Project 4 Developing Design Ideas - Stage 2, Exercise 2

In combining all aspects of the previous three drawings I decided to also combine all three techniques, so I collaged more sugar paper cut outs, this time I painted them with watercolour to get a more accurate representation of the colours and then I used a black fibre tip to draw in the texture of the stitches.  I found it really difficult trying to think about which element of the image was the most appealing to me, and I'm really unsure about whether I have 'emphasised my point of view'. I'm really pleased with the finished piece but is it my own 'personal response'.  I mostly just see an image, think 'yes I like it' or 'no I don't' , I seldom think much deeper than that, maybe that is a failing.  I like the texture of the cloth, and I like the colours in it, and I like the shapes.  Hmmm, I need to do some more thinking about this, about why I like what I like.

Project 4 Developing Design Ideas - Stage 2, Exercise 1

For this stage I decided I'd keep working with the image of the embroidered Afghan cloth from Sheils Paines book Embroidered Textiles : Traditional Patterns from Five Continents.  I made a colour copy this time, which got rid of the silly ink lines, and gave me more scope for exploration too. I decided to focus on a patch from the top centre of the picture using the top of the spirally sun shape that I really like and the thing my children say is a giant sweetie.
 For the first drawing I used a simple pencil sketch to explore the textures in the piece, as the cloth is embroidered with mainly straight stitch from what I can see, this involved lots of short lines.
For the second drawing exploring colour in the piece I decided to use coloured pencils, after my previous failure with them I was determined to try and get some really saturated colour out of them.  Using them on the smooth paper from my sketchbook helped me to get decent coverage on to the paper.  I built up the colours I wanted using layers of different shades and on the whole this seemed to be pretty successful.  My main problem was achieving the lilac-y gray of the sun shape, it's a colour that doesn't seem to be included in any of the colouring media that I possess so I treid to layer greys and purples and pinks and white but I'm not convinced it worked very well.
In the third drawing where I had to focus on shapes I decided to work in collage, because I haven't tried it very often and I thought this'd be a good opportunity.  I raided the childrens make and do box and found some lovely sugar paper in lots of bright colours.  I tried to focus on the shapes, simplifying it a bit and trying not to get bogged down in details.  Again it was completely impossible to match that wierd lilacy grey so I stuck with pink, I like pink.  I've just realised that my sun shape has gotten looser and looser with each progressive drawing, oops!

Project 4 Developing Design Ideas - Stage 2, Looking for shapes and drawing

 Regentag on Waves of Love - Hundertwasser

 Cliff Harbour - Alexis Lask

An embroidered cloth from Afghanistan from the book

Embroidered Textiles: Traditional Patterns from Five Continents

by Sheila Paine

I worked on the Hundertwasser picture using coloured pencils because they were there and I really couldn't be bothered getting anything else out that late at night but in retrospecct they were a bad choice fro working directly on to watercolour paper, there was just too much texture there to get coverage from the pencils, so they are all fairly light with lots of white shining through and I'm not really pleased with them.  I think the glory of Hundertwasser is the bright, bright colours and I didn't do justice to it at all.  I tried to rescue it with outlining in black fibretip and I think it helped a bit.  It's a shame really because I really love the shapes that are present and if I'd only made a better media choice I would've ended up taking this a lot further.

Next is the watercolour bby Alexis Lask, I've had this card sitting on my bookshelf for years, I just adore the colour and texture that are there.  I used a combination of watercolour and gouache to recreate the shapes that I found the most interesting, but being me I couldn't leave it at that and I had to keep painting until almost all the details were in there too!  I love the curves of the pathways and the shapes of the rooftops.

I loved this embroidered Afghan fabric that I came across in Sheila Paines book.  I decided to use a black and white copy of it to really focus on the shapes, and so I worked only in 4H pencil, trying to ignore the shoddiness of the photocopy and the silly stripes the printer insisted on inserting!  I love the very organic shapes embroidered on to this fabric, in particular the 'sun' type thing in the centre.

Once I had completed all the squares, I decide to follow the suggestion in the handbook and make a viewing frame in the shape of a garment.  I really enjoyed this, it seemed to make a bit more sense in my head to use the vest shape instead of a square square.  I think the graphite/afghan embroidery vest works really well, with the sun following the neck shape.  I also like the watercolour vests, I would happily wear them! :)

Project 4 Developing Design Ideas - Stage 1, Introduction and Preparation

 

Personally, I like the bottom right box the best, maybe I just have a preference for lines though, I find it kind of hard to be dynamic with black squares.

Mahonia

We picked the berries off of these bushes last Autumn to die some cotton with, they gave us a gorgeous winey purpley colour, but I don't remember ever noticing these pretty, pretty flowers before, they remind me of the French Knot piece I just did, I love these colours together.