a bit of something different

I am currently preparing work for 5 different exhibitions, which has given me an inclination and an opportunity to try out a few slightly different ways of working. One of these is working direct to canvas or paper, rather than working onto a wadded/quilted background. However - one of the reasons I choose to work with textiles and quilts, is I just love the texture these materials and practices produce. So a flat canvas was not appealing. I spied some textured craft papers in the Works, when buying canvas, and decided to see how I could use them as potential backgrounds. So here is a first try out - stage by stage ..

 

I started with  a blank canvas and glued the textured papers down after cutting them into squares ... you can tell I am a patchworker! ...

 

 

covered it all in a fairly liquid gesso(liquitex)

 

added setacolour pale blue and some iridescent acrylic medium and covered the canvas again

 

which gave us this ..



quite nice, so decided to try out some images ... these are all prints from the gelli plate

 

feeling background too blue, so added a glaze of setacolour wine and some interference gold

 

Oooh - wet! .... blotted with a paper ... which gave this little bonus

 

 

and resulted in this .....

decided to add some liquid acrylic ink in black

 

 

which after spraying with water and blotting a bit, looked like this

 

hmmmm ... too dark, so went all over top again with almost dry coat of original blue setacolour

 

I also stitched into  the imagery papers at this stage - and then tried them out

 

 

settling on this arrangement

 

too blue again, so added back a very little wine colour with water soluble crayons

 

and then rubbed over with my very favourite water resistant neocolour crayons in white, to bring the patterns back a little and add emphasis

 

 

Now for some hand stitch .. but the dog is moithering for a walk now .. so tomorrow I think ... hope to talk soon - Hilary x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You have rather a lot of prints and stuff .. what next??

 

 And I really do mean rather a lot .. a very big shed loads. Never one to work in small quantities, recent demos mean that I have masses of material to work with .. not that I am complaining. So - taking a break from making materials, I have started to work some themes in to my sketchbooks. This has been a very happy couple of days. I have not made time in the last year for much of this sort of work, and I have missed it. All these pages are 'in progress' and can and will no doubt be altered and developed. But I'm pleased with the start ..
So I started with a page made whilst at Ally Pally and which features the willow leaves I was using on the gelli plate. These became so gorgeous, they just had to be preserved. So a quick background an plenty of matte medium later .. this is what we have .. roughly A3(ish)

 

 

The background is markal gold and both blending sticks, plus some matte medium and a colour wash of procion dyes. The leaves were covered in lumiere shimmering blue and copper and I have added some gold too. I've also added some neocolour 1 and 2 in to the background ...

 

 

and then a quick alteration in photo shop .. I could of course have any/all of these printed to fabric or use them as a basis for collage

 

 

 

 

Here is a cut out of one of the resist gelli prints (ie - the gap left by the leaves) I've added it to a sketchbook page, already coloured with gesso through stencils and dyes

 

 

Wanting the shimmer, I've added some of those yummy gold powders (bet you've got some somewhere!), mixed with matte medium around the leaf shapes

 

 

and also painted the resist leaf shapes left on the opposite page when I added matte medium to the back of the first leaf shapes .. are you keeping with me??

 

 

and trying out still more cut out leaf shapes on top

 

 

 

 

 

 

settling for this on (for now) - these are all still very much works in progress

 

 

bored of soft pink, I went in search of something a bit brighter .. and found these gorgeous red pages. I cut out more leaves from a photoshop altered image of a gelli print and tried them. They needed a bit of help to show, so I've sprayed through a stencil with a mix of water, golden fluid titanium white and golden fluid gold interference paint ... this white is light and shimmers gold when you move it .. impossible to show unfortunately on here .. but it does

 

 

Printed off stencil reverse on other side of sketchbook and started laying some leaves on there too - I love these colours

 

 

Decided I might try a split moonish sort of a thing

 

 

Like that, but decided to tone down the red a bit - using neocolour 2 (water soluble) crayons on background, and  bit of neocolour 1 on leaves to blue them up, as it were

 

 

 

Looks nice (better?) upside down

 

 

and on end -

 

 

off cuts working well too ...

