More tree photos - an afternoon project

It was a sunny afternoon and as the sun was lowering the shadows got to a stage that promised some interesting photos. I got a new camera recently and hadn't used it properly so this was a good time to try it out on a photo project. What I include here are some of the better ones, but I did experiment a bit, including shaking the camera furiously to try to get some interesting shapes and with a bit of camera shake I have made some cropped selections to get other effects that may lend themselves to textile experiments.

 

A detail from a line of conifers

 
A conventional picture of a tree - I took a lot of these, and it would be tempting to add lots of tree photos here, but I am trying to keep the photos to interesting ones I got quite excited about

 

A large branch from a tree with strange twisty branches

 

 

Not sure what these are called - like flowers on a not-quite budding tree

Trees in the landscape and near buildings help create particular environments and shape a feeling about a place - here a medieval church with a few trees around it

A yew tree in the churchyard

 

A diversion - an ancient roman wall which here shows how the stones making up the wall have been laid out in almost a herringbone pattern

More trees in the landscape

 

Trees in the churchyard and looking beyond - here also something about looking through trees when they have bare branches

 

 

Twigs at the end of branches lit up with bright sunlight

 

 

A large tree and overhead a few birds in flight. For some time I have been trying hard to capture migrating birds, but always get the camera out when they have almost flown away, or my camera is too weak to capture the full line of birds. Today I think I caught a formation that looked quite good above the trees

 

 

 After that small digression back to the trees

 

More looking through trees, this is the part of my photo project where I moved the camera quickly around to see what would happen, and look at this, the camera caught these blobs of light! - I like these, they work well

I also tried again with grey trees and less light coming through

Here's the effects achieved by this

These shaken pictures take the tree idea and stretches it into something abstract and I think this work is more about the photo than the theme, but it is effective anyway and could be used for abstract textile designs

Here are some details from one of the distorted images, they work quite well too; there are suggestions of pattern, and mark making

 

Some of these suggest the trees and branches more than others. All in all I really enjoyed the photo project I set myself, a small quick and intense exercise to free up thinking about visualising trees.

Tex 1 - Ass. 3 - Project 6 reflections

Here are the reflective comments to the questions raised in the course book relevant to assignment 3 - particularly the manipulated fabric section:

• How does working with fabric in this way compare with working directly with stitch?

When working with fabric as the primary source of textile design so much depends on the actual structure of the fabric – the fibre it is made of – whether natural (wool, cotton, linen etc) or man-made (polyester, nylon, viscose, rayon etc). There is also the weight of the fabric to consider: how flexible is it; does it fold or crease well, or set under heat; is it matt and rough to handle, open or close weave, is it smooth and slippery? All these factors determine how to think about what to do with the fabric. Stitching is about applying colour and texture to the surface of the fabric, whilst fabric manipulation is about creating design elements from the quality of the fabric itself.

• Are you pleased with the shapes and movements that you have created in both appliqué and fabric manipulation?

Mostly yes. I liked the heat setting effect and the pulled effects of layered organzas. Sticking together organzas with sandwiched materials between can be very useful and effective and I may use this more in my future project.

• What would you do differently?

I would like to have had the continuity of time, but had this low energy period. That was disappointing as I think I could have gained some momentum on work and would have maybe experienced a bit more continuity between different sample types. I would have done better to design more, maybe.

•  How did the pieces work in relation to your drawings?

The applique snow scene worked well – layers of organza, matt and shiny surfaces worked well together. The crumpled tissue paper was useful to evoke crinkled fabrics in the collages, and I think in general my drawings based on selected photographs and collages were useful starting points. Sometimes though, sampling alone based on ideas tested from books were equally useful. In fact, I think that I work better at times if testing techniques through sampling. That is the way you get in touch with the materiality of the fabric – drawing and sampling in a dialogues is probably the best way to proceed. Also, I feel more able to be spontaneous with the material itself as the source material; drawings change this spontaneity somehow.

• Were the final results very different from the drawings?

Yes, drawings are two dimensional, and even if textiles seem to be two dimensional there is still something substantially different in a sample from a foundation drawing. Probably this also has something to do with the quality of my drawing at the moment.

• Did the fabric manipulation technique take over and dictate the final result?

Yes, I think that once you are in ‘flow’, playing with the material and working out how it responds, then the making becomes a thing in itself – hence the idea of sampling as part of the creative process. I have never really thought about samples in this way, but when thinking about manipulating fabric it almost becomes necessary. I had also thought of doing some paper folding as a foundation for heat setting silk, and similarly that also would only really work when folding and practicing shapes – drawing would not carry the work very far.

• Was it helpful to work from the drawings in the appliqué exercise?

