It seems like every now and again you end up working in a colour theme or palette. I can't really explain why but at the moment it seems to be brown. My previous post showed the work I have just begun - soft shades of brown and rust; and here are the two small extra bits of work I've managed this week in between the Collectables print show and a rather large commission that is keeping me busy.
The words of burning...
A while ago I mentioned I got playing with these words instead of working on commissions. The good news is that one commission has been successfully complete and will soon be delivered to the client; and the second one should be done by the end of the weekend and popped in the post on Monday. That would be a great relief!
Nonetheless in a lull between the two jobs I did go down to the sewing machine to see what would happen if I tried to loosely stitch a few words together. It was much harder than I imagined it would be in my head.
I didn't seem to be able to keep stitching into the void between the words for long enough to not have them squish up together too much. Not the world's best explanation, but I felt like I just ended in a tangle.
I want these words to have a feeling of looseness and freedom, so tangling isn't great! I then threaded a needle and tried to manually stitch and loop them together. A better result, but I'm still not sure if it is what I need.
But you never know unless you have a go, do you?
And now back to the next steps in The Library of Lost Words. As mentioned in reply to a few comments, I left them out to dry crisply in the baking sun; and then a summer thunderstorm came and soaked them again! So here they are all moist again, about to head out into the sun to bake and be monitored more closely this time.
They survived that and so I took them in to brush the dirt off. With gloves, mask and in a well-ventilated area to avoid inhaling any spores of stuff. That kind of worked, but there was still a bit too much dark staining for my liking, so I went and washed them! Yep they got wet again, and then put into the sun to bake dry once more.
Here they are drying on a stump in the garden bed. They are now sitting inside again waiting for the next step. You can see some of the threads have begun to come undone as I brushed and washed them. I honestly haven't had time to unwrap or unravel them, but I think I will soon.
The words of burning...
A while ago I mentioned I got playing with these words instead of working on commissions. The good news is that one commission has been successfully complete and will soon be delivered to the client; and the second one should be done by the end of the weekend and popped in the post on Monday. That would be a great relief!
Nonetheless in a lull between the two jobs I did go down to the sewing machine to see what would happen if I tried to loosely stitch a few words together. It was much harder than I imagined it would be in my head.
I didn't seem to be able to keep stitching into the void between the words for long enough to not have them squish up together too much. Not the world's best explanation, but I felt like I just ended in a tangle.
I want these words to have a feeling of looseness and freedom, so tangling isn't great! I then threaded a needle and tried to manually stitch and loop them together. A better result, but I'm still not sure if it is what I need.
But you never know unless you have a go, do you?
And now back to the next steps in The Library of Lost Words. As mentioned in reply to a few comments, I left them out to dry crisply in the baking sun; and then a summer thunderstorm came and soaked them again! So here they are all moist again, about to head out into the sun to bake and be monitored more closely this time.
They survived that and so I took them in to brush the dirt off. With gloves, mask and in a well-ventilated area to avoid inhaling any spores of stuff. That kind of worked, but there was still a bit too much dark staining for my liking, so I went and washed them! Yep they got wet again, and then put into the sun to bake dry once more.
Here they are drying on a stump in the garden bed. They are now sitting inside again waiting for the next step. You can see some of the threads have begun to come undone as I brushed and washed them. I honestly haven't had time to unwrap or unravel them, but I think I will soon.
I like your experiments. You might try sandwiching the letters between dissolvable fabric and then machining them.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jackie - that sound like an excellent option!
DeleteI like both of your experiments very much! I think you did well to do anything at all trying to stitch that by machine, and those paper bundles are quite intriguing...
ReplyDeleteThanks Sharmon - I love the library experiment but am still needing to explore other options for the words...but I am getting lots of good suggestions, so hopefully it can be resolved. Go well.
Deletelooking at how your threads are placed as extensions of the text will help to incorporate them. Jane Theau one of the emerging artists at the Cultivate show at the Palm House here in Sydney last month is doing wonderful work with suspended & layered text
ReplyDeletehere's a link to her website
http://janetheau.com/
and her floating poem
http://itscrowtime.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/cultivate-the-impossibility-of-nature/
oh my Mo - that was a wonderful little diversion. It seems as if she maybe stitches onto tarlatan and then removes it? I love the ethereal nature of them - just beautiful.
DeleteI like using bookbinders mull because it's got a stiffener in it like tarlatan and can be cut and pulled away but it would be worth having a go with the tear away or heat away stabilizers combined with paper.
DeleteThanks Mo I'll have a go when we get home!
Delete