i-stitch

2009-09-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

Since summer school I have done very little, partly as we had the wettest summer for a century here and it made havest long, difficult and unprofitable! We only finished cutting the last of the wheat in mid september - at least 3 weeks later that usual.

I am moving on to Chapter 12 of module 1 - Towards an embroidered item and using some of the shapes etc from summer school.

For the sample above I cut up a piece of covered vilene into shapes relating to my stacked boxes, cut out the same shaped holes in meltable felt and then stitched the whole lot with stacked box lines. Then I zapped it.

Strips of stitched boxes and cut out box shapes in layers colours.

I had thought of making an enoromous lampshade as I need on in the house but am not sure if it would be a fire hazard! I may just stick with a bag!

2009-06-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

I made a book using my stacked box shapes and two contrasting colours from my colour scheme. I wanted to look and light and dark, shadows and lit shapes.

The pages are alternately light and dark two page spreads and so the book looks very different depending on which set of pages are most opened.

2009-06-25T01:56:00.000-07:00

1.9.1

1.9.2

I have been having a go at chapter 9 - explore with abstracted fragments - and have ended up with this rather mad sixties wallpaper! Not a pretty sight. I shall have to start again with another starting point or try a different design option!

2009-06-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

1.6.3
I have had another go at dyeing a range of browns as I wasn't very happy with the last lot. Brown, I discover, is a difficult colour and can look as boring and dead as possible. I dyed this lot with golden yellow, brilliant orange, cobalt blue and some turquiose and overdyed the whole lot with brilliant orange afterwards to give them a bit more zip.

2009-06-14T06:30:00.001-07:00

Can anyone tell me why some photos enlarge when clicked on and others don't? This is a pain as not all my photos are that clear and I would like Sian to be able to enlarge them.

2009-06-14T06:19:00.000-07:00

1.11.1

1.11.2

1.11.3

1.11.4

These sheets are work for chapter 11 of module 1, Bold Design Development.

The marks were made using potassium permanganate on a toothbrush onto black quink

ink and black quink with some procion dyes added. The potassium permanganate reacted with the inks and produced a lovely range of colours. I also tried it on orange procion dyes used as an ink but the result was not as good.

I took the marks made into photoshop and had a play with them and quite like some of the results. The bottom left one of 1.11 3 looks like a snakes and ladders board!

2009-06-14T06:14:00.000-07:00

1. x

1.y

These two sheets are some design work done using the elements of line, shape, colour etc as a starting point and amalgamating the best little tiles into a new idea.

2009-06-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

I have not got a lot done this month, although I have been getting used to my new sewing machine and finishing a piece for an exhibition with the Cork Textiles Network.

1.6

I have been dyeing fabrics and gathering up the work on colour samples - I am using an A2 portfolio to mount them.

1.7.1

1.7.2 this is very zappy felt and gesso - done in a workshop with Maggie Grey in Dublin which was brilliant fun.

1.7.3

1.7.4

1.7.5

I have started work on the design chapters and have looked at Line, Texture, Shape and colour in different elements of my painting. I have made little card studies of each and then selected what I think are the three I will go on to look at. The next stage is to combine all or 2 of these elements and see if a design emerges. This is not the approach in the module but I am going to try it before starting work on the suggested options.

1.8.1

2009-04-30T06:13:00.000-07:00

1.7.1

1.7.2

1.7.3

1.7.4

2009-04-30T06:05:00.001-07:00

I have started on a couple of stitched samples, although I have got very little done this month. However I set myself to post at least once a month and that only leaves today for April.

One of the reasons for the lack of progress is that I "gronked" my machine (my term, not the repair man's!) and I found very little got done with out it. I am no longer much of a hand stitcher I am afraid.

Although my machine is now fixed and fine I have bought a new all singing all dancing machine - it took much discussion and agonising but to hell with the credit crunch! there are some advantages to being 50!

2009-04-30T05:39:00.000-07:00

1.6.1 I chose to work with cold water dyes as I think I will use natural fabrics for my first assessment piece. However I did get hold of some disperse dyes and have a go with them.

2009-03-29T03:18:00.000-07:00

I have a really tiny notebook for visits to galleries etc and for
stray notes.

