Merry Christmas

wishing all of my fellow bloggers and Distant Stitchers a very merry christmas and a wonderful New Year with a big thank you to all who have left encouraging comments and may Santa bring you all you wish for! See you in the new Year.

Messing around with glop

Chapter 4 'relief surfaces with starch paste'. the aim was to make a range of patterns observed in Opus Anglicanum. i had never used this method before so i decided to make some flour and water paste, ending up with a few lumps and a burnt bottom! but quite pleased with the result. i mixed the paste with a mixture of Brusho powder paint and printing ink in green, purple and turquiose. #one above (i have worked out how to add text using photoshop!) was actually one of the last i did, hence the mixture of colours. after the first layer of combed/scraped glop, i let it dry and added another layer. after they were dry metallic effects were added using a combination of materials mainly in silver, green, blues and tarnished silver colours. it was amazing how thickly the glop was needed in order to give a raised effect when dry! the pieces are all on A5 paper. #one has Markel oil stick, metallic wax crayon and glitter applied.
#two i have used silver leaf splodges, metallic gel pens and Easter egg wrapper stuck to it.
#three markel oil sticks and gel pens.
#four has metallic wax crayons, trans foils and markel oil stick.
# seven uses markel oil stick, metallic wax crayon and crayola sequin paint which i had left over from my son's bedroom!
#eight i think i am addicted to the markel oil paints! oh and glitter
#nine again more of all the above.
#eleven colouring in stripes with metallic gel pens.
#twelve my art deco piece.
#fourteen my ultra sound piece! with added swirls of markel and wax crayons.
#fifteen more markel silver.i had great fun doing these, although somewhat messy!

Leaf graffiti and plastic bags

have you ever noticed the wonderful shapes left by leaves at this time of year? the pavement has to be just the right kind of surface for an impression to be made, just like the plastic bags i am using for my 3D lights! i spent quite a while sourcing a white plastic bag for my samples, cut into approximately .5cm wide strips, knitted and then melted! did i have enough for the whole project? of course not! several plastic bags later and not the right kind! the newer 'compostable and biodegradable' kind do not work as well as ones with i think more oil in them! i have finally sourced one from 'the works' and thanks to my son who wanted an A2 drawing pad it is large. never one to do things the easy way and after 7 hours of tv watching i now have a wonderful 'heap' of cut up continuous strip and repetative strain injury in my shoulder. will i have to go back to 'The works' again? probably, so you know what i will be doing over Christmas!

An interesting addition

i have just watched this clip from Ele Carpenter and her 'Open Source' exhibition. She explains very clearly a fantastic concept.

3d monster lights (samples)

i have not been idle with my 3D samples and at last i feel i am getting somewhere,or at least I am happy, i will see what Sian says! anyway to recap, the proposal is to make a series of small/life size 'cans' that can hold LED tea lights. i have been thinking along the lines of 3 or 5, no reason for the numbers although i think 5 would make a good line up.
initially i started by getting the lid shape i wanted; the ears will slot in along the top seam.
it took quite a long time to get the shape i was happy with, firstly working out with paper and then using a foam shape for stability.
the actual lid/head will i hope be made from various layers of plastic stitched together with a metallic thread to indicate lines taken by graffiti artists. the seam was sewn with a clear nylon thread, over sewn and then the seam flattened out. the ends will have 'tags' attached to them. above on the left side the ends have been dipped in silver sealing wax.
on the other side above i have dipped the ends in paper pulp.
for the mouth and eyes i have done some samples of free machining on soluble fabric. the mouth is about 3cm wide.
for the main body my plan was to impregnate cotton organdie with a paper pulp. the pulp was made using recycled paper. my initial samples were on white organdie which i wasn't happy with. so i decided to stencil the organdie first.
first sample above i was not happy with as the pulp was too thick.
next sample i was a bit happier with as the pulp was nearer to how i wanted it. however i was still not 100% happy and the pulp had a tendency to peel off the organdie.
i then started out on a tangent! which i am really pleased with. one of the reasons i like graffiti is the lace like quality of various tags so i started experimenting with knitted and melted plastic bags.
this has given me a perfect substrate for my paper pulp and although the holes are quite structured they are random enough.
my plan is to start with a complete substrate on the first light and gradually i will remove areas based on a stencilled tag. when i dipped the plastic in the pulp and turned it over i had placed it on a plastic surface which when i pulled it off the pulp pulled upwards from the knitting. this was originally the reverse but i love the way this gives a raised surface to the pulp. i tried colouring an area but felt that i liked the white surface which will have glitter in the pulp, like a wall surface ready for spraying.
finally going back to an earlier sample of a paint streak i have applied a similar 'streak' to the sample. it curves beautifully around a can. i intend to add the paint streak to each 'can' so when they stand together it appears as one streak! i am hoping i can go ahead and make them up, my husband would like the paper pulp out of the fridge by Christmas?!