What do you do with your envelopes? Part Two.

This was just a whim and a distraction, an enjoyable one. I have made a book with old envelopes before, where it is I do not know; perhaps I gave it away, who knows?

 The trigger for this little book came from the work of an Australian book artist Adele Outteridge. There is a good video of her talking about her books made of recycled materials on You Tube.

 I made the covers from an old For Sale board and that idea came from the tutor on my medieval book binding course.

 Ever since then I have been looking out for old boards, imagine my frenzied excitement when I saw one at the recycling centre near our local library.  It was a pity that it was attached to a large post with huge rivets. Would that stop me, no way. I went into the library and asked to borrow scissors, and then set about detaching all of the board that I could manage. They probably thought I was crazy and perhaps they were right! The first job was to get out the baby wipes and give the board a good clean.

Today I went to see the exhibition of Alice Kettle's work in the local museum.It is certainly the most impressive show of her work which I have seen. I particularlylike the way she is now combining textiles with ceramics, and painting. The colourswere very strong, particularly with the winter sunshine streaming through the front windows.

Do something interesting with your envelopes and I will link to your work here.
Lin Artiblobs, see her work here.

Mosaic Monday

Mosaic Monday
Originally uploaded by Feltbug

Feltbug kindly included my work.Take a look at Flickr to follow links to interesting work chosen by her.

'Persian Palaces' 3

These are some images of the free machining I have done on the Persian Palaces hanging. It is not really quilted but backed with a piece of brushed calico, which is almost like a thin blanket.

I also used my free sample of Dylon in ‘Goldfish Orange’ to dye a piece of cotton poplin for part of the binding. It was so easy, but the colours are more limited than using Procion MX. I love the burst of colour on my wall.

I have a new sewing table bought with Christmas money. Don’t you think it is smart? With the castors taken off it almost aligns perfectly with the computer table I have used as a sewing table for years. I was given sewing table envy by seeing the one Melanie Testa uses; I had no idea I needed or wanted one before seeing hers.

Then I found my blog hero for January  Leah Day. She has wonderful videos of free machine quilting on her blog,from which I sort of got the patterns I have used. Even if you never want to do this, they are so relaxing to watch.

She became a hero when I watched her video in which she advises cutting off part of her darning foot to make seeing what one is sewing easier. It made me laugh and admire her nerve too. The sewing table is advertised on her blog, and I just had to get one after viewing the demonstration numerous times. It really does help to have a nice flat surface.

To Christine who lurks, I appreciate your comment, please keep coming back. I’m so pleased to have any lurkers, it’s the people who download numerous images without a thank you that I feel the urge to get at occasionally.

Tutorial

I am taking part in the 2011 Setchbook Challenge;see the badge in the side bar.
Each month there will be a new challenge set by a different artist. Images are
uploaded to Flickr. For January the theme is 'Highly Prized'.
I have been asked for a tutorial on one of the images I added, so here it is.
Bleach discharge as a sketch technique.

Colour you sketchbook page using ink. I applied mine with a piece of sponge.

I used a blue/black drawing ink, but try what you have.

Decide on your subject matter and make a quick sketch.

I cut sponge shapes using the sketch as a rough guide. I have used compressed sponge, which looks like sheets of thin cardboard but when soaked in water expands and has an interesting texture. You can, of course, cut up any cheap sponge.

Next pour out a small amount of bleach. You may like to wear gloves for this part.

Dab the sponge into the bleach and make marks on the coloured page.

As you watch the bleached surface will change colour, in my case from green to white.

Apply the bleach gently. Try not to dribble the bleach and beware of getting it on your clothes, as it will quickly discolour whatever it touches.

Additional marks may be made using a cotton bud.

The next step is get out your pens and work into the sketch outlined with bleach. Try out various pens and see if you can get some interesting results. My white pen resulted in an attractive blue line on the ink. You need to experiment here.

Enjoy.





©Jackie Bowcutt January 2011

'Persian Palaces' 2

Coming up to Christmas I was working hard on the Persian Palaces hanging and even liked it at times, but I must say that visitors ,eating, eating and more of the same has certainly slowed things down and I will now have to make a real effort to get going again. Not that I won’t be working on something but I could so easily get distracted; it will be easier I think to keep focused as I am making the hanging for a definite audience.

Isn't one of the best parts when you see all the possible colours and threads together?
I put the sari ribbon up against the background and decided that I liked the idea of an almost stripped affect and have stitched words onto some of the strips. These came from a random book page I used in my sketchbook. In some ways the figures are making their way through the Persian Palaces, and it is hard to say if they are threatening or coming to help, but certainly ‘She will need help in the Persian Palaces’. Perhaps there is a fire.

More in 2011.

