Project 4 and 5 extra experiment

Although project 4 and 5 are finished, I just had to add these 2 pictures. All the other techniques I have shown were techniques I have used before, but this one was a real experiment. My friend and I experimented with using gunpowder to create these results:

The first picture is of a piece of fabric, the second one is on paper. In both cases leaves acted as masks. Last year when we visited Art-a-whirl there was an artist who sold very interesting canvasses. When we talked with her, she told us, that she used gunpowder to create the images. A Google search lead to a YouTube movie which showed a Chinese artist working with gunpowder as well. This was the only information we were able to find, but the idea of experimenting with gunpowder was still on our to do list. No idea where I could get - or better said: if I could get hold of - gunpowder in the Netherlands, but I am in the US at the moment and it is easy to buy here.
To protect the driveway - and have a base to work on - we placed a piece of countertop on the driveway. Taped the fabric and paper on it (it was windy), placed leaves on top of this, sprinkled gunpowder on it, covered it with some cardboard and set it afire. How much gunpowder was needed, was a matter of trial and error. The pictures are from the second and third attempt.
If you want to try out this experiment as well, be careful with it. Make certain that you have open space around you, a bucket of water close by and no children or pets around. Don't know whether I will experiment with this again, although I have to say the results are great :-)

Project 4, Stage 5, Template and mask printing

Here are some exampls of using templates and mask on both fabric as well as paper. For the first sample I used a freezer paper template and Decoularant spray. I like this spray better than bleach, although the smell is worse. The fabric is a handdyed piece on which I ironed the template, sprayed it, let it dry and ironed it.

 This green fabric is a sunprint using grasses as templates. The fabric was pinned on a board, painted with diluted Setacolors and grasses were added. After a couple of hours in the sunshine it looked like this:

 This picture is of a quilt I am working on - have to make another sample for my sketchbook. I placed foamies on a piece of fabric and applied paintstick to the fabric using an old toothbrush.

 Again paintsticks, but this time on a piece of paper. My template was a torn strip of paper. By applying paintstick to the paper - this time using my finger - and replacing the template I got these results:

Project 4, Stage 5, block printing

This part of the course will probably be one of my favorites. I love surface design :-). Here are some of the samples I made this week using commercial stamps. This first pink one is a piece of fabric on which I used different acrylic paints and different commercial stamps. On purpose the stamps are overlapping. This sample is approximately 12"x12" and as you can see because of the overlapping it can be made as big as you want it to be.

 This second one I made by placing a zapped piece of lutrador over the white fabric and than stamped it using a commercial stamp and yellow acylics. Because of the lutrador the print has a detoriated effect and that was the effect I was after.

 This next sample is a painted piece of wallpaper. I wanted to use a highly textured piece of paper in combination with an abstract commercial blockprint.

 Another paper sample of multiple commercial blockprints. I used a credit card to aply the paint to the background.

 This next sample is one of my favorites. I fused a piece of cheesecloth (scrim) to a white piece of fabric and stamped it with a commercial stamp. As a whole it is interesting, but when I partly removed the white background fabric and placed it on some blue paper the texture shows much more. When this idea is used for a bigger piece of cheesecloth and the cloth is stretched and pulled to give a much more uneven effect to the stamping I think I will like it even more.

This is a sample which I made using a rather unusual blockprint: an onion. The sliced onion was left to dry for a couple of days. I used Dyna-flow paint which I applied to the 'stamp'  using a foam print. I just love the results I got:

And my last sample of blockprinting. This time I used lots of found objects. They included a potato masher, a bath mat, a metal thingie out of an old computer and some punchinella. All unusual objects to print with, but in combination a very pleasing result.

Project 4, stage 4 plus review

For this project I decided to work with this doodle. In my previous blogpost I already wrote a bit on how I plan to work with this idea.

Knowing that I wanted to work in black and white I cut out some shapes of black card stock: wavy lines and circles. Al of them in different sizes. I drew 3 rectangular shapes in my sketchbook and started playing around with the shapes. Here are the designs I came up with. I added my comments to each of them. The first design was A:

A bold wavy lines and 3 rather big circles. Because one of the circles overlaps the wavy lines, the shape becomes confused. Two other negative points of this design are that it is mainly vertical and because of that the view leads out of the design.

My second design was B:

I made the wavy lines much thinner and added a horizontal line as well. However the horizontal line is too bold compared to the vertical lines. The circles are much smaller than in design A. The positive points of this design are that the design is both vertical as well as horizontal and because of that the view stays within the design. The eye roams around starting in the top left corner.

My third design is this one C:

The vertical lines are still thin. Instead of the bold horizontal line of design B, I used 2 thin lines and placed them in a more playful position. I reduced the circles a bit in size and added a third one. The size of the strips and the circles are better matched this way. The thin horizontal lines are more in harmony with the thin vertical ones, more pleasing to the eye. Same as with design B the view of this design moves over the design, starting at the top, but stays within the design.

Out of these 3 designs, design C is the most balanced. The black lines and circles are not overpowering, they are in balance with the white background. Because of the different shapes (lines as well as circles) there is a difference in shapes used which makes it pleasing. I really like this design and will make a small quilt out of it. The texture will be created by the fabric I intend to use:

A bit difficult to take a good picture of, but the white is a uneven woven linnen and the black is a smooth Kona. Additional texture will be created by the quilting.

Review:

- Did you manage to make space move?

Yes, I did. By placing the shapes in different places I can create movement. Especially when some of the shapes go over the edge of the design.

- What are your thoughts about the drawing you did in stage 3?

Drawing is not - and will never be - my strongest or my favorite way of expressing myself. I wrote about that in an earlier blogpost. Doodling is the most I do for a design. But I love the mindmapping or word association to come up with ideas and how I can make use of them.

- Were you able to use your drawings successfully as a basis for further work? Are there any other things you would like to try?

Yes, I can use my doodles for further work. Actually I have several designs in my mind and in doodles on which I will be working the coming weeks.

- Now that you have a good working method, do you feel confident that you can carry on working in this way independently?

Yes. I can write a lot here, but it all comes down to the fact that I have been working in this way for many years now.

Project 4, Stage 3

This exercise is a difficult one for me, as it is completely against the way I work. I have been designing my own quilts for more than 8 years and I never work from a completed drawing. And this is not because I don't have any imaginative flow, but I work from a different starting point. Here are 3 examples of all the drawing I do for a new design:

The doodle at the left is design for a 3d quilt. My idea is to stitch and quilt circles, fold these and stitch these to a quilted background. Color of the circles will be rusted brown - I intend to use rust dyed fabric for it and the background fabric will be a dark one, maybe reddish to represent the color of the soil in Uganda. The title will probably be Chapati's or something like that although a friend of my nicknamed this design Sagging boobies. The nickname will probably stay with the quilt for ever.

The doodle on the right will be made in black and white colors. I decided to use these colors because I love the contrast between them and that same contrast is there with the circles and the wavy lines. For quilting I intend to use red thread. The position of the circles and lines might change when I am positioning the pieces on top of the background. Designs need a bit of playing. Technically speaking I could make an exact drawing before I start cutting, but if I would do that I probably never finish the quilt. I prefer to have some freedom while I am working and new ideas might pop up. What I do know is that the number of the circles is going to be uneven, the drawing shows 3, but in reality there might be 5 or 7 when he quilt is finished. Making all different drawings for every set up, would be - for me - a waste of time. I have the doodle and I have the idea in my mind. That is enough for me to work with.

This doodle is an idea for a quilt which started with a gorgeous rust dyed piece of fabric. The fabric is small, actually to small to work with, so it needed some extra borders. On the centre piece a piece of metal weaving will be placed - using rusted wire and rusted objects - and some additional hanging rusted pieces of metal. What will be the shape of these objects? At the moment no idea. That depends on what I will have at hand at that moment and whch objects 'work'  in combination with the metal woven piece. Can I make a drawing how it will look when finished? No better than my doodle at the moment. This is one of those pieces which will grow during the creative proces. To draw out everything would kill my creativity.

