Designing for felt and tapestry

Recently I have been working toward the Open Studios event in May in my local region. My studio is very cold at the moment so I have not spent that much time there, but there has been time to felt at home, and do some drawings to start thinking about composition and texture.

I am interested in the regenerative forces in nature - the way nature reclaims spaces, breaks through even in the hardest and most inhospitable urban environment or how plants can be dependent on what might at first seem like devastating fires to regenerate. But at the same time I am continue to interested in process and materials and I still wonder how you bring the two together. For that I look at certain artists on Youtube, who are generous with tutorials and ideas, and I am very grateful to them for the time they spend explaining things.

The felt I have been making is actually more a manipulation of existing fabric - a woollen scarf I cut into pieces and added wool and silk to the surface.  because the fabric was quite tightly knitted it has not picked up the felted wool to merger the materials together and currently the merino and silk fibres sit on the surface to some extent. the plan is that I will be working onto the surface with stitch and applied materials, so it won't matter and will add to the depth of the final pieces.

In photographing this work the light was a bit hard coming onto the pieces so the colours are not accurate:

 

These are work in progress. There is still much to do on them. I am working up four different pieces to have a small series although I hope that they will also work well independently.

 

To work up a plan for the next steps I have started drawing some outlines of the pieces which I plan to use  as 'templates' onto this which I can add textures, other colours and so on. These drawings are themselves work in progress as they are not complete in terms of colour etc, but some of them are in themselves not too bad as drawings and I may just leave them as they are. This process takes time and needs to be revisited several times.

 

An unfinished sketch to look at texture

 

Using wax resist, watercolour, water soluble graphite - working out texture and may use as foundation for further work on what textures, materials to apply t the textile pieces

 

Detail of the above

 

This drawing seems more of a complete drawing, various textures, marks and colours seem to balance more as a complete entity, and just suggests the felted piece - I will return to this drawing to look at how I can improve its textile sister. I don't seem to get away from a painterly type of expression.

 

A detail of the above

 

Tapestry designs

 

 

 
 
 

 

I have also been designing for tapestry. I have been interested in using oil pastels for tapestry design as my weavings are usually quite textured and the strength and weight of the colours and textures you can derive from oil pastels feel as if they would be useful. So I started a sketchbook for these designs. whenever a drawing was done there were a lot of crumbs left from the pastel and I picked these up and used them in another type of drawing which is light and is more about a mood. These may be useful sometime in the future.

 

 

The designs are based around the colours I want to concentrate on: the dark browns of wool and alpaca, orange and green. Perhaps some dark blue added to the brown.

 



 

Some designs may seem a little unadventurous and I think they could be livened up with some additional elements such as speckles of colour in the brown, textured weaving and the like. Certainly I would like the orange to sing against the brown and so I hope that a few tapestry samples will start showing how this effect could be developed.

 

 



The next images are some examples of the pictures that used the crumps from the pastel, I rubbed and dragged them across the page in different ways and the use of fingers as a tool is great and enjoyable to work with - there is a degree of serendipity in how the pastel ends up being bound to the paper. The softness and openness of the way the colours lie on the paper with a great deal of the white paper showing through is suggestive and on one I used a thin pale blue-grey wash to see how this would affect the atmosphere of the image.

 



 

And finally a simple sample of my first ever weft-faced weaving on a rigid heddle loom. At my Guild we had some workshops at the January meeting and this was the option I chose - I have a rigid heddle loom which I have not yet used, and this was a bit of a taster to get a feel for what might be achievable. The sample is shown with the warp threads showing, these will be attached to the back to make the sample a bit more tidy looking.

 

 



West Berkshire and North Hampshire Open Studios

This May has been a month of exhibition and making at the Open Studios. Together with two other artists we have been showing at City Arts in Newbury, which as an old chapel has large spaces to fill.

