Project 5

Well this is my work from Project 5, in the wrong order, upside down, backwards and I can't remember which thing was for which stage.  I'm on holiday, and away from home and not using much brain power, so that's my excuse!

The snake at the top is my final piece of the project.  I intended it to be printed as one piece but disaster after disaster lead to him being cut out of his original setting and bondawebbed on to a new background.  

I have enjoyed this section far more than I thought that I would, but my preference definitely lies with techniques like sun-printing, using resists to create pattern and looser more painterly techniques, where I can use the fabric paint in a watercolour like manner.  Straight printing and creating repeat patterns leaves me a little cold to be honest and I think it's just not for me, but I did enjoy trying it out.

Printing Interlude

Inspired Today by.....

Lyndie Dourthe

BrodonsFacile

Elintm

Miga de Pan

Amy Gross

Permacouture Institute

Project 4 Developing Design Ideas - Stage 4

Drawings for Stage 4 are of two old medecine bottles bought at an antique market in Cheshire for pennies.  One is brown and one is green and they look pretty ancient.  The brown one still has some suspicious looking powder in it and a label on that reads 'Ext. Filicis Liq. P.B.' which I've just been informed by google is an extract of male fern used to expel tapeworms!

First I used the single line technique, on the right I wasn't looking at what I was doing and on the left I was.  Below that is a proper sketching using a 2B and some colour experiments at the side in various colours.  When it came to working throught the design approach first of all I made a watercolour painting of the bottles, I experimented with different media to see which would achieve the colours that I was after, I liked what I achieved with oil pastel the best, the more and more I use oil pastels the more I enjoy them.  

Next I made a pencil drawing of the shapes that appealed to me in the painting, which was the area between the two bottle necks.  Based on this I drew the shapes in oil pastel, because I really liked the intensity of colour that I was able to get from them.  After this I reworked the same shapes using collaged magazine papers.  You cant see it terribly well in this photo but I also made a tile based on the shapes and did some tesselations (not entirely accurately) in the background.  While I enjoyed this, I do find it very difficult to work in this design based way rather than in an illustrative one and this stage began to highlight that for me.

Project 4 Developing Design Ideas - Stage 3

I have to confess that it's so long since I did this work that I'm not convinced that these are the right photos for this stage, and I'm away from home so I can't even look at my notes and check.  I think though that for this stage I had to explore some of my previous work and develop designs from it.  The pictures I chose were :-

 A crayon sketch of leaves, which I explored using sgraffito, collage, using opposite colours, and altering the size

 A drawing of fish fins - sgraffito, paint blowing and making tiles

 A pencil drawing inspired by a Hundertwasser painting - yet more sgraffito, black and white, using warm colours instead of cool, tiling the 'bullseye' shape and altering the size of the waves

A watercolour painting from Stage 2, inspired by work by Alexis Lask - tiling, altering the colour scheme, black and white, pencil sketch and wax resist.

Inspiring Me Today

Emilie Faif

Carnovsky

Oliver Jeffers

Tugboat Printshop

Project 4 Developing Design Ideas - Stage 2, Exercise 3

Hmmm, I seem to have neglected to take a picture of my third sample in this exercise which was a collage made from 'holes' hole punched out of sugar paper and stock down with PVA.

I really enjoyed this set of exercises though, it's good to get the chance to dig so deep in to an image.

Sketchbook 3