This year I have particularly enjoyed the blogs of the people in my links, I am quite addicted to Melanie Testa’s blog and do tend to look in on her ‘Every Single Day’.
The work of Jude Hill on Spirit Cloth and her atmospheric videos are inspiring.
Many more have suitably distracted me and given great pleasure. I thank them all, as I do
those who follow my progress and keep me blogging.Also a big thank you to the buyers of my book.
To those who stay a matter of seconds, manage to download several images, and never even comment - well the less said the better, but of course they will have no time to read this anyway!

'Persian Palaces'.

I am working on a hanging for my greatest critic; it is also quite large for me, so all in all a bit intimidating. I have used some images from one of my life drawing classes, and transferred them to cotton poplin using monoprint and foam stamping. I used liquid acrylics with an Open Medium so that it was not too harsh on the cloth.

Figures added using foam stamps.

I dyed the background using Procion MX dyes and a low immersion dyeing method.

I mixed the colours, teal and jade, but I think the result is a little too much on the green side. I plan to dye some fabric orange for the border. I will probably use Dylon when my washing machine is repaired, as I was kindly given some by the company and it is waiting to be used. The sari ribbon is just there for colour inspiration at the moment.

Well that is as far as my thoughts about it have progressed, so we shall see what happens, probably in 2011.

A productive workshop.

I am really pleased with the work done by the people on this five week workshop
which finished today - despite some heavy snow in my local area. I came down
the slope along the track from my garage with great trepidation, but the main roads
 were clear. On the way back I got half way up the track when my poor car refused
to go any further and we had to back down. Still it was a good morning.

Here is some of their work. I was particularly pleased with how sketchbooks
 were started with samples to go back to for the future.

Melanie Testa has been inviting people to join in with her project sketching

 with a ruling pen on fabric. I haven't joined in but it has been interesting to see the

 results.This week she extolled the virtues of the Rapidograph pen and reminded me

 that I had one some twenty years ago. I spend many hours finding it, working out

 how to put it together and finaling cleaning the nib,which involved shower gel and a beading needle. Imagine my thrill when today, after a long soak it worked.

 So this is for Melanie(see my links).

I know this post is set out very strangely. Blogger is having a

strange afternoon, and I have given up trying to set it out more neatly.

Inspiration from Ethnic Textiles

As some of you may know, I just started running a workshop at The National Needlework Archive based at Greenham Common. The plan has been that over five weeks we will use my collection of Ethnic Textiles as inspiration to design an embroidered panel. The idea has not been to copy the textiles, including mud cloths, Kantha pieces and Indian hangings, but rather to use them as a jumping off point for original designs.

I have worked alongside the participants, and started with a small counted thread piece which I brought back from Dubrovnik.

Initially each person chose a textile, used words to describe them before making some quick sketches.

We then worked with twigs, sponges, feathers etc. making marks using Indian Ink.

The next session was used to colour varied papers, such as brown paper, greaseproof, magazine pages etc... We then looked at ways of making stamps to transfer the designs from the initial doodles and mark making.
This is my final design.

In one session we looked at working with Shisha both in traditional and non traditional ways. I decided to incorporate my working examples in the stitched piece.

This is how far I have progressed. The course has two more weeks to go, and all being well I would like to offer it again in the Spring.

What are you doing with your old Envelopes?

I know that people have been saving the varied papers from the insides of envelopes for quite some time and a while back I posted about a photo book I had made from old envelopes.  I still have a large‘collection’ and continue to find them useful.

This is a sketch of the view from my window and one interpreted in ink and stitch using envelope paper.

Ro Bruhn has done some lovely paintings using her old envelopes, take a look at her post for 30th September and she may inspire you. This is one of mine on a journal page with a monoprint in the window made on magazine paper.

'Hens Teeth' on Flickr has done some of my favourite  monoprints using the cellophane windows in envelopes.

Recently I found Carrie Holder's blog; she does some interesting experimental work and this is a link to her blog where she shows some of  her work using envelopes.  I’m sure you have come across loads of different ways of using envelopes on blogs or Flickr. Leave a link in your comments and others can go and have a look.

Here is a link suggested by Jackie the Prepaid Envelope Art Group on Flickr.

Pattern and a book

On Friday I went for the second session of the Contemporary Textile Workshop which I am going to for six sessions during the academic year. There were a number of design exercises using a piece of fruit or a vegetable. I must tell you that I was very late having missed the train due to my bus being half an hour late. I don’t cope well with being late as I am usually a' first there too early type’. It completely put me off for the first exercises, but I was ok later and enjoyed the afternoon exercise. I had no idea that Klimt was our inspiration, having missed the introduction, but enjoyed looking at his wonderful pictures full of pattern during the lunch break.

Basically the exercise in the afternoon consisted of making a sandwich of coloured papers and cutting through the layers, and then rejoining them. Confusing but worthhwile for the unexpected results. I don’t have any plans to use the resulting designs at the moment, but it would be an exercise worth repeating with other images.

I made a little book using some of the waxed paper experiments for the cover. Thank you all for the various suggestions about using wax. I am continuing with the experiments on paper.