I do understand that not everybody can work like this. I have been doing this for years and I love it. Ideas come to me when I see a specific piece of fabric, or when I have a word or (book/film) title as an inspiration source. With mindmapping and munching on the fabric/theme I come up with ideas. I write down those ideas, add a doodle and that is it.

I really hope that this explanation is satisfactory for this project/stage.

Project 4, Stage 2, Exercise 4

The task for this exercise was to place an object/some objects in front of you and make drawings of it. As I had all kind of stamps in front of me because I had been making samples of stamping, I deciced to work with an Adrinka gourge stamp. This specific stamps shows the symbol of supremacy of God.  My first drawing - a bit difficult to see on this picture - is done with pencil. The perspective is not perfect :-), I know but drawing will never be my strongest point. For the second drawing I used Lumiere textile paint.

Continuation of project 4, stage 2

Life kept me away too long from this course, but luckily I have more time available at the moment. Here is the continuation of the project where I left off in May. I picked one of the drawings I did earlier on and played a bit more with it. In the first sample I used a pencil, in the second sample acrylic paints and in the third one thorn paper. The reason that I choose this design, is that I love the organic shapes of it. By now it hardly looks like the original image of the man hole cover, but that is no problem as the man hole cover was only the inspiration source.



 Out of practical reasons the number of the spirals is less and the details are also less. Each sample is around 6"x6".

 For the collage sample the colors should have been much bolder, but my choice of different colors is limited. The background and the circles are okay, but the green is way too light. On purpose some of the yellow circles at the bottom are partly outside the square.

Out of these 3 samples, my favorite is the one done with the acrylic paints. I love the bold, colorful effect it gives with the simplified shapes.

Project 4, stage 2, looking for shapes

Out of my collection of photo's I picked two to work with. Both were taken in Minneapolis. There is a street there down town, where they have the most wonderful manhole covers. If I remember correctly, it was an art project some years ago. With a viewing frame I picked out four interesting parts of this manhole cover as inspiration for some design drawings.

 The other picture was taken at the old mills district. This old metal bridge has such interesting lines. With the viewing frame I picked out - again - four interesting parts as inspiration source. On purpose I picked two complete different type of pictures, one organic shapes and the other straight lines.

And here are some pictures of the drawings I made:

Although I like the comination of the lines shown in the bridge, I discovered that it is very difficult for me to use the lines as design ideas. Of the 8 samples I made there are only 2 which I find slightly interesting: the 2nd row at the right and the 4th row at the right.

To me it was much more rewarding to draw design ideas using the manhole cover picture. This is what I created:



I was able to draw more intuitive with these organic lines and I find the results much more interesting. My favorite is the top row at the right, but also I see use for several of the other ideas.

Project 4, Stage 1, Design

This project is all about design. The first stage is about playing around with the positioning of the small square - each 3x3 cm, a bit more than 1"x1" - on a 12x12 cm (5"x5") square. Depending on how and where you place the black squares, the design can be static or dynamic. It can focus your eye on one spot, or have it roaming around the whole block. I made all the samples independently from each other, but if you look at the first picture it appears to be one continuous design over 2 blocks. This is just a coincidence, but I like the idea so it might be something I can use in the future: combining one design over 2 quilts.

                                                

The second set shows a rather static design, although it is a bit more than just static as the squares run over the edges of the white block:





The last design with the black blocks would look better if the blocks were reducing in size. It is in a kind of spiral shape.
The other four designs are done with pencil lines. The first one is a serene design, just 2 straight lines at a different size away from the edges of the white block. The second one plays a bit with this idea. The vertical lines are straight and four of them are at exact the same distance. The two diagonal lines make the design a bit more playful. They run exactly parallel to each other.

The third one is a continuation of the same idea. Diagonal lines running parallel to each other. If I combine the second with the third one, my preference goes out to the second one. The combination of the straight lines with the diagonal ones makes it more interesting than only parallel diagonal lines.

The final sample is a combination of diagonal lines. The block on its own is okay, but if you repeat this design and change the position of some of the blocks it becomes much more interesting.