Yes, that worked. In drawing shapes, thinking about colour or layers, the drawings point to the shapes and proportions to aim for in a textile piece. I did also consider working directly from photographs in a more intuitive way. Sometimes when I look at textile design books I do wonder whether the ‘mood-board’ photographs haven’t  been pasted in in retrospect and the samples tested first. This is part of that dialogue thing I mentioned above.

• Would you have preferred to play directly with cut shapes and materials?

There is a difference between cut out shapes as in applique, which I think does need a drawing, and fabric manipulation which is more a matter of testing, practicing and playing with effects and fabric structures. Of course you can play with applique, and in selecting various fabrics I hadn’t originally considered, there was some of that going on, but it depends on the purpose of the applique. Some artists work with representational images in which case drawings are essential. Otherwise the drawing has a different purpose; something about working out the final piece, or understanding relationships; I have seen a drawing by Sheila Hicks that suggested the wrapped threads in her large hanging The Principal Wife (1968), but she would already have tested how wrapping would work in a single elements, she was working out textile compositions in the drawing based on her wrapped element, I think.

• How do you feel about working with stitch in general? Is it an area you would like to pursue in more depth? Do you find it limiting in any way?

I enjoy working with stitch when it can be used freely and allows for intuitive shaping and designing, such as in my larger, complex samples. My work is more about structure and construction, and it became clear towards the end of the sampling that I was veering close to the constructive work to come in the next assignment. In the end stitch, construction and fabric manipulation can work together and it is difficult to be purist about either. In traditional textiles work it may be more clear but to allow for full and free expression it is better I think, to enable boundaries to be flexible. It is a matter of purpose of the work.

Project 7 - The Theme Book

Project 7 is a first step into the final project in assignment 5, where a self-planned and conceived textile piece is asked for.

I have been looking at the idea and the reality of trees for some time and think that is going to be one of my ongoing and long-lasting threads for thinking about my work. My tutor suggested I do a mindmap on the theme I might work on - or maybe it was on design ideas? - so I started with a mindmap of the TREE:

The mindmap includes what I could think of in a couple of sittings and I have not included all the detail that could be thought about under the different headings. There is a long and wide-ranging cultural history of using the tree in all manner of ways - as symbol (e.g. tree of life), as a material, wood, for making things, as creating particular environments to name a few. Fundamentally trees are about life and fertility, about longevity and sometimes something spiritual and transcendent. In the part of the world where seasons are pronounced we see the changing times of the year in the trees, and here a barren tree can evoke melancholy and loss. Trees are also affected by the changes that are now taking place through changes in the climate, in rising temperatures, droughts; and where man is so follows all manner of devastation - deforestation and erosion - but also possibilities of positive ecology where land is left to recover from cultural interventions. 

A design book

From a design perspective I am now making a work book for some design themes that I may use for this project and assignment 5, project 10. There was a bundle of papers in my local charity shop which I thought could be used as a book - they are fairly large and the paper shiny, but with a good weight to it, so there are probably benefits and some limitations to how the book will work as a sketchbook. It does give me the opportunity to make a book cover which I haven't done before (the cover will not be the final project, just another sample on the way there).

Literary sources of trees

As part of this work I have been downloading pictures of trees doing amazing things like encapsulating other things, being almost suspended by their roots, being enormous as some trees are, and of course various art works by historical and contemporary artists. I have a very useful book, The Magic of Trees, Bruderlin (1999), which is a compilation of artists' rendering of trees, from an otherworldly Theosophist tree by Mondrian, to trees by impressionists and others as well as masks and totem poles from non-Western cultures.

The book Bäume, Hesse (1984), with excerpts of texts and poems by Hermann Hesse has also been inspirational. His short piece on the chestnut tree is very beautiful and there are other words of his and others on the value of trees to nourish and give meaning to life that can be found on the web (sorry to those of you interested in this - I don't think these Hesse texts have been translated into English - oh yes, I have found a site where some of these words have been translated: Hesse on the Tree).

From my own background I am digging out fairytales (H C Andersen's The Tinder Box, about magical things happening through a soldier entering a dead tree, The Fir-tree), songs and anything else I can remember. A very fond and warm memory I have of trees are of some very large trees standing immediately opposite our house. To a small person they were very tall indeed, and in the late summer and autumn winds the rustle of leaves filled the atmosphere. We used to climb the lower trees, or use the branches for bouncing and sew-sawing on.

References

Bruderlin, Markus, 1999, The Magic of Trees, Hatje Cantz

Hesse, Herman, 1984, Bäume, Insel Verlag

Tex1 Assignment 3 - Project 6 Manipulating fabric continued

Stage 1-2

These stages are preparatory and include matching fabrics, drawing and designing. I started these in September, had a three month break and then did some collages. Please see the earlier entry for Assignment 3.

Alongside this work I also started the samples for various other stages as sampling for the work in Assignment 3is time consuming.

