Tate Modern London

Click for a better view.

This was a brief visit to Tate Modern, time to see the vast exhibit in the Turbine Hall. Described as ‘mountains of fabric’ and ‘waves of saturated colour’, this is a vast installation by the American sculptor Richard Tuttle. I was lucky to be there before the numerous school and bus parties started arriving.  You can see how large it is by the size of the figures.

Richard Tuttle  'I don't Know - The Weave of Textile Language'.

I can only go by my gut reaction which at the time was one of feeling underwhelmed. It made me think of some of the images in what is one of my favourite books, ‘The Art of Manipulating Fabric’ by Colette Wolff. The book and the techniques described are a source of fascination, but despite that some of the images are a bit ugly representing dated techniques, which are there to inspire new adaptations..

 I am sure I missed the deeper meaning of the installation.

When I look at the photographs I actually feel more impressed and interested than I did at the time.

Trees and Fields.

I have continued with the block printing and am definately finding that my blocks are better, although I still find carving them far from the meditative experience described by some. I have now bought some Moo Carve and will be trying that. It is certainly worth the effort of carving a block' well' as there are then so many ways to adapt them.
I cut this block prior to the ecourse but have gone back and used a larger blade. I like the material for the block, but have had it so long that I have no idea what make it is; if I remember correctly someone sent it me after a show one time.
This photo of local fields was the inspiration:

I then added one of my tree blocks,printing in black ink.

I then free machined over the shapes in green and white thread over a piece of wadding:

Made up into a small bag and with a couple of cards printed with the remaining ink:

Thanks to the Gourmet Quilter on YouTube for ideas for making up the bag.

Block Printing continued.

I continued with my enthusiasm for block printing this week and also made three small bags.

I am pleased that some of you have found Jen Hewett’s work and are similarly enthused.

The source for my two tree blocks, inspired originally from Klimt paintings.

Quilted and made into a small bag.

 Many thanks to those of you who have recently bought my blurb book.

Block Printing

I had an interesting weekend following along with Jen Hewett’sBlock Printing e-course. A little frustrating as although the course started at 9am Saturday on the west coast of America I had to wait until 5pm for the videos to go on line here, which in reality meant that I had to catch up with the videos and Facebook posts on Sunday. There was a lot of enthusiasm with people sharing their work as they followed along with the course in real time.

 I learned a good deal and had a lot of fun. Some of the work was almost professional already, but we were of all levels so that was OK.

 Will I ever have the patience to do a proper measured repeat without ‘eyeballing’ it, I wonder.