Fabric paint and stencils

As part of my machine embroidery course at SWTAFE, we had to use fabric paint, stamps and stencils to come up with a design.
I took a while to come up with some designs.  As I have already said, I played with fabric paint and stamps.  Then I tried to match the stamping with embroidery.  I found this quite hard.  I had trouble envisaging how embroidery would complement the designs that I had come up with.
I think I was influenced by the screen printing I had done as part of my Diploma of Studio Textiles and Design. We learnt how to design repeat prints, how to screen print. But now I was being asked to combine that with embroidery and I had trouble visualising the two together.
Here is my attempt to come up with a design, inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. It has elements of his grids and his floral designs. I was inspired by the gorgeous book, Charles Rennie Mackintosh Textile Designs, by Roger Billcliffe.  It has many images of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's designs as well as those of his wife, Margaret and her sister Frances Macdonald. As the title suggests, the focus is on textile design rather than architecture, for which Mackintosh is also famous.

 The stencil was cut using very old Contact (the stuff we used to use for covering books) left over from my teaching years.  Contact was suggested in our class notes and I found it useful for larger than A4 sized pieces.  (Our works were required to be 30cm x 30cm or more.)

 The ovals were done using a stamp I had cut.  The grids were done using a lino cut I had made, visible in the above image, through the stencil.

 Here you can see a different stencil that was cut out of plastic. I had printed a similar image using the same stamp.  Then I had to use the cut out bits of the stencil and place them over the printed parts.  I masked the ovals with paper.

I then rolled green paint over the image (hoping the masks would work!).

Now I had a printed piece.  It had taken ages, waiting for each part of the printing process to dry before trying the next step.

This is as far as I have got with this one, I don't have a clear idea of how to incorporate machine embroidery yet.

Daily art

As I posted earlier, I am trying to do a doodle a day.  And a lino cut a day.  The latter has proven more problematic as I only had so much lino (and soft cut) available.  One of these days I am going to have to go out and buy some more.  I have been trying to limit myself to what I already had but now I am running out, despite a friend giving me what she had left over from her textile course.  She says she is not going to do more lino cutting, it wasn't her thing.
As the doodling is small, I have been able to keep to my resolution of one a day (well, I did miss two days but allowed myself do to extra on the third day). It is still unusually hot here in Melbourne and so the doodling has been more doable than some of the other things I could be doing. However, the sweaty hand can be a problem, it smears the ink if I am not careful. Very annoying.

I have been reading about Art Nouveau (randomly chosen link here, one of many) and Charles Rennie Mackintosh and I think I can see some of that creeping into my designs.

I have tried out some of my lino cuts after I realised I was happily cutting away but not printing them.  I have only done them in a book so far, not on fabric.  Will get around to that one day, if I can think of how to use these designs.  At least my cutting is improving, not to the point where I can put in the same detail as in the doodling but I think that is just the medium and I will never achieve that.

 I didn't do any of the cutting with repeat patterns in mind but it seemed such a waste to get the fabric paint out and just do one print, so I did some multiple prints for a few of them.

Lino cutting part 3

The last part of the first lesson was to use a different substance for cutting into.  I used Soft Cut carving block, which I got at Zart Art, one of my favourite shops! I learnt about it when I was teaching, it is a school supply shop that also sells to the public.
It was easier to cut into - I think.  It is softer and thicker and does cut easily but it also moves a little more than the lino does.  Each has its advantages I suppose.

It was suggested that we do a pattern that could be repeatedly stamped onto the fabric.  I used a Charles Rennie Mackintosh design (that I had played with previously). I thought I had cut the carving block square but obviously I didn't, the last row of my printing did not match the rows above as I had changed the orientation of the block as I was printing.

As I get more experienced and confident, I might even try to utilise some of the knowledge I gained about how to design repeat blocks.  I will need to be better at cutting than I am now as well as better at stamping, to get good repeats going.  Something to aim for.

Trying to get going again

In the last couple of days I have tried to get back to the challenge from an online group.  It was to produce a 12 inch square art quilt, one every two months.  No problem, I thought.  Hah!  That was before the final year of my course kicked in.  I did the first 2, which took me till March (technically April) but then it all fell in a heap.
But I have made another one - number 3 of 6.  And there are only a couple of weeks left in the year. I will try to get at least one more done - we are allowed to put in the best 4 we have done this year in the Australian Quilt Convention - our group organiser has managed to get a group show accepted.  So that is my aim for the next two weeks - to make at least one more.
I am not that happy with this one, so there may need to be two more.  I hope that we have January to catch up and I will try to keep motivated.
Actually, I feel good at the moment. I may not be that happy with it but at least I have done it and now ideas are flowing.  Whether or not I do anything about these ideas is a different issue but I am happy that ideas are generating.

This one is based (loosely) on Charles Rennie Mackintosh's rose design.  I have been working on this idea for a while, in a desultory fashion, and managed to totally ruin my last attempt.  But that is the benefit of a 12" square piece, it isn't too devastating when you ruin it, you haven't done all that much work.  So I started again.  I would prefer my old design, if it had worked, but this is what I have ended up with.  

The top fabric has a square pattern, a recognition of the geometric elements of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's many geometric designs - but I don't think it worked that well.  

The rose is done using the reverse applique, or cut-away, technique.  There are 5 layers for the rose and another layer for the leaves.  I am not used to doing couching, so I decided to put some in, that is the stems.  

Another challenge for me with this one was the PINK.  I am not a fan of pink and it has been difficult to work with some of the fabrics.  In fact, I threw out some of the ones I had purchased (yet more in my stash) and put in some less pink pieces.

This technique produces quite heavy pieces.  There are 7 layers of fabric and some pellon as I decided that I wanted some quilting to enhance the design.  I didn't do that much quilting in the end but I am still glad that I gave myself the option.  But the piece is heavy, I wouldn't use this for a quilt that was going to be used as bedding or a rug.  It is also raw edge and there is some fraying which would annoy me greatly in a bed quilt.

I have decided to try different techniques that I have read about but have not used that much, if at all.  This means that some of my 'art quilts' are rather quilty but that is because I am trying new for me techniques rather than new techniques.  I have decided not to worry too much about innovation, just to try innovation for me!

Here is the original piece - before I totally wrecked it.  It has squares quilted and then I used some of the iron-on fusible that I had painted. The design was too round for my liking so I decided to do some more quilting around it and then try painting dye on the back, allowing it to seep through. I made the dye too runny and it seeped further than I wanted.  But the original idea was ok and I might try it again.