melting polythene.

Chapter 8 uses plastic materials fused together to create new surfaces i haven't photographed my collection of plastic but it was a mixture of shopping bags, plastic bags, ink cartridge bags and plastic file edges. i have taken Jane's influence and used a bottle top to show scale.

a silver plastic bag with punched holes. i stitched through some of the holes with a metal wire which obviously heated up and melted through the plastic.

testing with strips of polythene to fuse onto a base layer.

the sample on the left is made with a clear plastic bag and strips of plastic and paper encapsulated. stitch has been added. the sample on the right has been made from a strip cut from the left sample enclosed between 'Athena' plastic bag.

this is quite a thick piece. an opaque bag with clear plastic in between. the black is produced from acrylic paint on the inner layer.

more stripes taken from the sample in # 4 above.

utilising the handle hole.

detail of above.

strips of polythene sewn into black plastic. hand stitch added after to emphasise the black plastic strips.

 

this was a piece i made for my first 'Personal Assessment piece' with some plastic strips sewn through and then re-melted. for anyone who reads this and hasn't seen my PAP this was achieved with strips of plastic, knitted and then melted under tension.

garlic plastic bag with clear encapsulated strips added.

more strips cut and attached to a black carrier bag where the handle hadn't been fully removed. stitch was added and then the areas between cut out and re-melted.

as part of this chapter a resolved sample was asked for. i have done a few 'drawings' in my sketchbook based on more Aleut/Unangan textiles and chose one of these to follow into plastic.

resolved inspiration.

silver plastic bag with punched holes, sewn plastic strips, spray paint and strips cut and fused. stitch added after.

 

More knitting!

continuing on from the last post these are the less conventional pieces! #11 was knitted silver wire, knitted plastic bag, the two fused together with a hot iron then cut up and free machined together with water soluble fabric(11cm x 8cm). not sure about the colour; the plastic bag was a beautiful purple/pink but white on the inside.
#12 in true graffiti style i thought of yarn bombing! and french knitting lends itself very well to this. the piece in the middle has been pulled over a twirly whirly drinking straw (22cm long). i've been french knitting with fishing line for a long time mainly for jewelry pieces but the two pieces on the left are experiments, top using paper pulp and the lower adding pieces of cut up metal cans made into 'sequins'. the piece on the right i started as a double sided fabric but gave up as it was rather difficult with the fishing line, so i pulled it off the needles and left it and i love it just as it is!
#13 more paper and shaping. the lower section in home made newspaper yarn and the top in flat paper yarn (9cm x 5cm).
#14 worked on size 20mm needles and worked with a handful of machine threads as one in a large braid with the needle woven through the gaps.
#15 i discovered some stretchy fishing line the other day which i knitted in a 'lace faggot chain' from Mary Thomas and then pinned out. it has potential but is very strong! perhaps stretch elastic might be better but the fluorescent orange caught my eye.
#16 tried some felted knitting with cut out shapes and more melted knitted plastic bag fused onto the reverse. didn't quite turn out as expected although i think it could be thought about further. the colours are good though.
#17 when i was doing my certificate we were each given an item from a charity shop to 'turn into something else' mine was a shirt but that's another story! so i thought it would be interesting to try this idea with a knitted item, cut it up and re knit it. hence the M&S tie above. it had a few moth holes in it so i didn't mind cutting it.
#18 this is what i have so far but probably won't take it any further. its interesting to see how it is retaining the shape of the tie but obviously it can't be used any more!!
thought i would include dear Marilyn even though i knitted her more years ago than i would like to admit! so she's not really part of this chapter but somewhat graffiti like! she's about 47cm high. and so now onwards to the resolved knitted piece which i am working on now.

3D - i think i need help!

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.