There is also a couple of written tasks which a kind of 'essays', which I will place in a separate post with links. My workbook will contain collages of material which I can't show here due to copyright issues.

Stage 3

Samples for applique and layering

 

Sandwiched fragments of silk and threads, the sample to the left on a more opaque background, the one to the right more transparent using organza and a vintage nylon scarf (which melted very easily under the iron) - using bondaweb.

 

 

Machine embroidered lacy fabric on silk and acetate

 

 

Machined snowflakes on soluble fabric then attached

 

 

A couple of samples using burning-away as a technique to disrupt the texture of the fabric - to the left black lutradur, to the right tyvek. Lutradur is a non-woven material that comes in various weights and can be burned like this to leave what is left as a lacy effect, tyvek is similarly non-woven but it bubbles up under heat and can burn away. I painted both with acrylic.

 

  

 

white synthetic organza I had heat-set once (part of stash I am using up) on a silver metallic fabric, sandwiched some bits of fabric with 'pearling' on the surface using stitching.

 

A more elaborate sample attaching three dimensional structures to a stiffened base, a cord made of silk and  various paper and fabric beads (the beads are not my work, I have a wondrous charity shop that has so much good stuff). I wanted to use structured items to add to this sample and sewed everything together using freemachined zigzag stitches and large seed stitches. The idea came from Jean Draper's book, Stitch and Structure,Design and Technique in two and three-dimensional  textiles, Batsford (2013)

 

 

 

Again appliqued fabric, a felt flower and a couple of bows, here attached by hand using buttonhole stitch and running stitch.

 

Stage 4 Raised and structured surface techniques

 

One of the samples above may also fit in this category, but actually I think that all these textile manipulation techniques are part of the same sort of idea and so it doesn't matter too much which heading they fit under.

 

This stage included quilting which I have done before, but it is not my thing in its traditional sense, and neither is smocking. I do admire good smocking like the heavy stitching in traditional regional farmers' smocks like the ones held by Hampshire Museum Service, and the finer work on mainly girls' dresses from the 1950s, but in general I think these techniques are probably not in my comfort zone, although it is useful to try them out.

 

Here are a couple of samples of pleats and tucks

 

 

Knife pleats to the left, box pleats to the right

 

 

Tucks of varying sorts, on the left some unevenly sewn ones to create shape in the fabric

 

 

A piece of synthetic lining fabric which has been randomely stitched gathered and set by heat with the iron.

 

Another gathering exercise here in a thick jersey (left) and a herringbone woven wool (right). I thought the wool piece was promising, in a brown tweed this might be used to evoke a tree trunk with more work. An artist who exploits fabric manipulation and has used tightly gathered strong fabrics such as denim and canvas is the Norwegian artist, Hanne Friis. Her work is on a large scale and she uses either large pieces of fabric, or assembles pieces into larger works. She uses hand sewn processes to make dynamic work that appears to move or react to the environment it is in.

 

 

A couple of heat-set pleated samples following  Wolff et al's (2003) description. The white one (top) was made by running stitches pulled tightly - as in shibori preparation. The bottom sample was just  piece of fabric crumpled into a ball and set in the oven. This made deep random folds. How much longevity the folds have I don't know, I am hoping that having used synthetic fabrics (I am guessing polyester based, but am not completely sure based on purchases from charity shops). Heat set synthetics are getting increasingly visible in shops used in scarves and skirts for example. Reiko Sudo, the Japanese textile designer, has taken pleating and folding of fabrics to a great level of perfection, and has produced work for the Nuno Corporation which she is a co-founder of. Examples of her work can be found on Pinterest.

 

 

 

Pulled thread of hessian opened up the fabric (right) and I attached it to a linen backing for firmness and to allow the yellow-green to show through.

 

The detail to the right of the hessian includes layering the linen background with silk paper and a silk fabric on top  and I then slashed the silk and silk paper. The picture doesn't really show up the slashing as the fabrics are tonally similar, but that was intended.

 

 

A piece of firm fabric as base with layered bits of fabric covered in organza and then stitched randomely and gathered and pulled together. you need a lot of fabric for this, it pulls the fabric together. Makes for an interesting texture with a relatively deep relief structure.

 

A few yo-yos in a synthetic, using both front and back of fabric. This means some are shiny, whilst others are matt, quite a useful effect to think about. Thought these might have potential.

 

Heat set shapes moulded around small paper cups:

 

 

 

Quilting - a sample quilting together silk, wadding and a linen backing. I used straight machine stitch mainly, but added granite stitch (Meech, 2006) down one side. Also appliqued on two triangles to create a bit of interest in an otherwise slightly dull composition.

 

 

This sample consists of sections of gathered circles and then around some of them I did a few circles in running stitch. I thought this was quite effective, I like the linens that give the folds good shape - it is a bit like a type of smocking in the overall effect, but that was not intended.

