i hope you're not all bored with the subject of snow but we have it too now! and of course the school has closed so i have been home working on my 3D project whilst the mad banshee that was my son has been out in the thick of it enjoying himself. i would have had a photo of the snow man he helped build but it wasn't the cleanest, what with leaves and bits of mud so this will have to do, our neighbours discarded Christmas tree.
Well, Happy New Year to all! Just waiting to take all the decorations down now. we have had a very relaxed and over indulged xmas and new year. this Christmas has been a momentous one for it's the first time i have ever super glued my fingers together! only a small spot but extremely painful and i had to get the scalpel out to release myself from myself! it wasn't as if it was something for me; i was sticking together a Warhammer model for my son! what with him using super-glue and spray undercoat and myself trying to continue with my 3D lights and melting plastic, my husband said he should have got us a fume chamber for Christmas instead of anything else. if i was at work i would have had to fill in umpteen COSHH (Care of Substances Hazardous to Health)forms by now; it is amazing what abuse goes on in the home!!!! this is not to say that i am not taking care.
anyway there was time for relaxing and being cruel to the cat! (what is it with bloggers and their cats?). Bunny the cat here sporting a new collar courtesy of Smarties and looking very much like the Christmas tree lights! the other land mark this Christmas was my son's 10th birthday so now he can go to the Games Workshop all by himself and spend hours painting his Warhammer figures and battling. it hardly seems 10 years ago when we brought him home from the hospital looking incredibly like my 90 year old father! Ah well time flies. will get back into the swing of things soon.
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.
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!
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!
just a few images of the piece of Shi Sha work i am studying. 
i have fallen in love with the above stitch called Kutch work, based on foundation threads with other threads woven through.you could go on forever building shapes.
everything is so colourful, even when faded but i have played around with some of the photos!
i went a bit mad with this one.
i love the way some of the pieces are worked on printed textiles that bear no relation to the embroidery.
after i got the 'go ahead' for my 3D lights, i have been going at full steam. i wanted, or at least 'he who cooks' wanted my paper pulp out of the fridge by Christmas. so this is how i made the light bodies. white plastic bags cut up into continuous thin strips, then knitted with large needles.
i did various samples to work out size for the finished piece to go around my spray can forms.
once knitted they were pinned onto baking parchment and ironed through baking parchment to set.
image 4 shows all 5 layers together before the paper pulp was added. i thought they had potential for future work!
once they were set the wet paper pulp was applied. when dry i felt i had been very heavy handed with the pulp, so i rinsed it all off and re-did it with much thinner pulp. once dry i re-wet slightly and sprayed a black line onto each piece so when the cans were placed together they looked like one continuous wavy line but with each can having its own continuous line. the re-wetting helped to form the pieces around the cans.
image 6 shows one after it was dry and released from its can form. still not happy!!!!!!
so i went back to the plastic. i am becoming an authority on plastic bags! my husband is beginning to get worried because i keep feeling plastic bags in shops! any way i decided i wanted a more transparent effect and much less pulp. the bags i finally chose are a sandwich bag with dark blue lettering which when knitted and melted give an interesting pattern. i am really pleased with them. image 7 shows all 5.
so to the lids and i think this is where my problem is or not! in the end i made the lids as i had suggested but the clear layers of plastic i was going to use seemed too 'clean'. i heat set my layers together instead and the result i am really pleased with, i like the ragged edges and the 'material' i have formed. image 8 shows one lid. eventually after a few trials with different types of eyes and mouths i decided to machine stitch them onto the plastic and cut the eyes out. each one is an individual and has been altered slightly and because each section is formed as a separate piece they are not uniform. 
now here is where my problem lies, or does it? i think originally i was intending to have lids that fitted tightly over the bases but these do not because they are not completely dome shaped. they sit on top. the problem is i like them as they are but do they look ok? should the bases be all the same height? or vary? i did try making some 2d 'lids' but came back to these.
they also work by themselves (i think) as smaller forms.
as to the lighting i have thought of many different types such as 'tea lights', glow sticks and eventually LED lights. my intention is to have a different colour in each 'can' using the graffiti colours there instead of the pristine whiteness of the forms. like a blank piece of paper/wall.
the lights are in the lids which work well as it lights the head and still lights the base to give the effect i wanted to achieve.if the heads are separated then more lights can be suspended in the bases which gives more of a lacy light effect. i hope i have made myself clear! the remains of the pulp is still in the fridge but i hope i don't need it again!! in the course of this project i have come across two amazing artists who work with paper, Annie Vought and Susan Warner Keene, check them out.
i hope you're not all bored with the subject of snow but we have it too now! and of course the school has closed so i have been home working on my 3D project whilst the mad banshee that was my son has been out in the thick of it enjoying himself. i would have had a photo of the snow man he helped build but it wasn't the cleanest, what with leaves and bits of mud so this will have to do, our neighbours discarded Christmas tree.
Well, Happy New Year to all! Just waiting to take all the decorations down now. we have had a very relaxed and over indulged xmas and new year. this Christmas has been a momentous one for it's the first time i have ever super glued my fingers together! only a small spot but extremely painful and i had to get the scalpel out to release myself from myself! it wasn't as if it was something for me; i was sticking together a Warhammer model for my son! what with him using super-glue and spray undercoat and myself trying to continue with my 3D lights and melting plastic, my husband said he should have got us a fume chamber for Christmas instead of anything else. if i was at work i would have had to fill in umpteen COSHH (Care of Substances Hazardous to Health)forms by now; it is amazing what abuse goes on in the home!!!! this is not to say that i am not taking care.
anyway there was time for relaxing and being cruel to the cat! (what is it with bloggers and their cats?). Bunny the cat here sporting a new collar courtesy of Smarties and looking very much like the Christmas tree lights! the other land mark this Christmas was my son's 10th birthday so now he can go to the Games Workshop all by himself and spend hours painting his Warhammer figures and battling. it hardly seems 10 years ago when we brought him home from the hospital looking incredibly like my 90 year old father! Ah well time flies. will get back into the swing of things soon.
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.
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!
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!
