watercolour paper gouache walk in birch woods and collage

I sampled a piece of machine, free embroidery, onto watercolour papers. After walking in birch woods in a storm the darkness showed up the quickly denuding tree branches and the showers of yellow birch leaves. I came home and painted colours and shapes with gouache. these were then cut up and machine stitched onto more watercolour paper. I wanted to catch the complexity, energy and almost chaos of the woods on that afternoon and think I made a good attempt to work spontaneously with colour, collage and stitch.

pages from the sketch book

The selection seems rather hotchpotch now I have collected them together, but a great deal of this was about my buying a selection of gouache paint tubes and trying again not to be frightened to sketch / paint with colour. I watched a dvd of Mary Fadden at work with gouache which gave me joy not least because she also used collage with pieces of former prints or paintings and that seemed apposite given this section of the course.

Colour washes of the sky and sea and the small glens around the house have made me see new colours and combinations of colour not noticed before and of course this is a never ending exploration as the light and seasons change !!

samples of furnishing fabric and collage

I was given some samples of furnishing fabrics by a local shop. These were in a very limited range of style and colour but I used them to put together some shapes and colours to reflect some images I had chosen and done some sketches for. The images range from frozen ice formations to an oil painting of the Highlands, to photos of sand and sea, an ancient egg decorated from West Africa and a block printed piece of fabric. I know on reflection I shouldn't have restricted myself to using the fabric samples I was given as the range of texture and colour didn't always capture what I was looking for. However given the context of the assignment the process got me thinking and appreciating what I will look for in the future. Sadly the samples were all off cuts from long ago so there was no clue to their fibre content or make but I have included small swatches of them for reference.

Devore and velvet

I came across some work by textile artist Dionne Swift and sent for her instructional dvd on how to use the devore technique. I wanted to explore this as part of the exploration of negative imagery / shadows/ reverse applique. Velvet is , along with silk, my favourite fabric so although I tried samples in satin and cotton, the velvet stole my heart and resulted in many sample pieces. I tried both procion dye technique and the double dye technique from Fibrecrafts which involved using 2 types of dye for silk and viscous in the same dye pan.

This exploration alongside my continuing love of geological formations led to an experiment of pleating some velvet to look like rock formation. Although it was a quick trial piece this is something I will return to. At the very least the shop now has a new line in for Christmas as several scarves emerged from the fun.

plastic bags and an art journal

I decided to use up the few remaining white plastic bags here by cutting off the shop logo and then fusing layers of them together with an iron.

Using alcohol inks the bags were coloured with autumnal tones and when dried cut up into patchwork like pieces.

The arrival of a new puppy at the croft has seen much activity as he has explored house and croft. However with all such explorations there are casualties and so it was with a hardback book. Fortunately not a great favourite, so off came the cover and I rebound it with some folded watercolour papers. These will be used as an art journal experiment.

The plastic pieces were applied to the cover, inside and out, using a gel medium. When dried I applied soft light modelling paste over the spine in the form of a tree trunk. This was coloured with inks and small embellishments attached. the final addition was a stamped image of skeleton leaves with ink over which I applied some embossing powder. The same application was made to initial the cover with the letter F. This is my first book made, first time I tried to recycle plastic bags in this way etc etc

The many layered effect and the texture and dimension of the modelling paste pleased me. All that remains is to fill the pages over the winter months and to keep the book away from the puppy !!