 

 

 

 

Now bored of willow - so move on for a while - to pears. I printed bowls full of these at Ally Pally - they just worked so well with the gelli plate. So I've just cut out some of the prints and started placing them in to my new favourite sketchbook. This is a soft back, khadi book, roughly A3, with  thinner pages which are still very strong. Gorgeous deckle edges and a stitched spine to dye for. A joy. Anyway - this page had been brushed with some matte medium to show how it resists dye .. which it obligingly has! Two favourite colours here of teak and bottle green (and no doubt a bit of brush pollution) The pears are in a gorgeous shimmery copper - which isn't showing so well - but they are wonderful. I suspect (although don't know) that there is a bit of blue interference in them as they seem to change colour (should make notes ... never going to happen)

 

 

Working with neocolour 2 crayons to help the pears show and knock back the background a bit.

 

 

I've actually put neocolour 2 in pale blue all over the background and washed it in and I'm now adding more highlights with a huge lump of yummy white water-soluble graphite. This paper is just gobbling up the texture

 

 

Overexcited with the charcoal possibilities - I've added some grey around the pears and some writing .. not sure if I like this - might get covered up again. But that is the joy of collage and sketchbook work .. you can try things out and just cover what doesn't work. I shall give it a week or two first though.

 

 

New page - more cut out pears

 

 

neocolour 2 getting worked in

 

 

 and lots more - here before water added

 

 

and after water added

 

 

Love the colours on this one .. not sure about the composition ... but if I crop it ..

 

 

 

I'm really liking those. Then I felt the need to play more with those big fat water soluble charcoal and graphite sticks. I bought these at the ICHF show in the Spring, where Steph and I both fell for their charms on Derwent stand .. but have not really had much chance to try them out. So - I found a nice page with a background sprayed stencil .. but needing a bit of a lift and started just laying down some colour with the sticks

 

 

 

and added water

 

 

and more charcoal .. couldn't resit drawing and writing with it too

 

 

softened and smudged and then some markal gold highlight added - I will definitely be trying thses out some more .. they are such a joy to use. You know I say playing - and it is .. but not without a bit of purpose. My colleague and friend Jenny Rolfe and I are preparing an exhibition for a joint gallery we have at Fashion and Embroidery at the NEC next Spring. Our gallery title will be 'The Shape of Nature' .. so all this sketchbook work with fruits and leaves may well feed in to that .. I'll tell you more as it gets closer and I hope you will come and see us . it is a great show

 

 

 

but moving on from pears now .. I do like to work a few things at once - gives drying time and stops me getting bored .. I started working with some of the very many prints, stencils and rubbing I have made to use in making my pieces for the Art Textiles MIB 'Identity' exhibition.

Some images here just printed to page, and some collaged down .. this page is working towards a piece called 'Lost in the Crowd', which will be about the personas we adopt to survive and how that affects our identity

 

 

 

I used charcoal and neocolour 1 to blend the page

 

 

and tried darkening and distressing it a bit, via photoshop .. I like this

 

 

and other page - towards a piece called 'can you see me?' again about the effect of personas on the self

 

 

words too obvious I though, so I've added gesso, plus crayons, charcoal and some white markal

 

 

more ideas for 'can you see me?'

  

 

 

Crikey - long post, but I wanted to share how some of these pages are developed .. hope you haven't dropped off

 

and   just because  we all love it ... here is my table, mid process !... oh to be tidy

 

 

Lastly - but not at all leastly .. the new website for Art Textile: Made in Britain is now up and running - thank to the hard work of Stehanie Redfern. Here's the link - do please go and visit .. and maybe add us to your favourites? I hope so - talk again soon ... Hilary x

 

http://www.arttextilesmadeinbritain.co.uk/