It’s a 3D theme over at WOW! Embossing Powders’ Challenge Blog this month, so since I’m still in the middle of preparing my final projects for college, this seems a natural progression for my design team blog post! Read more here.
I spent yesterday getting more training in the use of the versatile fluid hardener, Powertex. This time we concentrated on ‘Stone Art’. Given that there isn’t a single grain of anything even vaguely resembling stone in the project below, it’s a very impressive product!
The base is the heaviest part of the project, and also likely to be the only part that isn’t weatherproof. I took the opportunity to get a stack of materials into stock (and find somewhere in the studio to store them!) so I’ll be playing some more as I get some samples ready for workshops later in the year. Thanks to Brit for another cracking training session.
I like a challenge… and I like it even more when I get inspiration, have the materials, and more importantly can snatch a moment to get the piece done. So it is with some delight that I share with you my entry to the Ranger Ink ‘Seasonal Color Palette’ Challenge: to create any project using the theme colours based around the Adirondack Color Washes in Butterscotch, Meadow, Espresso and Sailboat Blue. It’s a 12×12 inch canvas:
From concept to final outcome took approximately 3 hours, with only two hours of hands-on crafting. I started by using Adobe Illustrator to produce an outline of the starburst, dove and olive branch, printing it out four times. Each copy was then sprayed with fixative spray to seal it, which stopped the colour wash bleeding through. I cut out the various items to produce stencils – the central outline, the eyes and beak, the branch, and then the starburst ‘prongs’. I used repositionable spray glue to coat the back and adhere the stencil firmly to the canvas before spraying each of the colours on in turn, using a heat tool to dry and heat set between colours. Aside from a bit of overspray and bleed, and a little stencil misalignment, I’m quite pleased with the result. I did a little touching up here and there with some of the Distress Paints, which may be hard to see as they picked up some of the dye layers beneath.
It’s another light shade, this time featuring cut-outs using silhouettes based on my own observational drawings. I’ve cut the silhouettes from heavy interfacing, used Bondaweb to fuse to a layer of white cotton, and then machine stitched them onto the card frame.
And this afternoon, I spent a couple of hours in a darkened room. The stress hadn’t got to me (though the same can’t be said for our tutor this morning!), but the need to photograph all my creations to date had. Here’s a selection:
Well after a flurry of activity over the last two weeks watching my new studio get installed, and then decorating it, constructing furniture and moving in – as well as emptying out and putting back to right the dining room, conservatory and some of the craft room – I have my first ‘working’ day in the studio.
Of the various things I have to catch up with, college work is one priority as I have a mid-way assessment tomorrow. Consequently, I have taken pics of my latest light shade in my series. This one features one of the patterns I gleaned from a visit to the Islamic artefacts at the British Museum, drawn into Illustrator, adapted for the round and then screenprinted in opaque white ink onto thick tracing paper, and then constructed onto a card frame. As with the previous post, here are photos of the shade in daylight, and internally lit at night.
Yesterday, I had a very pleasant day workshop with Brit from Powertex British Isles. Powertex is a range of products based round a liquid fabric hardener. Having completed the workshop, I’m now certified to train you how to make figurines such as these:
They are 19 inches high, and constructed from wood and plaster formers, foil, masking tape, pressed mulberry fibres and old t-shirts all coated with Powertex and pigments. Let me know if you’re up for a training session in my new studio later in the year!
It’s already March, and only two weeks before we finish Term 5. One more term to go, and that’s my college course done and dusted. If it weren’t for my new studio to look forward to working in, and the list of jobs to do in the house, I know I would be dreading the end of college. Though I was unwell last week, I did carry on with my final major project. It’s grown out of looking at Islamic geometric patterns – I’ve learnt to construct geometric shapes with a compass and ruler, transferring them into Illustrator, and then finally applying them to 3D polyhedra. I settled on a truncated cuboctohedron as my main construction, and played about with various construction techniques.
Here are just four of the anticipated dozen final pieces. Some are uninspiring in daylight, but come alive when internally lit. Others inspire in both lights. I can tell you that I got a blood blister in my finger tip from all the scoring of folds. I can reveal that the shadowfold light required 360 separate knots. And that I stuck down each of the 400 petals on the frilly one! All are handcrafted (though I did use the Cricut machine to cut out the shapes to my design!) and nothing more than fabric or paper and glue. They are roughly 6-7 inches in diameter and designed to sit over an inexpensive battery powered LED light (£1 for two in Poundland!).
I’ve taken a bit of time out from designing for my college course to make this canvas featuring a paper craft vase and paper craft, die cut, hand coloured and constructed flowers. I’ll be entering it into Tim Holtz’s Tattered Floral Challenge as it is his Tattered Floral die that I used to cut the flowers from 160gsm thin card. The vase is made from the same card to my own design – SVG file available if anyone would like it…
Each flower layer was wrinkle free distressed in first a layer of Fired Brick and Festive Berries both sides, dried and then wrinkle free distressed in a layer of Fired Brick with Ripe Persimmon. They were then dried before being spritzed and flicked with water and left to dry naturally. The centres were punched and then sprayed with Dylusions Granite spray. The flowers were assembled onto florists wire and stuck together with matt multi medium and left to dry over night before being glued into the vase and onto the canvas background.
Here’s the inspiration pic, a vase of flowers in our lounge:
I’ve just put the finishing touches to two small quilts. They both feature my own pattern design, which I hand screen printed at college onto fabric offcuts using black textile ink. The first shows the patten, unadulterated, quilted using black cotton and free motion machine stitch round each of the circle motifs. The second is dyed with Adirondack Color Wash sprays (which despite my best efforts still covered everything nearby!), dried, heat set, rinsed, ironed and then quilted in the same way. Both are hand bound and labelled. I use backstitch to hand sew labels for my quilts as this is unlikely to wash off! They are both 22.5″x42″ in size.
The choice of final project in textiles was to either design and make three tea towels, an apron or a Cornell-style fine art box. I followed my ceramics theme and chose the box, and thus embarked on a project to include every technique I could think of to transfer my patterns from my sketchbook to my ‘panoply of patterns’. Here’s the completed box, complete with my display sheets displaying its contents:
Lots of techniques in here, from free hand drawing with a fabric gel pen, to free motion machine stitching, backstitch hand embroidery, iron on transfers, applique, fabric paint and quilting to name but a few…