TTF - colour - Part 1

In November, yes that long ago, I went to the first Taking Textiles Further workshop of the academic year. This year the theme is colour and one of the exercises we did was to randomly paint with two primary colours. I chose to use yellow and blue as it would mix to make green, a colour often found in landscapes. I painted the yellow and blue on A3 paper and with a postcard sized frame looked for 'landscapes' within it and it was surprising how many I found.

The first painting I made was with a warm yellow and blue.

There might even be more than 1 landscapes in these images.....

 

 

...and then I painted with a cool yellow and blue.

Some years ago I went on a collage workshop and only had pink paper left for the tree trunks, so my trees were pink! I really liked the image because of the pink trees, not despite them.

These abstract landscapes have reminded me of my pink tree collage because again I like the use of the 'unnatural' colours in the image. I'm inspired again to create some landscape pieces using unexpected colours but I don't think it'll be anytime soon. At the moment I seem to be generating design ideas, whilst creating textiles from designs I generated the previous year. It's not all bad, at least I have a store of ideas to dig into.

TTF Exhibition - Nearly there!

I have finished the last two pieces for the TTF exhibition at Art Van Go in November. Hurrah! Here is my cotton reels in the landscape piece, which I hope will be the first in a series of pieces depicting cotton reels in the landscape. I'm really quite excited about developing this theme. 

  

From the first in a series to the last in my gridy series. This piece has been on the stocks for some time, partly because of it's size which makes it less portable. It can be too easy to have your head (or fingers?) turned by your latest ideas and to leave older pieces in a corner but this exhibition has encouraged me to finish it. And I'm glad I have, The more I have stitched it, the fonder I have grown of it. 

 

Not everything is finished, I still have to add hanging devices and to write my personal statement and a few other bits & pieces.  Not to mention bake a cake for the 'Meet the Artists' event which is on 2nd November (2-4pm) and I hope to see some of you there. And never before as anyone needed to sort her threads and put them back to their rightful place as I do at the moment!

Landscape in the Cotton Reels

It's beautiful weather here today but I have spent quite a lot of  it inside in front of my PC. Next weekend is my 'Taking Textiles Further' course and I wanted to get some design work done so that I could discuss it with our tutor Janet Edmonds. There are only 3 of these weekends a year and the next one will probably not be until November, so you need to make the most of the opportunity.

In a previous post I showed how I was exploring the cotton reels in the landscape. Today I was exploring, landscapes in cotton reels! Firstly, I took a few cotton reels and randomly through them down on the some paper, took a photograph and traced round the outline of the reels.  I placed the tracing over some of my landscape photographs and thought it had potential, so continued to work with the idea digitally. Here's some of my results:
 

Photograph of a local Field

Bluebell wood

The images I was looking forward to using the most were of Dutch bulb fields but they didn't quite live up to my expectations.



Dutch bulb field

 So I made a pattern with it to see if that improved things.... but I don't think they did.

 

Conversely, I was surprised by how this image of a snowy road worked. It needs some tweaking but I feel it has potential.





 

Snowy road



So what next? Now that I'm clearer about what type of images make stronger designs, I will look through my landscape images again, just as soon as my (now) square eyes are back to normal. I would also like to explore different arrangements for my reels but still keep it simple and of course the different arrangements of reels will reveal different parts of the landscape. Eventually, I would like to stitch a piece, where the stitching in the trunk of the cotton reel is inspired by a landscape.

Taking Textiles Further - Feb 2013

At our last Taking Textiles Further (TTF) weekend, I continued to work with my collection of cotton reels. This time we worked with layers.  I took one of my images of cotton reels in the landscape, placed cotton reels on top, then suspended a layer of glass over them and then added more cotton reels on top of the glass.

I then drew from the layered structure, which was made more difficult by everything 'moving around' every time I shifted in my chair. Anyway, this is the pencil drawing I did from my layered cotton reels.

 

I then coloured in a photocopy and started to draw on top of the image but then wished that I hadn't drawn on top. 

 

  

or maybe you prefer it in a landscape format?

 

 

 

We then used canvas and thick threads to continue our design explorations. I have never enjoyed working with canvas and this time was no exception but I did like the affect I achieved by stitching with some of my dyed fabric. I think it's the randomness of the colours and the texture that I like.

