Try again

I finished a piece for my interest group at the Embroiderers Guild today. We are working on a mystery photo. We have small sections of the photo to work on and one day it will be revealed to us all.

I have only had this piece lying around for about a year.

It is quite dark and I have not been inspired. Part of the reason is that we are supposed to make each piece an image in itself and I have not been able to see anything in it.

Recently, I asked a nephew if he could see anything in it. He saw the partial top of a crocodile's head - amazing.
I then worked on the image in Photoshop, making it lighter and to the size I wanted.

I printed it out onto some silk that will go through the inkjet printer. I backed it with some adhesive interfacing and I sewed it.

I forgot it would shrink - or I hoped it wouldn't. But it did. So it is too small.
Start again. Soon. Not now.

I am not sure it actually looks like a crocodile's head and it is lighter than the image, so I might play around with it a bit more. Maybe the misfortune will turn out to be fortunate.
But time is running short, I set myself a deadline of taking it to the group meeting on Sunday. I'll have to work on it in the next few days and not worry too much about being perfect, as long as it is the perfect size.

For those of you who can't see - it is lying on a log, floating in water.

Hmm …

That could have gone better.

I am referring to my attempt to make an A4 sized work of art. The call for entries ended yesterday (Contemporary Art Society), so I won't be sending this piece off.

I thought I would try some Alison Holt style sewing (and silk painting) using one of my many photos of eucalyptus blossom.

I blew my photo up to A4 size, traced the relevant parts, using a water soluble pen, and then put some gutta on the silk. The gutta dissolves the pen, taking away the necessity to worry about blue lines.

I haven't done silk painting for a while and the gutta is one that I have not used before. That's my excuse anyway. The lines are blobby and thicker than I had hoped.

Not to worry, the sewing should cover the white parts, I thought.

But my planning was a bit off, some of the background details needed to be painted without the white lines around them. I have to sew quite heavily to hide the whiteness, so they aren't really background anymore.

I hooped up the silk for my sewing.

I used a large hoop, maybe I should have used a smaller one. Or maybe my technique needs work. Or perhaps I should have used some sort of stabiliser under the silk. (But I find that soluble fabric causes the sewing to shrink when you wash it out - further experimentation needed there.)

The silk has ruched in spots and I can't seem to get rid of the wrinkles, despite stretching the silk over some cardboard and sewing it tightly.

Actually, it looks worse in the photo than reality, and the red is much darker in reality too. 

I have recently completed a 4 week CAE course in frame making, maybe I can do something to improve the piece. At the least, I can practise making a frame - and then hang it up high, above a door or somewhere similar - where the light doesn't shine directly on it and the wrinkles aren't so obvious.

If I were a true scientist, or a perfectionist, I would try the whole process again, changing only the size of the hoop (if that is the problem), and see what result I got. But I doubt that I have the patience to do that. Maybe - I will have to see how the mood strikes me.

Letter box art

Is this a new thing? Letter box art. I haven't seen it before but came across this in a street nearby.

Apparently, the owners are going to change the display soon.

And yes, the Alphington bus stop is still decorated. Some aspects have changed but it is still giving pleasure to passersby (me, at least).

Dew

I took the dog for a walk this morning. It wasn't all that early but neither was it hot. I am loving this summer, cool nights so you can sleep and only a few really hot days.

I noticed an interesting pattern on the ground. It was just sandy soil but there had been dew overnight and it made it look a bit like fungus.

We haven't had much rain recently so the sign of dew was welcome. The main bugbear about summer has been the lack of rain.

I Can't Resist

As I may have already said, the hollyhocks are gorgeous - and prolific. They keep flowering ...

and throwing beautiful spent flowers on the ground where I walk. I just can't let them go to waste!

Consequently, the freezer is getting more and more full of flowers. It's lucky we live near two supermarkets, there isn't all that much room in the freezer for food.

I keep picking the flowers up and photographing the beautiful patterns on them. I have also MANY photos of the flowers.

Can you see the cute little face in the white part? Or is it a monstrous face??

Now I have discovered the pretty little seed pods.

I even found some seeds lying on the ground today. 

I will have to start designing!

The shapes make me think of a workshop I did a few years ago with Jane Sassaman. I will have to go back to my notes and see what I can do with the ideas floating around in my head.

I also have quite a bit of fabric, dyed using the hollyhocks. They aren't all the correct colour for representing the flowers but that doesn't matter, one of the good things about Jane's class was the stylising of the images. I can use whatever colours I want, it doesn't actually have to look like hollyhocks, they are just my starting point.

If I ever get around to doing more than looking and thinking.

You can find a downloadable PDF, and video, at Quilting Arts, about this design process.

Bus Stop in Alphington

I have just realised that I know NOTHING about Instagram!  I tried to look up the bus stop I saw at Alphington and couldn't find the links, despite doing a search that said I had found some information.
Pictogram is a problem for me too.

That's probably why I am still blogging when I have heard it is passé now.

Not to worry, I am enjoying the blogging. And, as I have stated that it is a visual diary too, I am not worried about new-fangled trends. In fact, I did use it recently to see how I had done a previous technique that I wanted to try again.

So …

I have driven past this bus stop in Alphington a few times recently and loved the glimpses I have caught of the inviting room. It is not in a spot conducive to pulling over.

Today we were taking our dog for a walk and I said we should go past this very interesting art installation. We turned off just before the bus stop and parked behind the empty buildings of the old APM site. It is a fantastically desolate site. A couple who were walking by said that it had been used to make an E grade movie about vampires a few years ago, when the site was first sold off. I can see why it was chosen.

But it was the bus stop that was my destination - I had to go and see it close up, getting more detail than you see just driving by.

 The bus stop looks rather ordinary as you approach it from the street.

 Then you see it close up - fabulous.

I don't know who is doing it but I do know that I derive great enjoyment from seeing it. I think it has developed over the days. I hope it is allowed to stay.

A Different Sunset

After I attended the tapestry workshop with Joy Smith, at the Wangaratta Art Gallery, I started a small tapestry at home. It was based on the sunset photos that I have been using as inspiration for most of the year.

I am also working on it for the online group's yearly challenge. This year it is Flight.
I downloaded some images of birds in flight from 123RF. Using Photoshop, my favourite program, I inserted a bird.
They ask you to acknowledge the source, so here it is.

Eventually, I decided that two birds would be better. I just pasted the bird image into Photoshop and resized it. I debated having three, that being a much more artistic number but decided that I couldn't manage to weave a smaller one.

Then I got sidetracked by discovering a call for entries for a quilt. Several weeks of work went into that.

But I am back to the tapestry now. I thought I had about a third more weaving to do but discovered that I was almost finished.

It is cut off the loom now and all I have to do is put the backing on.

I used the photo as a guide, rather than a definite cartoon, and the colours have moved around a bit. Not to worry, it isn't supposed to be a photograph.

I am not that keen on it, it is rather pink and purple. But I did manage to keep my sides from coming in too much. I was reminded, at the workshop, to leave plenty of weft in and the pulling in wouldn't be such a problem. Now all I have to do is practise (of course!) and try not to have the little lumpy bits. It is not a great piece of art but I am happy that I have nice even edges.

I don't usually finish off with the braiding, I usually use the small tapestry technique. I REALLY need to practise the braiding!! I seemed to be all thumbs, as they say. So I will try to find an image I like and do another small piece, with a view to working on my weaving and finishing off techniques.