recording the process (rust triptych) 7

The canvases are painted! The first coat anyway, so I won’t bore you with the pics. At least I’ve got rid of the white!

I’ve decided to run with the bondaweb idea Post 3 so have painted a couple of sheets ready for bonding. The bottom sheet is painted with all metallic finish paints. These came from Homebase and are from their Creative Effects range.





I also painted a sheet of tissue paper with spent Procion dyes and quite like the effect of this piece as a whole, so I may not be able to persuade myself to tear it up!



Lastly, before I cleared up I mono printed what was left of the acrylic and got some rather nice print offs that will be handy for another day, so never waste anything!




I’ve also been looking at the idea of embedding the textiles in resin, to take them into another dimension, so they then become non tactile and rigid! I think it may help to integrate the stitched part of this project with the other media I’m using.





Regarding the direction of the content of this piece I have returned to the composite ideas as I feel that I want to include the history of the original source, Hurst Castle.
This has become more poignant after discussions with a friend who is currently doing a Fine Art degree. During one of her crits she was asked, “what do you want the work to say? ”, which she then asked me. From this we talked about my feelings for the fort (as I prefer to call it) and how they were infusing the work so far. I couldn’t understand how I was producing such vibrant colours and what appeared to be sun orbs from a place that was built for protection against invasion.

We finally tracked this down to the fact that HC had never seen action in the 2 World Wars, so, maybe it was more a sense of safety and containment that I had felt once inside it’s massive walls. Also you can only see the sky when on the ground level and hear the sea, so maybe that’s why the blues and yellow were coming through.

However once I started on the composites and introduced the images of the huge guns that had so captured my imagination, I started to see a very different reaction. I could then see fire and explosion in the work and the ‘awful ‘ power of these beasts, and how they dwarfed the men who fired them. This is the third composite, the other 2 are on Post 6



I do feel more settled in my direction now, but that could have something to do with the fact that I have my security blanket (my Imac and PS) back in place.

Anyway I had a good day in the studio yesterday and enjoyed the freedom of just letting things flow, so I’m going to see if I can preserve that feeling as I progress with the project.

A day at the seaside

We went to the seaside today, as it was such a lovely sunny day. I took my new toy along, the Canon PowerShot A570, my dinky little digi. I didn’t realise that it had this cool function called Stitch Assist that helps you take a series of shots to make a panoramic photo; I was actually looking for the Landscape setting when I found it. I took four adjacent shots, but unfortunately when I put them into Photomerge on Photoshop CS, it could only match up two shots as the other 2 were over exposed. But I still got my first panoramic view!!

I loved the patterns that the sea had made on the sand as the tide went out, so I took a couple of shots for later use.




Of course we had to have an ice cream, it would have been rude not to ☺, and our faithful mutt had to have his share (good job the vet won’t read this). The only thing was 2 seconds later he’d almost swallowed the stick and Mike ( my hubby) had to retrieve it.


What a lovely way to spend a winter Sunday

recording the process (rust triptych) 6

Well I have to admit that I decided yesterday, I was still not ready to paint the canvases. I realised that what was stopping me was a basic lack of research into abstract and triptych design, both of which I know virtually nothing about, so I decided that a trip to the local library was the answer. They rarely fail me when I’m on a mission.



I came across a great book full of very interesting artists’ work and found 2 pieces that really resonated. The first one is by an artist named Kathryn Frund, entitled Fin-de-Siecle II. I like the balance of this piece, with the found objects set at graduated heights and the colour blocks offsetting each other on the 2 outside panels, while in the central panel the colour blocks are vertical. There is even a rhythmic feel to the metal washers.



I know now, that so far I’ve been feeling in the dark for a balanced and rhythmic composition, I think I need to do more paperwork studies to find that foundation before I jump in!



The second piece is by Leslie Masters, entitled Mountain Rust, so it was the title I noticed first on this one, but I love the contrasts in this piece, between the serene background and the barbed wire. I suppose you could say that the background too has a harsh feel due to the texture and what feels like a heat haze. But it’s also the tension I like in this work.