What next? Well I won't be progressing the canvas work but it has provided inspiration for my fabric printing and with a bit more tweaking of the image it may inspire a new piece of work. 

Cotton reels in the landscape - TTF

Another challenge from the Taking Textiles Further (TTF) weekend was to think how I could link the cotton reels to my personal theme of landscapes. I admit that I was quite baffled by this thought initially and after a moment of inspiration/desperation (take your pick!) I googled 'cotton reels in the landscape' and all I needed was a reference to hay stacks and cotton reels to get my imagination going.  I then had a lot of fun digitally placing cotton reels in some of my landscape pictures. Here's what I came up with:

I couldn't leave it there, so I then drew, scratched and painted onto the photographs, which I think generated some interesting results.

I'm looking forward to the next TTF challenge in February. I think that my 'homework' has generated some ideas which I could take forward and I'm always pleased by that.

Drawing with Stitch - TTF

Another thing we did on the Taking Textiles Further (TTF) weekend was to stitch onto fabric, in the same way that you might draw onto paper.

The top and bottom rows were stitched directly from looking at a sections of my drawings and the middle row stitching from looking directly at the cotton reels themselves. I'm not sure where it takes me but I enjoyed doing it and I used yet another piece of unloved fabric. At this rate I could be up for a 'Recycler of  the Year' award!

Taking Textiles Further - December 2012

It's been a few weeks since I went to the Taking Textiles Further workshop with Janet Edmonds but I have only just got things in any shape to show you. This year Janet's theme is 'collections'. I chose to use a collection of cotton reels as my theme. A couple of other students in the class had also chosen cotton reels but I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise in a group of textile artists. It will be interesting to see how the work of the 'cotton reel girls' develop. Here is one of my starting points:

 

When I started to draw the cotton reels, I realised that it was going to be harder than I had bargained for. All those varying ellipses would require some studying and practising! This would take some time and so a plan B was required....tracing. I quickly traced the outlines of the cotton reels in such a manner that may be fooled (if you weren't familiar with my drawing skills!) into thinking that I had drawn them.  I then tried out a number of compositions. Here's a few from my sketch book.



 

We were asked to place our collections on a patterned background and to draw from the image and I used one of my gridy pieces of cloth as the background. I soon realised that a more simple approach was required and I reduced the number of cotton reels.

 



 

I have quite a large (yes you've guessed it!) gridy piece of cloth which is graduated in colour. It was suggested that I could consider incorporating a cotton reel design on top of the grids. I was very sceptical that this would work but some of the reasons I go to the class is to challenge my thinking, stop me getting in a rut and to try out ideas that I wouldn't otherwise try. So with the help of my computer here are some mock-up on paper.

It's been worthwhile trying out the idea/s as I am now far less sceptical and think it could possibly work. 

If you have any thoughts on the start of my design work for my cotton reel collection then I would love to hear from you. There's a few more ideas that I would like to try out prior to our next class in February and I'll keep you posted.

Taking Textiles Further May 12

I recently attended the 'Taking textiles Further' weekend, which is tutored by Janet Edmonds. It was the 3rd and final weekend on grids and also of the academic year. The weekend's theme was 3D.   

One of our starting points was to use the paper grids from our previous weekend. I had a particularly large grid which I threaded with some of my gridy fabric to secure into a 3D structure. The aim isn't to create a finished piece but rather to explore design ideas. It may inspire a 3D piece but equally a drawing from the 3D piece which could inspire a 2D design. 

The aim with this second piece (below) was to create a gridy piece held together with wire, which could be manipulated into a 3D piece. I wasn't sure where this was going. You may be able to see fragments of paper grid at the bottom of the piece and my learning point is to be more daring....try putting things together to see what happens. What have I got to lose? Who knows what ideas might come from it?

I manipulated the piece into a 3D form a drew a section of it. The drawing below was drawn with a 2B and 4B pencil wound together.  

A more conventional drawing method here but how else would I have come up with these shapes? 

I think that one of these pencil drawings could be a starting point for the next stage of my gridy cloth. More food for thought.