thin layer of flour paste on it.  On one half I put a bought stencil.  On the other half I scraped lines and shapes when the paste was dry.  I also used the stencil to fill in the gaps so I have positive and negatives of the design.

right side

reverse

I scraped dye over this piece of muslin so I have some matching plain fabric.

At the end of the day I had a fabulous piece of dropcloth.  I had started the two days with a new clean cloth.  I cut this piece from the dropcloth and sprayed a soda ash solution over it to fix the dye. It's cotton drill which is heavier than the calico and muslin I had used so it will possibly become a background.

We're back next week for another two days of composition, planning and making using the fabrics. Although we may start with adding more layers of design using fabric paints.

I've no idea what I shall do with all these fabrics.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Seascape Collage

Last week I spent a gentle couple of days at Littleheath Barn Studio on a workshop taught by Amanda Hislop, author of Stitched Textiles: Seascapes.

As you know I love to cut up or tear up my work.  So I was in my element - the first thing to do was tear up teabag paper, lens tissue and fabric to about A6 size.  Then we printed on them with acrylic paint and Amanda's handmade printing blocks.

And then!  When the paint was dry we tore up those pieces to be much smaller pieces.  Oh joy!

We used a gluestick to put these small pieces onto a backing.

We started 'tacking' the pieces down with small stitches that weren't going to be removed.

On day two we started on the main stitching using a mix of stitches like running stitch, herringbone stitch, fly stitch and feather stitch.

I didn't like the stitching I did in the middle of the photo above, so when I got home I unpicked it. (see below)

Some close-ups of my stitching.

I decided the piece was too long and removed nearly a third of it. 

I peeled off the large piece on the left and continued to stitch what was left.

And here it is in close-up.

I've got lots of ideas for what I could do next especially in a zizag sketchbook and maybe on fabric too.

Watch this space!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

ATG Landscapes

Last year I joined in with a Seasons themed series of workshops at Littleheath Barn.  This year the theme for the Art Textile Groups is Landscapes.

Liske introduced us to various drawing and collage techniques.  I used photos of canals for this session.

I looked online for photos of people's work that I admire and I hope will provide inspiration.

We did some mark making and I used photos of the coast as inspiration.

In our latest session we started with painting dye and paint on fabric.  I worked on this piece of scrim laid over silk noil.  However I didn't much like the colours and wasn't inspired at all.  This was mostly because I was still confused about which landscape I was concentrating on - rural, coastal or urban.

After discussion with a friend I took her suggestion of concentrating on coastal.  When I turned the fabric the other way up I can see how I can make this coastal!

I then started working with my favourite colours and back in my comfort zone.  This was mark making on silk noil.

This was using up the paint with torn paper and a dry brush.

I used dye on this piece of silk noil.

I prefer the back of it.

It will be interesting to see how this develops next year.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Bobby Britnell

I spent a couple of days at Littleheath Barn doing a workshop 'Imaginative Design using tone & colour' with Bobby Britnell. This post is particularly photo heavy - I should, perhaps, have written two posts!

Day 1
For the first activity we covered the paper with charcoal and then drew into it with pointed scissors, charcoal and an eraser.

The second activity was a group activity where 4 of us on this table drew lines on the paper, moving anti-clockwise around the table.  There was another table with 6 people doing the same activity.

Then we each chose a pastel and started to colour in some of the shapes.

Then Bobby separated out the sheets and we each took one of the 10 sheets.

I took photos at various stages of the colouring in but I'm not going to show you every one.

Some of the lines were too harsh in this

 So I knocked some of it back.  We had to do more to it on day 2.

We went on to do line drawing where you don't take the pen off the paper.  We had to draw the person opposite.  I won't tell you who it is!  Anyway, we had to try 1. not looking at the paper and only at the person, 2. drawing with our non dominant hand, 3. drawing being able to look at the paper and 4. giving the face an expression.   Bearing in mind I was drawing a woman, I have here John Major puppet from Spitting Image,  almost Hermann Munster, Bruce Forsyth and who knows!

These drawings were of me

Then we moved on to some colouring exercises: Complementary, analagous, primaries (only I did secondaries with it) and black and one colour where I got carried away with the black!

Here's how it should have looked!

Lastly on day 1 we drew with a wax candle and then with wax crayons, followed by an ink wash.  I like the technique but didn't particularly like what I did.

 On to Day 2

We continued with the pastel drawing.  I had completed colouring all the spaces but went back to it to add more layers and to knock back some of the sharp edges.  I tried putting frames on various parts of the paper to isolate sections.

Sorry I didn't photograph this quite straight!

I took one last photo of the paper before Bobby gave me the next thing to do.

In preparation for the workshop, Bobby had drawn lines on the back of the paper, which none of us had noticed.   She had drawn 3 strips for us to cut off.

This one in particular looked like it could be made into a landscape hanging.

 Having cut off the strips I was left with a large square.

 I took various photos of small sections of the large square.  And tried the strips on top of the square.

 
The strips had lines drawn on the back for squares and rectangles.  I cut up two of the strips.  This was the best small rectangle.

We started a new exercise which I cannot explain.  I struggled to understand what we were doing.  It started with drawing squares with charcoal.

Adding some circles.

And then I added colour.  This isn't how it was supposed to look but it's my version of what I understood to be the instructions.  

We also did some tonal exercises which I didn't photograph.  I had done a workshop with Bobby before and some of the exercises are described here.

Congratulations if you've made it to the end of this post.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice