It's The Little Things...

...that make the difference.  I've been taking part in a Junk Art Challenge... this particular postcard is made from an RAC circular... but somehow, it just didn't work...  So, I carved an eraser into a sun shape...and here it is...

This postcard has been a pain from start to finish.  First, I cut the landscape around the car too small..so it's in two pieces.  Then I lost the word 'adventures' for about ten minutes...and after hunting up and down, found it on the table next to my cup (grr...).   And then, this hole in the composition.

I've never cut an eraser before, thought it was altogether too fiddly; in fact, it's really quick and  really easy, though I do think that it helps to have really good lino cutting tools.

So...reader, I printed, using acrylic paint, and here's the result.

It's not perfect...but it's a lot better.  I wish all my design problems were so easily fixed!

Progress...

...on the small brown piece I've been working on (more on it here and, indirectly, here).  This is where we were at... printed upon but otherwise untouched...

so... it seemed to me that I needed some machine stitch, and something to go inside those circles.  The machine stitch was easy; orange circles to reinforce the print.  I thought that there needed to be something substantial added to the circles in the centre, and made some multicolour felt beads.  I had used some of them in the jewellery I've been making recently, cut in half to give me a flat surface to use to stick them down.  But when I cut into them, I discovered that they were MUCH more interesting on the cut side, than on the outside...

so... the whole thing looks like this;

It's still not finished, but it has improved.  I think there's something about adding thin wrapped twigs along the length, or perhaps some flat discs... or both.  And perhaps some more paint.

Tomorrow... perhaps... though I really should be preparing for the show I'm doing at Spalding next weekend...

Mixing It Up...

For a long time, I tried to keep things in little boxes, when it came to art.  For someone who prides herself in working outside the box, that has never really sat well with me.  My drawings didn't seem to relate to the textiles, or the paintings.  But recently, I've been pushing myself to let go of those false barriers, and I finally found a theme to work to, that allows me to do that.  I thought I'd show you several  examples of work in the same theme.  That theme is 'Linescapes'.

I've been making drawings for years that simply incorporated a minimum of three lines, or three lines and a curved shape of some kind, usually an egg shape.  It struck me recently that they are 'linescapes', and that they are a way of expressing space and shape.  Some of them are abstract landscapes; others are not.  The images, I hope, will show you some of the potential this approach has.

These are postcard sized pieces which I drew while waiting for a doctor's appointment; Linescapes at their simplest, single colour, three simple lines and the relationship they have to each other, and to the surrounding space.  I will probably add some background colour...or not... it will be interesting to see how the additional colour changes the nature of the individual pieces.  The marks were made with crayon, so that I can paint over them with watercolours, but still retain the original colour of the lines.

This rather peculiar image shows a textile variation of the same theme, Lutradur XL with yarn stitched into it. It's not finished yet, I know, though I'm not entirely sure how it will progress.  I know that text will feature...but that's about it.  Currently, it is sitting on the window ledge in the dining room so that I can see it (and puzzle over it).  The colours feel like the Scottish Highlands in late summer and early autumn.  Perhaps a haiku... or two...

This is a Linescape of a different nature; far more lines, much less space.  It is made using layers of transfer dyes on Lutradur XL, which were then stitched into,.

Finally, a painting.  Acrylic on board, and the largest piece of work in this series so far... accompanied by the smallest, a textile ACEO.

The ACEO features yarn, hand stitched onto Lutradur XL, with a watercolour background.

I hope this selection of work gives you an idea of the potential I think this approach has for my work.  I love working in series, but I've never before felt that I had found something that I really wanted to explore, and that had so much potential.  This is the tip of a very large iceberg, I think... I'm going to have fun!

Still Working...

on this piece, which I talked about here ;

Today, though, I decided to work on the piece of board that I'd used as the base of the monoprint that colours it.

I should say that the dark blue isn't quite as strong as it seems in this image...but hey... it's a photo...
I decided to use it on as a warm-up piece today, when I went out to paint.  And here's the end result:

So... how did I get from there to here?  I started by spraying the piece with Lemon Brusho, deliberately varying the strength in some areas.  I don't like flat colour; I think it's boring.  Varying the colour makes it much more interesting to look at, and helps the eye to travel round the image.  While it was drying, I wiped off as much of the yellow as I could from the little circles, smudging it into the shapes, turning them into a lovely blue green shade.

But it wasn't enough.  The obvious thing to do, given my current work, was to print over the top of it.  I might have contemplated another monoprint, but  it seemed a bit predictable.  Instead, I took a look at a collagraph I made last weekend.  I tried it out on a piece of scrap cloth, in green; here it is...

I liked the way that it worked, so decided to try it on the monoprint; it worked very nicely.  And that, I thought, was that...  but nothing is ever that simple.  I had made an earlier trial print of the collagraph, in a reddish brown colour, but it was not particularly successful.  When I printed on the monoprint, some of the red brown colour was transferred.  I found it catching my eye.  And so, finally, I added some random dots of red and green paint to the piece.  I was surprised how well it worked; it seemed to pull the whole piece together.

Now, all I have to do is finish the textile piece... it's coming together slowly.  I think I have an idea...

Collaboration...

is fun.  One of my Facebook friends, Mary Kaye Catone,  is a keen photographer, and regularly posts her images.  I just as regularly say, that could do with stitch.  This time, she said, go for it.  This is the original image;

I love the textures and colours in this, and my initial intention was to make some long stitches in parallel running down the way.  Because I wanted to work small, I printed it out on some commercially prepared cotton...well, actually, it turned out to be silk organza.  That proved to be an additional bonus, as you will see.  But the transparency both added and detracted; I found myself struggling to put something behind the image that worked well.  In the end, I tried a stitched piece, which worked like a charm.  It was a piece of lutradur to which I had added encaustic paints, and then stitched.  Here's the back of the finished piece, to give you an idea of what I started with;

And here is how it turned out... 

and yes, I used those long stitches I was talking about earlier, though there is a row of small stitches at either long side, to keep the thing together.  And that's that, right?

Well, actually, no.  The thing about using silk organza, is that a lot of ink gets transferred to the backing paper.  And it would be wasteful to ignore that, right?

This is Ghost Tree, made from the backing paper, collaged onto mountboard, with swirls of shimmery medium to suggest mist.  I'm quite pleased. If you get very close up and personal with the piece, you can see silver leaf shapes drawn onto the board, my original intention, but somehow, it wasn't enough.  

So there you go; two for the price of one...and counting.  I still have some scraps to use up, probably in another collage.  Collaboration is fun...why not try it?

Another Rescue.

This piece really needed something... It started off as a piece of vintage tablecloth, which I'd hand dyed.  Two lots of hand stitch had added texture, but not a lot else.  I didn't want to paint into it; I felt that would make things worse, but my linocuts are far too small to be meaningful on this size of piece.  No, it's not that big...but big enough...

So, I found a piece of mountboard that was roughly the same size, and decided to make a monoprint.  The original colour I chose was a metallic turquoise blue, but there wasn't enough contrast for me, so I mixed it with some white, into two different shades, and added two more lots of pattern.  And here is the result:

Looking at it in an image, clears the mind... I'm going to trim the unprinted section at the bottom, and possibly turn it on its side...PSP says it might look a bit like this...

And then Yet More Stitch?  Possibly.  And I might paint into it, and/or add embellishments.

You can see quite clearly from the mountboard how the printing actually went...

On the principle of waste not, want not, I'm contemplating adding an watercolour wash to this, and then possibly using it as a base for a collage.  Textile, of course...

Rescuing Quilts...

is fairly straightforward, really.  But it can take a bit of time.  This one lay about for ages, until I gave it some hand stitch...I blogged about it here 

...and then it lay about some more.  I knew it needed more blue, I even knew that I needed to print it, but I just couldn't bring myself to take the risk.  Well, finally, I did it today...and here it is.

It looks better in the flesh, but hey... it's also a bit greener in the flesh.  I'm please, though, I feel it's an improvement.  Not perfect, but then, nothing is.

There's even a couple of cats... you can see this one in the close up, but can you find the other...?