 

 

Bubbles filled with polyester stuffing and when the circles were drawn together they caused the fabric to pleat so I sewed it down on a backing fabric with open, loose stitching. The fabric was a synthetic with heat transferred dye.

Smocking

 

Smocking is new to me and I did not know where to start, so I looked at Wolff's book on manipulating fabric and see that free-style smocking was more my thing so I had a go on a firm back canvas with various coloured perle yarn.

 

Here's the back of the sample, I quite liked that, the deep pleats make for interesting textures.

 Quilting

 

Before doing the more traditional quilting techniques I found that Jean Draper mentions Kantha quilting in her book. I had a go assembling a piece of woollen cloth and a thin cotton with my homespun yarn, put it in the washing machine to felt it a bit and here is the result:

 

 

I know, it is probably not quite kantha quilting in its proper form and does take something from nuno felting as well as the wool obviously felts through the cotton. It was a useful exercise and the final thing is quite integrated, I think it is both a bit of constructed and manipulated techniques working with the cloth in combination with stitch and the actual substance of the fibre.

 



 

 

I then went on to do some traditional quilting (left) - see above. To the right is a sample that traps some buttons and a rubber ring. The ring was particularly interesting, it has pulled the fabric in a particular way and I tried to stitch the fabric down using fairly loose and random stitching.

 

 

An artist who uses this approach to quilting, trapping found objects, historical textiles and other material evocative of place, sites of memory or historical places is Diane Savona, an American quilter. She uses the surface to attach these things but then create an integrated whole that at times seem to be telling stories through the object locked into the textile - see her Garment Portraits, they include other textiles assembled and attached - the white apron ripped and placed over coloured fabric pieces (First Apron Excavation) I find interesting and also the 'Overgrown Fossil' piece is quite evocative.

 

This sample is made of circular shapes folded in half and then folded again with a bead and strung on a strong thread. I think this type of thing might also fit into ass. 4, but then it is also manipulated fabric of a sort, so I include it here. What was interesting about the fabric is that it is an African batik stiffened with wax, I like this it promises to have good sculptural properties.

 

 

Another sample that crosses over assignment 3 and 4. This time I cut strips of fabric, cut a piece of woven wool (a sample from my local Guild of weavers, spinners and dyers), and bits of silk overlain in places. It is an attempt at creating a very loose 'cord' (Lee(2010), Draper (2013))before this will be sewn together to create a vessel. This means the fabric manipulation side of things is in using cut strips that are folded and covered, and the 'constructed bit is the sewing together to form a new structure altogether.

 

 

The final vessel - I think this worked well, it was hard work, hard on the hands and the final vessel is quite small, useful to know if planning a bigger object in the future

 

The vessel upside down to show a bit more detail

And now to something that really didn't work at all; a photo of a chain I thought might make a basis for a padded chain links:

 

Oh dear, not a good sample - I used silvery grey organza, padded with polyester filling. Stitching on the outside edges.

 

 

The reason I don't think this one worked is how clumsy it is. Dimensions are wrong, the translation from hard iron to soft fabric didn't work and the original image would have worked much better as a source for a flat design, repeat or some other 2D rendering.

 

 

 

Final sample - manipulated fabric

 

The last piece in this project is to make up a design based on a drawing from an earlier stage. I quite liked the crumpled paper that I used as a backdrop for some collages, and since I also liked the heat set fabrics, I went all the way and assembled some of these.

 

First the collage, and some detail:

 

 

A dried-up plant dropped its leaves and these also suggested surface pleats and folds:

 

So, here are the building blocks of what I assembled - heated up, ironed and painted/unpainted tyvek, iron heated polyester and oven-heated polyester. The fabric was leftovers from the printing projects in assignment 2.

 

 

On this detail I really liked the top right piece, which is a randomly gathered piece heat set with the iron. All of it needed to be sewn onto a firm backing fabric as the polyester is quite slippery.

 

 

The course book says we should not sew anything onto this sample. Although the effects work on this sample, the totality needs to be tied better together to unify everything, and in the end a line crossing all will help - so I am sewing on a piece of cotton string painted blue. So here's a 'before' picture with the blue string being attached:

 

 

The final piece with the string applied and a few beads

 

 

 

References

 

Draper, Jean, 2013, Stitch and Structure: Design and Technique in two and three-dimensional textiles, London: Batsford

 

Lee, Ruth, 2010, Three-Dimensional Textiles with Coils, Loops, Knots and Nets, London: Batsford

 

Meech, Sandra, 2006, Contemporary Quilts: Design, Surface and Stitch, London: Batsford,

 

Wolff, Colette et al, 2003, The Art of Manipulating Fabric, Krause Publications