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.

 

Beads and Quillwork

Chapter 6 is all about beads, collecting, making and using.

these are some found items that could be used for beads, toy gun caps, washers from umbrella making, metal work etc. I have coloured them with black spray paint in varying quantities.

i made some beads from paper pulp and then painted them. lower 'bead' is made from a bottle top mould so you can see the scale. the ones with the crosses on are from a chocolate box container and i must admit i got carried away with these so i have made rather a lot! the smaller ones are from cell battery packaging. i remembered and for these i made the pulp very fine.

i then tried making some beads with shrink plastic, coloured with felt tip and liquid graphite!the stitching is worked with horsehair.

these are the pieces after shrinkage with some additions and some wire beads. the brass bead is worked with french knitting and is less than a centimetre long. the liqiuid graphite crystallised when it was heated which has made it glisten. in some ways i prefer the beads pre shrinking!

some rolled beads, so from far right clockwise, rolled 'fimo' beads the white ones are glow in the dark, then some paper rolled and dipped in resin, perforated paper strip wound around and sprayed black, rolled and melted plastic, drinks can metal, oxidised wire mesh, knitted plastic that has been melted and rolled and finally rusted papers.

threaded bead work which i have never done before was great fun. i made a pattern loosely based on the gun cap and worked the bottom right piece in 'square stitch' with fine nylon thread. the piece to the left is loom woven, still on the loom because i might do some more and not sure how to finish off the warps! the warps are linen and the thread looping the beads through is guttermann sewing thread. the beads are tiny seed beads.

i stitched the first sample to a paper i had made in a previous chapter.

i then added some paper beads which i stuck in place.

as an antidote to the structured beads above i did some random crochet with made and found beads.

 

the thread used was fishing line

 Now for some quillwork.

this was great fun too. i used a mixture of paper, metal and plastic for the quill. its difficult not to do straight lines but i did try and vary it. there are far more stitches that can be done than i have done here! bottom right is worked with a drinking straw and staples.

 

the quillwork 'rosette' was quite tricky as the central thread only goes through the surface once as it it more of a pull loop linking everything together, so when you work it you are juggling with the bits in the middle flapping in the air until its all done around the outside and you can pull the drawstring; then of course you run out of strip halfway round and have to keep the tension going!

 i was greatly aided in this venture by: 
'The Technique of Porcupine Quill Decoration among the Indians of North America' by William C. Orchard, Eagles View Publishing, 1984.

'Quill and Beadwork of the Western Sioux' by Carrie A. Lyford, R.Schneider Publishers, 1983.

They both have excellent diagrams.
My favourite place to get fine beads is J.G.Beads Ltd. They have a wonderful selection of Japanese made beads.

Totems

Chapter 5 is all about creating a totem. i thought i would look up the definition which said, 'a being, object or symbol representing an animal or plant that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan or tribe reminding them of their ancestry or mythic past'. it can also be a personal spirit helper. i looked back over my past modules and the thing that came out strongly was my use of and liking of repetitive items. i came across this image of 'Crayola' totems which made me laugh.

i was very keen to revisit the face/head shapes i had worked on in a previous module.

heads and faces are very much a part of graffiti which is my research project and i wanted to make something and use materials that i feel are me and where i have got to now! i also looked back on an image i took at the beginning of the Diploma.

i remember Siân saying she saw eyes in the wire mesh.

 and recently i came across this image which reminded me of the above image.

Barbara Hepworth by Ida Kar

so i was very keen to use wire shapes to capture the facial features.
my one worry was the brief which asked for them all to be linked in some way and i was very keen to have them all standing upright (stubborn).

my first attempts, left rusted paper with resin, middle recycled can and right, paper with self portrait print.

  i wasn't very pleased with my first attempts although looking back at them there might be something that could be used!

my next attempt was based on the right hand one above, using a wire frame with layers of paper stitched to it and then a final outer layer stuck over the top with PVA, essentially paper maché. they are 15cm high. i was keen to keep the self portrait!

here is my group so far, some are plain some are graphite (yes the liquid graphite i raved about on Facebook), some just wire and some are organdie.

detail, i have used horsehair to stitch through punched holes for the eyes and eyelashes.

i then placed then in a piece of plastic i found that has holes but they are only held in loosely.

then i took a few and secured them in a strip from a drinks can with holes.

i then took them and the plastic and put them in horizontally to hang up.

i got some great shadows.

the above horizontal ones reminded me of the lenses used by opticians. so these are my first attempts although i have more ideas and would like to try and link them into a circular necklace type thing but i thought i would get some feedback before i plunged in head first!

