Rabbit Bones

Mark making to get myself out of the doldrums led to this little piece, 9.5 inches square, which kept me occupied for most of the week.

 It is initially embellished rusted bandage and silk onto a commercial felt background with a centre of waxed and discharged fabric.

 I did more embellishing, couching and hand stitching and generally just had fun with it. I even used some glitz in the form of a copper metallic thread.

 In order to make the little ‘Os’ I had to go back to my own video for the Stitched Workshops to remind myself how to work them!

I'm looking forward to a trip to The Knit and Stitch Show in the next couple of weeks,  to seeing new work and finding new enthusiasms.
(Click for a closer view).

More September Marks

My posts are becoming more and more wordless. Everything feels a bit blocked at the moment. Today I did some mark making just to work on something, and here are some images produced. Wax and bleach discharge.

 I do have some Jacquard Discharge Paste, but having tried it once again recently, I have decided I just cannot stand the smell. It is one for the rubbish bin. I don't like the smell of bleach either but it is far less unpleasant.

 By the way, and I am sure that as sensible people I don't have to warn you not to try this, but I did; I tried discharge paste on a sketchbook page, completely forgetting that I had previously stuck in an encaustic image -- ironing the page, as you can well imagine, made a terrible mess of the wax on the previous  page. Funny in retrospect.

Pattern from Ethnic Embroideries.

Trying to keep awake today, for some reason I really only feel like sleeping. Despite that I have been practising a bit of pattern making for a U3A course I am running next week.

 We will be developing a design from ethnic embroideries and then going on to do some shisha work.

 What struck me most was the contrast of tufted areas with geometric patterns and neat areas of straight satin type stitch. I made a print block using this idea of contrast.

An Italian online journal has featured some images of my work. The journal is  all about pattern and prints so worth taking a look at the editor’s selections here.

September Marks

 Here are a few pictures of some of the fabric I have piled up waiting for inspiration to use one day soon. 

They are a mix up of wax, discharge, acrylic, tea, rust and lots of messy fun on the way.

Some small embellished 'cushions' and bandage waiting for the right moment.

We had a lovely sunny weekend in Leamington Spa. Here is a link to a blog about a lovely little shop  in Leamington with lots of interesting bits and pieces that you usually don’t see other than on the internet i.e. Washi tape. Don’t know when I will get round to using it but I had to have some; I did resist the toy cameras, but only just.

Welcome to new followers that I have not been able to get back to.

Completed Nuno Felt

This small piece of felt, which measure 8.5 by 5.5 inches, is now finished, other than perhaps deciding how to display it. I have used merino wool tops on a muslin base.

 Embellishing, with machine and a little hand stitching added. I like the colours, it is quite tactile and I am particularly pleased with the edges, which don’t really show up properly in the photos, close up you can see the tiny threads of muslin which appear after embellishing.

Thanks for your comments on the slideshow, sorry Margaret that I could not get back to you 'personally'.

It will be the last week of my drawing class tomorrow. The discipline of sitting and drawing for two hours has been good. Something I would find difficult to achieve at home. I had to add a piece of paper at the top to get the handle in; my sheet of paper never seems to be big enough!

Nuno Felt

Experiments with the Embellisher.

August 2012

Enjoyed my drawing class this week, drawing the wooden manikin used for body proportions, not sure if it has a proper name.

 I was given the idea by DMTV to try the drawing as a lino-cut. I have done some lino cuts before both at home and at City Lit where we did a reduction cut and used the press to print.

 My attempts at home have been handicapped by the fact that my tools came from a charity shop a long time ago. When I went to an open evening at St Brides Foundation I was really impressed by the detailed images that can be obtained and realized my blunt tools were a poor substitute for good tools. There was also a wood engraver there and his work was truly amazing.

Trial run in my sketchbook.

More cut away.

 Still that is what I have at the moment and being impulsive decided to have a go with them. If you would like to see some examples of the real thing take a look at this website.

Forgot to mention that these are printed with acrylic plus Open Medium on low immersion procion dyed cotton.

Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit

Just playing around over here.

Paper and digital collage.

Don't forget that you can click on images for a better view  - I know that I usually forget.

August 2012

A little of the stash of work currently on my wall in August.

I started my drawing class and after some initial uncertainties, I enjoyed working on some still life,ie old boots.

I had a sudden awakening this morning to the noise of a hot air burner which I recognised as the noise from a hot air balloon. I managed to get myself up at about 5am thinking it would be somewhere in the distance, but as you can see it was a little nearer, in fact just by my garage.

Fortunately there is a field a few yards in front so hopefully it landed there safely, I went back to bed!

Black Bones

Just a few pictures of ‘black bones’; after deciding to use it to experiment a bit more there were some better moments. Unfortunately my trusty Pfaff decided to play up. I think the problem was thread caught in the tension disc and hopefully it is now sorted with the help of a £20 note.

 Perhaps I will end up being drastic with this piece and cutting it up and starting again - I did get quite bold, slashed it in places and then embellished some muslin/bandage in the gaps! I also punched a few holes.

I am starting a summer drawing class locally for five weeks next week, depending on class numbers being sufficient, which will hopefully  help to refresh my drawing skills.

Thank you to all for your recent encouragement.

You need to click on the photos for more detail as my template does not allow larger photos.

Bones

Working on this piece with printed images of bones, a bit frustrating at the moment as I don’t really feel I like it. Some moments I think this will be OK but not when I see it from a distance. I think deep down one usually knows when something is working. I decided today to just play around with it and try and have fun, and that approach has helped. Let’s face facts, it doesn't really matter to anyone but me.

Sketchbook page:-

I am working on black commercial felt, with painted fabric and, of course, a touch of bandage.

I hope some of you had a look at Art Click TV as I thoroughly enjoyed two of their free videos and hope they will continue with the experiment in the future.

I am really enjoying looking at the work on this site, and finding it both inspiring and daunting in its wonderful simplicity and authenticity. It is the work of Alice Fox who is currently artist in residence at Spurn Point.

Change again.

I have been busy over the last few weeks with a new project, one of those you have to keep under wraps for a while, and with, more importantly, a son’s wedding. Now I have chance to return to the Change, Transform, Disintegrate project. I remember showing some of this, i.e. the buttons whilst in progress and it is still in progress, but now I think not much more to do.

 This is worked on a piece of felt made with merino wool tops and some quite shaggy fleece which I was given and washed and prepared myself.

 I think it has the look of rabbit skin. So some felting, some embellishing and hand stitch. More stitching needed to complete it.

Way back in May this year Margaret Applin of' Scrap, Wisdom, Collage 'surprised me with a post about my little self-published blub book which she had been kind enough to buy. Here, belatedly, is a link to her blog and the post about it. You can learn a lot about using thermo fax screens from her blog.

I like the new light-box feature on Blogger which means that you can click on a photo to see it enlarged;especially as my template means that it is often difficult to show a nice large close-up.