Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Continuing to Play

I have continued to play with some ideas that might work Design Concepts and Applications, one of my subjects this year, where we are looking at Biomimicry - not that we are about to invent any fabulous new way of doing things - and I have been looking at the way plants spread out: how they branch out to fill a space, how they attach themselves to other plants, or to their own branches, and twine around.
I have been wanting to try some of the products that I have seen advertised or used in other projects, so I have tried to make some backgrounds and some of the designs.

Here is an example I made using hot water soluble sheets, I laid out some yarns between sheet of soluble fabric and then did zigzag over them.  I tried to leave a little of the gluey substance when I was rinsing out so that there would be some stiffness to the work.

For the background,  I have used some heat shrinking fabric that you attach to the cotton with a grid of some sort, that you sew on, and then steam the plastic sheeting so that it shrivels and causes the fabric to buckle.  I am not sure what I might use this for but it could be a very interesting background to one of my plant pieces.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's great that you share your experiments! I very much enjoy being able to see those! (your earlier blog too)They remind me of my study days, though we didn't have the advantage of computers and materials you play with. It's also a good reminder as to how important experimentation is in our artistic development. (- yes, I'm still learning) Have fun!
Vera

Mary said...

Thanks Vera, sometimes the computer may not be an advantage - lots of time spent playing there and not with my textiles! But it does allow us to visit interesting sites and learn from and be inspired by other people, such as you.