Still Life with Lemons and Oranges. Melendez

Still Life with Glass and Lemon. Picasso 1910

I went again for a family visit and fitted in a visit to the National Gallery and their exhition on Picasso and his interpretations of other paintings by great masters. It was brilliant, and one of his still life paintings was an interpretation of the sister painting by Melendez to the one that I am using as a theme, and hangs beside it in the National Gallery.

This month I was very lucky and had two trips to London. The first was a day trip with my sister in law. Ryan air makes it cheaper to fly to London for a day trip from Cork than to take a train up to our capital city Dublin, which is plainly daft but there it is. We went to see an exhition of hats at the Victoria and Albert Museum and it was brilliant!

2009-03-29T03:13:00.000-07:00

1.2.7 small sketchbook. These pages are based on
piled up and stacked boxes and I have used the pages
as layers to cut into to give the idea of heaps and heaps!

1.2.8 small sketchbook

1.2.9 small sketchbook

2009-03-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

1.3.6

1.3.7 these folded paper shapes seem to relate well to the

stacked boxes, with their vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines.

I increased the contrast in the pictures to mirror the high contrast in

painting. I would like to take these into textiles if I could.

1.3.8

2009-03-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

1.2.6 These two are a rough sketch, rearranging the elements of the
painting. The top one has placed them in a different triangle
in the centre of the picture and you can see through the image to the one
below. the bottom one has split up the elements over the surface
which makes them look whimsical and the surface of the picture
flat.

1.2.5

2009-03-17T08:02:00.001-07:00

Happy Saint Patrick's Day from Ireland to all Distant Stitchers!

2009-03-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

1.5.6

1.5.5

2009-03-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

1.5.4

1.5.3

1.5.2

1.5.1

2009-03-17T07:53:00.000-07:00

1.2.5 small sketchbook

1.2.4 small sketchbook

although it is not clear from the above pictures, the 2 images above are made up of 2 pages, one a window with wires across it relating to the shapes from my boxes and an image behind.

2009-03-17T07:39:00.000-07:00

1.2.3 small sketchbook . the pictures above and below
investigate the light, mid and dark tones of the painting,
both as sketches made using masking fluid as a resist,
and using photoshop to pick them out.

1.2.2 small sketchbook.

1.2.1 Small sketchbook. using photoshop I looked at

over-emphasising the lighting affects on the surface of the

picture. I amazed me to be able to move the lit area around

the surface of the painting at will! Extreme lights and darks.

2009-03-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

1.6.1

1.6.2

I had a go at the rust dyeing in Module 1, chapter 6 using rusty objects and cotton fabric soaked in vinegar. I did it in the airing cupboard in a plastic bag and left everything for 2 days. The cogs gave a nice definate mark.

2009-02-17T07:59:00.000-08:00

1.4.17

1.4.16

1.4.15

1.4.14

1.4.13

2009-02-17T07:55:00.000-08:00

1.4.12

1.4.11

1.4.10

1.4.9

1.4.8

2009-02-17T07:49:00.000-08:00

1.4.7

1.4.6

1.4.5

2009-02-17T07:46:00.000-08:00

1.4.3

1.4.4

2009-02-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

1.4.2

1.4.1

2009-02-09T02:35:00.000-08:00

small sketchbook page t

small sketchbook - page u

dark tones black pastel and charcoal

midtones potassium permanganage and

poatassium permanganate with lemon juice

lightest tones scratched back into paper

2009-02-07T08:05:00.000-08:00

small sketchbook - page q

small sketchbook - page r

small sketchbook - page s

2009-02-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

page 14

page 15 - detail of page 14

page 16 - detail of page 14

2009-02-05T08:28:00.000-08:00

page 13 I set muslin solid with pva around the
tops of jars like in my souce painting. I don't know
what I shall do with them!

page 12 - detail of page 8

2009-02-05T08:19:00.000-08:00

page 11 - detail of page 8

page 10 - detail of page 8

page 9 - detail of page 8

page 8

page 7 - detail of page 2

2009-02-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

page 2

page 3 - detail of page 2

page 4 - detail of page 2

page 5 - detail of page 2

page 6 - detail of page 2

2009-02-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

I have made a start on the colour study chapter - page 1

2009-02-04T06:04:00.000-08:00

All the following images are from my small A5 sketchbook. I have given them a letter to make them easy to identify. I am loving working in this book and it is beginning to bulge!

