Notan and collage

 As I was having a go at Black and White as the collage theme, I realised that I have multiple sketch books (of varying sizes, A5 -A4) that I have done over the years. 

I thought some of them might inspire me. And some did!! I came across a few experiments with doodling/Zentangle that I had done in conjunction with some Notan ideas. 

So now I have played around some more! Here are a few attempts - I have yet to conquer a good way to stick the Notan pieces without making a mess - but it is a start. 

I am hoping to produce a few more that will inspire me more. 

Here is a link to a previous post I have done about this sort of thing. I don't seem to be as active on this site as I used to be, but I still find it very useful to look back at what I have been doing - as I say, it is my visual diary. 

Playing around again

 I have no big ideas going at the moment. 

I am in a group that is going to do postcards to send to each member. I don't have much of a theme going so decided to just try some ideas.

I used the Liquid Radiance paints to colour some samples of drape fabric. I have no idea where I got the book of fabric samples but it has turned out to be useful at the moment. 

I used the white fabrics this time and washed them before use. Then I only used the three primary colours and let them run into each other and make multiple colours. 

One piece of fabric was much darker on one side than the other. 

                                     

This made me think of the Notan positive and negative idea that I tried previously. 

I didn't want to do trees this time, the colours didn't seem to suggest trees to me. I have a book of Japanese Optical Illusions and Geometric designs, so I traced one and then cut out the fabric using that. I put one lot of cutouts onto a piece of the same fabric, other side up though, to give the contrast in brightness. 

I used the base fabric I had cut the shapes out of to place onto yet another piece. 

I sewed them up using variegated fabric. I couldn't actually decide on what colour would work best, the variegated was there, to hand. Decision made. 

If I have to make an artist statement, perhaps I can say something about the shapes reminding me of the ever-present images of the covid virus! But that wasn't really the inspiration, I just like the shape. 

Notan trees, sort of.

I just found this unpublished post, will post it now, even though it is out of sequence and the world has changed mightily.

This was done in early March, before the virus hit us and also before our beloved dog died! It has been strange to read it now. But I will still post it because I really do use this site as a visual diary for myself. I was much more light-hearted then.

My machine embroidery group at the Embroiderers Guild, Victoria, has the theme of trees this year. There are no specifications apart from the sewing part.

As I have done lots of tree pieces in the past, I have decided to either go back and see if I can finish unfinished pieces, reuse them or just come up with something slightly different with a new piece.

I came across Notan images recently. They are positive and negative images, coming from a Japanese tradition. That's about all I know really. Didn't do a lot of research, just liked what I saw and thought it might be fun to try.

I drew up an image and then cut it out. You paste that down and then do the cut out bits flipped over and you have your positive and negative image. Sounds easy!

Well, I did't do it the way I had been reading about, which uses a square or rectangular shape and you cut into all 4 sides. Sample here.

I came across a post which had trees but had only used two sides of the rectangle and had flipped them horizontally. I thought I would give that a go - without really trying the all four sides version first.

I did it with paper first. Don't ask why I chose orange paper, it was just to hand. No other reason.

This worked out ok so I tried it with fabric.
I had gone away for the weekend and took some of my sewing stuff with me. Unfortunately, I took the adhesive interfacing rather than the Vleisofix, so that made things a bit harder than I had planned!!

Not to be put off, I drew my design on the interfacing and ironed my fabric to it. The ironing obscured some of the drawing. And I realised it was going to be in reverse when I placed it on the backing fabric. Not to worry, there is no particular orientation.

Then I realised that my cut out pieces would have to be flipped and the interfacing would be on the wrong side. So I reversed the image and traced it again.

As I handled the pieces the interfacing started to peel off, so I took it all off, leaving a light residue of glue. That helped enormously with the ironing into place, ready for me to sew.

I chose a very bright background piece of fabric that reminded me of a sunset (or bushfires - can't get them out of my head yet). The reverse image didn't work at all well, so I only used the initial piece.

I wanted to see how the reverse image would look on less dominant fabric, so trialled two pieces I had.

I decided on a different grey, even though I wasn't sure I was going to be able to see the tree shapes. I can usually see them but have to concentrate on the light parts, they aren't always obvious to me. 

So now I have two pieces and no idea what to do with them! I know that they are just me playing around with an idea and seeing if it would work but it seems awfully wasteful to just put them in my experimental pile and/or visual diary. So I will keep thinking about them and see what occurs to me.