Tuesday 7 October 2008

African art experiments

Well we've achieved the change over to BT extremely successfully and all is well in cyberspace. It appears I still have my AOL email address but I don't know it that's permanent so best to stick with the Yahoo one for now.

Anyway enough of the boring stuff and onto some creative stuff. At last!!!

I've been beavering away on module 5 of the C&G and am now almost done on the stitch samples. Yippee!!!!

I've found the new deadline quite galvanising and it's been really good not to have the time to agonise over every little decision. This module is about form and concentrates on the use of architectural grids as a starting point for developing a project. At the same time as part of our cutural studdies we are asked to look at African textiles, particularly Kuba Cloths.



The stitch exercises have been divided into patchwork and appliqué and the last of the patchwork was to design a small sample using the Kuba Cloth as inspiration and here is my sample.



Prior to this we had been asked to work 2 samples of log cabin patchwork, one conventional and the other extending ourselves a little, this is the extended version, still keeping within the African theme.
I've never done proper patchwork before so it was a bit of a steep learning curve, but I got the hang of it eventually.



The next sample was made from some sun printed fabric (the darker one) and a piece of silk that I printed with a manipulated image for another project. It's my experimental sample for English patchwork, I hope, I was getting a bit confused by this time.



And just because I was so pleased with myself that I had managed to complete a sample of traditional English patchwork and made all the sides meet, I thought I'd put up the pic :-) even though it's a bit ordinary.



The final 2 samples are of strip patchwork, the first was only the second attempt and by the third I had got a little bit more adventurous.





I'm really enjoying this module now despite misgivings in the first place. I wonder if it has anything to do with the connection to patchwork and of course the African art theme, which I love.

7 comments:

Aussie Jo said...

Fantastic Sharon!
You must have a great stash of interesting fabrics. I love the colours too.

Julie said...

Great work Sharon. I'm glad you're enjoying it now. I like your sunprinted fabric and the piece that it's in.

Shirley Anne Sherris said...

Love the colour scheme. They are so warm and blend so well.
Glad you are enjoying the module - it makes such a difference to the results when you enjoy what you are doing.
Thamks for dropping by my blog.
Cheers

Val said...

Wow Sharon - you have been busy. All your pieces look fantastic!

Françoise said...

Nice work! I love Kuba cloths.
I'm busy with my C&G course too...
Regards.

hippopip said...

Sharon you have a great way with colours the patchwork is great.

Debbi Baker said...

Terrific pieces Sharon - looks as though you have really got into it!!