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Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Flower Power




I said yesterday that I would show you the results of the stitch I did yesterday. True to my word, here I am. I had prepared a piece of pale pink hand dye by painting loose flower shapes onto it using thickened Brusho; then I simply stitched into it to produce the work you see above. I'm pleased with both of these pieces, for different reasons. The heavily stitched piece has enormous energy, it seems to leap from the cloth. I used three different threads, all variegated, using the blue to add definition after the textural stitching had been added to the petals and centre of the image. The distortion produced by the stitching makes the piece puff up in an interesting and organic way, very like real life. I intend to mount and possibly frame it, a simple box frame, probably, and possibly coloured using Brusho to match the piece...don't know. There again, a simple gold edge might be good...we'll see. Or possibly Haydn will tell me what to do... when you've found a good framer, you don't argue with him! Especially when he takes good photographs of textiles!

The second piece is quite different. It's simple, a thread sketch compared to a fully developed piece, using the machine as a kind of pencil. It seems to want to be combined with other pieces in a quilt of sorts. So I guess I'll be making more of these wee pieces, if only to combine them together. I like its simplicity.

I'm not usually a representational sort of a person, but recently, I find myself increasingly interested in landscapes and the natural world. That, for me, is a real shift in perspective. The work I'm doing with Bertha uses images from the natural world, some recognisable, some less so. And there's a lot of rust dyed fabric waiting to be used. I've mostly rust dyed habotai silk, and of course, there is a chapter on rust dyeing in the new Exquisite Evolon book, which I'll have with me at Festival of Quilts. This time, though, I've rust dyed some vintage French cotton, it has an amazing texture by itself, and the rust enhances it enormously. I'm looking forward to working with that, too. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this new burst of creativity.

8 comments:

Martha Marshall said...

I like it a lot! I even like the off-center zoomed image.

Funny, sometimes I think about doomg something representational, but it's hard for me to cross over. Can do it in collage but haven't figured out how to do it in a painting.

The problem is in keeping it loose, which you've done here very successfully. Bravo!

Holly said...

It is amazing that you can get such depth with stitches. Your work is really beautiful.

Zuda Gay Pease said...

I love it!!!

susan hemann said...

Just love your work! The flowers are wonderful.

M Dawson said...

It looks so fresh and zingy and citrus-y!! I enjoy seeing how these tings work out - they are such an inspiration!

Judy Nolan said...

Marion, I love the new direction, and love the colors you used in both the painting and stitching.

Bethany Stephens said...

I love the stitches!

vishal said...
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