2009-02-04T06:01:00.000-08:00

small sketchbook - p

2009-02-04T05:57:00.000-08:00

small sketchbook - o

small sketchbook - n

small sketchbook - m

small sketchbook - l

small sketchbook - k

2009-02-04T05:53:00.000-08:00

small sketchbook - j

small sketchbook - i

small sketchbook - h

small sketchbook - g

small sketchbook - f

2009-02-04T05:45:00.000-08:00

small sketchbook - e

small sketchbook - d

small sketchbook - c

small sketchbook - b

Small sketchbook - a

2009-01-18T08:45:00.000-08:00

I made rubbings of the different surfaces in my picture - walnuts, oranges, sawn wood and earthernware

2009-01-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

using the rectangular and circular shapes of the wooden boxes to make a basic pattern.

2009-01-17T14:36:00.000-08:00

photos from the British Museum - Egyptian boxes (for burials!) and earthernware pots

2009-01-17T14:02:00.000-08:00

pages from my small sketchbook

Earthernware pots seen in the British Museum. I recorded lots of shapes in my sketchbook and took photos

2009-01-11T07:30:00.000-08:00

Chapter 5. Transforming with heat and pressure. For some reason I am not a bit fond of this technique!

2009-01-11T07:20:00.000-08:00

Chapter 5. transforming with media technical trials.

2009-01-11T04:38:00.000-08:00

First pages from my small sketchbook recording different aspects of walnuts . I am off to London tomorrow and will be able to visit "my painting" again with my sketchbook. I would like to look at the frame and the room it is hung in as I have no information on those and cannot get any from my copies of the painting.

These pages are looking at the contruction of different wooden boxes from my souce painting.

2009-01-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

The photo above was an attempt to create a still life with a strongly triangular composition which is a feature of many still life paintings, often it seems with the apex of the triangle at the extreme left top of the painting and one angle at the bottom right, giving a long line rising from right to left. The other line of the triangle is usually off the edge of the painting. See Melendez painting above (Bread and Figs)

Wonderful colours using two of the elements of my theme painting. I will start working with this colour scheme for the colour section of the research work.

2009-01-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

I first of all gathered lots of images of still life paintings, boxes, jars and fruit onto a notice board. These will gradually find homes in note books as the board is used for drawings, mixed media experiments etc. I am lucky to have my own little room where all this can stay on the wall and have the door shut on it when I am finished for the time being.

2009-01-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

Using my original painting and photoshop to alter it.

2009-01-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

I have been altering images of fruit taken in the supermarket using photoshop. Some quite interesting results.

Wooden boxes and bottles of olive oil. The modern day equivalent of the boxes and earthernware jars of oil in my Luis Melendez painting.

2009-01-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

I am gathering images of still life paintings and information in a notebook. I will continue to add to it as I visit galleries and can collect postcards etc.

2009-01-03T08:16:00.000-08:00

Half a pomegranate, which look wonderful but I find a disappointment to eat. In still Life they are symbolic of fertility, wealth and plenty

2009-01-03T08:12:00.001-08:00

Charcoal drawings of bottles and boxes

2009-01-03T08:06:00.000-08:00

chalk pastel of dragon fruit. I went to the supermarket to look at what fruits were available to us now to use in still life pictures.

seed heads are a very traditional starter for students' still life studies

2009-01-03T08:03:00.000-08:00

Fruity, seedy paintings! This one based on magnolia seed pods.

2009-01-03T07:58:00.001-08:00

chalk pastel

Mixed drawing media on brown paper

2009-01-03T07:49:00.000-08:00

Fruits in a space. Very watery acrylic paints on watercolour paper

2008-10-16T00:41:00.001-07:00

The first task of the City and Guilds Diploma Course is to choose a theme that will stay with you throughout the course. It must provide enough visual inspiration and information to sustain all of the course work and set projects. I found choosing this daunting and have had one false start already. I have finally settled on a study of paintings in the National Gallery in London, somewhere I love and visit freqently. I am starting with a still life by Luis Melendez.

This seems to give plenty of raw material and lovely colours and I shall enjoy working with it. At the moment I am photographing and drawing oranges and walnuts and looking at all kinds of containers. I shall try to respond to the picture with my own ideas of the subject matter.