I did slip back onto the computer last night to try out a couple of composites to see if it would make any difference if I introduced some imagery from Hurst castle’s history, but while I enjoyed doing them and it gave me a greater feeling of connection to this project I don’t think it’s the right direction. I feel it needs to be an abstract, but I want to feel that know how it connects and resonates with the initial source and my connection to it.

recording the process (rust triptych) 5

Al last I found a free hour to have a think about where to go next with this project. I've procrastinated for about a weeek now. I know that because I've kept this record of my progress, so there's no denying it.

I got the three canvases, now downsized to 12"x 12" from 16"x16", and unwrapped them, so far so good! Well they looked nice! Then panic set in and I decided I needed to know how the three would work, I wasn't really convinced that the first attempt (see below) was right after all, or is it that I now have a surfeit of square canvases, thanks to a special (can't be missed) offer in our local DIY store and I don't want to buy oblong ones.



So having established that today wasn't a good day to paint the canvases, not really enough time anyway, I did some sketch book doodles with felt tips and other unmessy media.







I think I might just have enough of an idea now to put paint to canvas tomorrow!!

De-cluttering

How is it that however many times you have a clear out of the textile stuff you accumulate, there still seems to be the same amount of it in the cupboard next time you look!

I started the day yesterday with about 3 hours of much needed housework, Yuk! I know, but when you start finding dog hairs in places they shouldn’t really be, you know the time has come to give in!

The trouble was that once I started I couldn't stop, you know the feeling I'm sure. I had planned a nice afternoon on the embellisher, yes that again, more delaying tactics on the rust project. I suspect that's what started the HW blitz in the first place.

Well it wasn't all bad I cleared a huge bag of fabrics dating back to a time I'd rather not admit, and they’re ready now to pass onto my daughter, so she can guard them for the next 20 years. Anyway I did discover some little gems to use with my latest toy and I even organised my work area especially for easy access to colour coded jars of little scraps! Oh dear I think I might be hooked, thanks Helen

Joint effort

My grandson Ben came over for the day today and I had decided to introduce him to my new embellisher, seeing as he has a passion for all things 'distressed' at the moment. I thought I would see if he was proficient at free machine embroidery first, as the principles are the same.




As is typical with young people today he had no problems getting to grips with this, especially as he is no stranger to my patient old Bernina. Within about an hour he produced this little gem, with no preparation of course! See if you can see the 'secret hedge hog' hiding in the top of the circle. I like the laughing snails!

Ben was so pleased with his fist efforts he decided to continue with the sewing machine and give the embellisher a miss for today. He thought it would be a great idea if we worked together on a textile postcard. I was to do the background on the embellisher while he did something to go on the top. He decided to do a cityscape and I was to produce the mountains in the background, at night! He didn't want much, off the top of my head.



He was soon beavering away having quickly drawn out his design on Romeo water-soluble fabric. I suggested he work on a layer of net and then he didn't have to worry about joining everything up. This was, after all his first experience of W/S and it can be a bit tricky even for the experienced.



I, on the other hand, couldn’t decide what backing fabric to use and had at least one false start. I finally decided that felt and sheers were probably the best option. I managed to get the hang of it and finished off my piece with a sunset of wool tops.





Anyway, remarkably when we put the two parts together they seemed to work. Unfortunately when Ben finally got onto the embellisher we couldn’t make the net weld to the felt, I don't know why, so we had to resort to bondaweb. Ben gave the buildings a final outline stitching and I satin stitched the edges, and hey presto we had a postcard.







We considered asking if someone would like to swap with us, but at the end of the day neither of us wanted to part with our joint effort!

Just for fun

Post card 2 has just been completed. I was so impressed with the way my embellisher handled the dyed nylon Twinkle on velvet (previous post) that I decided to take time out from the ongoing rust project to make a post card, just for fun!



I started off with the cotton velvet and welded small pieces of twinkle down to the surface. I then got out my small sample stash from various day workshops and proceeded to see what would work. This included some floristry paper from an old bouquet that I had printed with painted Bodaweb and some painted nylon.



I really liked the effect of just using the embellisher on the velvet, which gave the surface a completely different feel. I left just a little bit of the velvet in its natural state to give a contrast.



To give it a little bit of 'pizzazz' I sewed on a few beads randomly over the piece.

A pleasant way to pass the time on a disgustingly rainy day!