A little bit more textile art.

 At our Christmas windup in 2020 my textile group was given a gift pack of fabrics, beads and ribbon. The colours in the pack inspired me immediately and I thought it would make a great book. We were then challenged to make something over the break and bring it to our first meeting in February. I took it home intending to make a small pocket sized book of about 6 pages with hand stitching. 

I went through my stash looking for something to use as the main subject for my little book. I came across a pile of sample screen prints that I had done for a class I was teaching several years ago.  I decided to make my book using them. The main print I wanted to use was about A5 size so my little book grew into something larger. I added a few extra fabrics from my stash that went with the ones I had been given. I also included a few fabrics of my granddaughter's paintings that I had scanned and printed at home because they colour matched the rest. 

 This is the book cover and the first screen print that decided how the whole project would look. The flower sequins were part of the gift pack.

 The inside cover.

 

 The first page

I added quotes to the pages by printing on paper then later ironing interfacing to the back to make them stronger. They were glued to the page then secured with stitching. I love the way this came together and it was quick as I only added a bit of hand stitching to secure the fabrics. Some machine stitching was used as well to add variety to the stitched mark.

What have I been up to?

 This past year has been strange for the whole world. Some of my arty friends around the globe have not been creative at all and others have become extra creative during these stressful times. I have fallen into the latter category and kept myself very busy. 

I intended to do a lot more journaling and painting last year so signed up for Paint your Heart and Soul at the end of 2019. It was a year long weekly art course starting in January. I have done about 30 or so lessons so far and thoroughly enjoyed getting back into painting. Access continues so I will complete the rest of the class during this year. These are some of the paintings I have photographed so far. 

As always click on the photos to see them larger.

 As you can see there was a large variety of techniques, mediums and subjects in the course. It was well worth the money to join. The link is https://olgafurmanart.com/ if you wish to sign up for this year. 

During our lockdown stage I also decided to join the Textile Artist Stitch Challenge so I had stitching to do at night. It was 6 weeks of lessons from some UK textile artists. These are the lessons I did.

Week 1 was to use a simple stitch 4 ways. I did 2 other examples of this exercise after being inspired by other people doing the challenge.

Week 2 was a textile collage. I chose to use items from my stash for this exercise. Again I did an extra collage. 

Week 3 was an outline stitching exercise and the subject matter was an eye. I thought drawing and stitching one eye was not an interesting topic so I used one of my bird photos and stitched that instead. 

Week 4 was to make a couching sampler using a simple shape like a circle. I chose to use a leaf shape but did both sides of the leaf differently.

Week 5 was to make a shadow outline of a stick. I nearly didn't do this one as the stick idea was odd to me. I found an interesting stick so chose to do it but made it more arty with a border.

I loved the way it turned out and while stitching this picture I got an idea to do the next one when I saw my threads on the table in front of me. 

This is my favourite piece from the challenge.

Week 6 was a stitched folk art design. I did two versions, the first one was completed with hand stitching then machine stitched on top.

The second one was machine stitched first then hand embroidery was added later. 

The final extra week was to use straight lines to make curves.

It was an inspiring challenge and because it was only for 7 weeks it was a good distraction in the early stages of COVID19. The first week suggested using linen to stitch on so you could use the lines to make your sample neat. I decided that I was never going to cross stitch again so I might as well use those precious materials I had saved since the 80s. I was glad they were finally being used. I did all the exercises the same size so I could put them into a book. 

 

The cover was a tissue paper print of one of my watercolour flower paintings.

The inside front cover was a gelatin print on hessian (burlap) I did many years ago. I added stitching in the blank areas of the print.

The inside back cover has paper clay that was stamped and when dry, painted. I added both machine and hand stitching. 

The back cover is a piece of glossy cardstock that I painted with metallic acrylics for an art journal project. The glossy layer peeled off the cardboard as it dried so it was like a painted film. At the time it was a disaster but I saved the top layer as it looked interesting and now it has found a home in my textile art. 

 

In an unexpected way this simple challenge has changed my approach to my art. After using those saved linens for this challenge I decided to clean out my sewing room. I went through every cupboard and  box, donating most of my fabrics to charity. I only saved a few of the ones I thought I would use as I don't intend on dressmaking very often. Quite a few fabrics seemed dated anyway so I would never have used them. I also found a lot of items that I had forgotten about. 

 

After reorganising I started to use items from my stash to make textile art. Now I have done 2 and a half different projects using only items from my stash. A lot of saved items are finally finding new arty homes. More on that will follow in future posts. I will also be sharing a lot of painted or drawn art as well. I told you I had kept busy!

 

Stay safe and creative wherever you are in the world.

Wowbook 4

 Wowbook 4 was published in June 2019 and I did a few of the workshops that were in it. I love how many different techniques and ideas there are in the WOW books.  You can find them at wowbook.d4daisy.com . I think they are good value when you also join the members area for that book as there are always extra workshops (usually 4 or 5) there.

This aerial piece was inspired by a Maggie Grey workshop. I went in a different direction when my original piece was not working out. When my husband and I flew across Australia last year we had sunny weather so could actually see the landscape below for a change. I was amazed by all the different coloured lakes we could see in South Western Australia. 

This concertina book was a workshop by Amanda Hislop. There was a lot of printing on different papers using several methods. It was then compiled into a picture that could be machine stitched. 

You can see the detail of the stitching on the reverse.

This piece is my version of the Kathleen Laurel Sage workshop using plastic. Everything was painted on plastic then cut out and stitched to a fabric background. I used some prints I made for the background. I took 2 photos because the shiny plastic reflections hid some of the detail. 

These two were made using prints of photos as demonstrated by Sandra Meech's workshop. The black and white version was extended beyond the paper onto a fabric background to make it bigger. Neither landscape is real but pieces of images put together to make a picture.

 This was a workshop by Wendy Dolan. It was designed to show you how to use a building or other object to design a piece. I chose to use photos I took of the Natural History Museum in London for my inspiration. The flowers are a stained glass window there, the odd sized bricks and wrought iron designs are from the exterior and gates. I enjoyed this workshop a lot as design is one of my main focuses in art.

My next piece was meant to be done with Solarfast dyes but it was winter when I tried this and they didn't really work so I took a shortcut and printed the fabrics using my computer. I used photos of my house and garden for all the images and printed them in blue to resemble the same effect you would get with the dye. I will be trying this again in summer using the dyes again. Fingers crossed it works...

Keeping busy last year.

 It has been a lot longer since I last blogged than I thought it would be. I enjoyed my trip to the UK and saw a lot of art while in London. Sadly I think it will be a long time before I get to travel overseas again. I also did two other trips with my husband within Australia and a lot of textile workshops with international artists. 

 I made these two 15 x 15cm pieces for a fundraising auction at Fibres West. One was an experiment of painting on metal mesh and the other was a doodle design with transferred photos of leaves.

I painted watercolour ground on the metal then used watercolour paints for the flower and leaves. I machine stitched on the metal shim border and added a hanging chain.

First was a residential week long textile art course with Alysn Midgelow-Marsden at Fibres West where we experimented with metal fabric.This was an exercise we did.

I have since used the samples we created, as well as some extra experiments I did when I got home, to make these book covers. 

 

The local embroiderers guild had a conference to celebrate their 75th birthday and I did 2 workshops with Kathryn Harmer Fox 

 

 

Our textile group organised another weekend workshop with Alison Holt. My piece was very small but I intend to do some bigger ones now that I understand the techniques.

 My textile group did a challenge for our display at the craft fair where the theme was "Words". This could be interpreted in many ways. Here are my three pieces. 

 It was a busy year. I will share more in my next post which will be shortly.