Chapter 4 Design pattern from an ethnic source

still with the Aleutian Islands, i took for my design source 3 similar pieces.

a mask representing the sun collected by Francoise Pinart in 1871, not Aleut but collected from Kodiak Island and there are quite a few similarities. 

the top of an Aleutian gut skin cap, National Museum of Finland

and another, national Museum of Finland

 i used to HATE circles and everything had to be linear or square (that must say something about me!) but i have gradually warmed to this shape. with these pieces i have used the shapes within the circles themselves to develop designs. firstly doing some general drawings.

drawing from the mask using Markal and chalk and fingers!

using graphite and the point of the stick playing with segments.

i then cut some stencils based on the cap segments, these worked with graphite, markal and chalk.

i then used black spray paint and 'deconstructed' the circles using the cut out segments to make further patterns.

pattern on the left using the pieces to create a random spiral, i also rearranged the pieces back into vaguely circular shapes and more conventional patterning.

i then went on to stitch, piece on left i think is like a thick tracing paper. i am smitten with rusting paper at the moment so have used this quite a bit. piece on the right is graphite stencilled shapes and cut shapes made translucent with 'water effects' resin. all stitching with horsehair.

some more bits similar. shoebox tissue, graphite and some stitch with peacock feathers.

and finally more random patterning! on a paper bag.

 i wasn't looking forward to this chapter but i have enjoyed getting to the final outcome.

Here we go, here we go!!!!

At last Chapter 3 'Transform and Personalise' took a while but here it is. the idea was to take materials from my stash and transform them using some unusual colourants. although the colourants i used were not so unconventional they were certainly messy!

i love this paper its a sandwich wrapper that is slightly glazed on one side.

 

1. creases made with a ruler then graphite and coal dust worked in.

more sandwich paper

2. More graphite, chalk and coal dust. chalk worked through a mesh of holes.

shoe box tissue

3.and more of the same, sample on the right has oil worked into it to make it transparent.

brown wrapping paper

4. using old type stamps with ink, turmeric, coal and oil with a strip of aqua wax at the top

brown paper and plastic

5. brown paper folded with metal pieces i found on the pavement by a bus stop and rusted with vinegar, i have then printed with coal dust in 'water effects' using creased sausage skin as a carrier. the piece of plastic is what was left from my rusting process, so it does work on plastic!

an old drawing and brown paper

6. i used an old drawing i wasn't happy with to work more rust and the lower sample was rusted with oil and ink blots added after.

aleut bird skin parka looks like ink blots

not quite recycled but i didn't buy it recently!

7. i was thinking of the transparency of gut and thought of devore! i still have some mix in my fridge from way back and as you can see it still worked! the sample on the left was soaked in turmeric before the process, again i was thinking of the bits that are put into the seams on gut parkas and i have a thing for the bits of paper that are left when you tear file paper off a sheet so used them as masks. sample on the right was stitched and gathered then printed with the gunk, dried and stitches removed.

Chinese character practise paper

8. more ink blots and sausage skin prints

scrap of note pad and old baking parchment

9. more inkblots with 'water effects' and coal etc

old bank envelope and calico

10. i made some egg tempera with coal dust and more shibori, the sample on the right was soaked in turmeric before, the stitching was removed after printing through a screen. i like the shiny quality of the tempera but not the smell! afterwards i was reading other recipes which mention putting something in to stop mould growth which i wish i had done considering how wet it is down here!

all in all this has been quite a smelly chapter, oil, coal dust, turmeric and egg pleased i didn't use compost. 

New Posting

There is a new post on my sister blog here at  'Aleut Embroidery'