In order to fill the space in interesting ways the last two months or more have been spent making hangings and felt pieces. These have been hung together in a bit of an installation and I have used some tables to show other things, as well as a table for me to work at. It has all worked out well, and I have had time to do some tapestry weaving whilst there.

Here are some impressions from the exhibition:

 

This is an overall view of one end of the exhibition space, you can see the hangings, the folded book hanging from the ceiling and some of the tables.

 

These two pictures provide details of the green hangings, with a drawing (top) and green felt piece (below)

This image shows an interesting effect in the book: perforations from stitching lets the light through

 

 

A view of the full length of the book

 

A table set out with experimental pieces, felt and embroideries

 

A second table set out with small tapestries, sketchbooks and drawings on the theme of trees.

 

A view of the other end of the exhibition space with the table we have been working at - my friend came for a few days to learn tapestry and I have been working here on a small piece.

 

And finally - a couple of bookcases have been very useful in displaying the small tapestries. I had bought some perspex stands to show them off in a gentle sort of way, and you can also see the weaving frame ready to be used with a couple of reference books.

 

 

It has been an interesting event: the number of visitors has swung, with an increase over the bank holiday Monday, and I have been pleased that some people asked whether I give courses, which suggests that some are interested in the work. What people haven't done is bought anything. It is not a climate conducive for people to spend, and as textiles are relatively specialist I did not really expect many sales. I think people still prefer paintings or prints as primary art works for the home - textiles as decorative items are not common and my works are necessarily easy or ready for hanging. There has been a lot to learn during this last month and I am pleased to have been part of it, what will happen next year is another question and something I need to think about quite hard.

 

 

Penultimate course at West Dean - monoprinting

The monoprinting course was a slightly longer course - three day - structured around a technical introduction in the morning and then a day of applying these with the occasional technical session in the afternoon. The first couple of sessions introduced water based inks and the last two days we worked with oil based inks.

The course pushed us to bring in some rigour to our work - the very first session was a test of how pure a line we could achieve. Here are some examples of these lines:

And then some line drawings based on a photograph of biloba leaves. Here is the templates, which is a transparency from the photograph.

 

A print onto a background primed transfer of ink in grey. I modified the black ink throughout as I find it a bit harsh and the prints are quite soft.

 

Here the background was a wet monoprint with suggestions of the leaves in blue-grey tones and then the print of the leaves over this; below a detail. You can see that the edge is dark: this has come about as I left finger marks on the edge when I was holding down the paper (A4 paper on an A4 plate does not leave much for taping down the paper. I therefor used this device as a frame which has worked out quite well. The lines are quite bold and strong, perhaps a bit too think for the lacy effect of the composition.

 

We also learned to print using organic materials such as leaves and interesting when these soft leaves stick onto the brayer they can be used to transfer ink onto a piece of paper, such as below. I am not sure whether this appeals to me - firstly I thought the leaves I used were too precise and sharp and secondly in transferring the leaf imprint I think the results are a bit too much like 'wall paper' and I think that would need some further exploration to use in interesting ways.

 

 

A detail:

 

I also tried some grasses but these ended up sticking to the brayer for some time and left a lot of organic debris behind that made a mess and left disturbances in subsequent prints. Clearly one has to clean brayers well if using organic matter in this way.

 

 

 

Here's a detail from a better print using small leaves on blue loktah paper. In fact I printed on different papers to see how they worked, including cartridge, pastel and loktah paper. I think this latter paper was quite interesting in prints where the ink was dark and dense enough to bring up the print. A few examples left the ink too thin to show up properly and mark were faint and washed out.

 

This example of a print using the small leaves is on newsprint, unfortunate as the print is quite a subtle and soft result.

I also made a series of prints based on cathedral arches, which I will include  when I have photographed it.

 

Drawing day at West Dean: making gesso, pigment solutions and silverpoint

I am close to the end of the FDAD at West Dean, I have one course to do and an essay and on the way to the end I recently attended a drawing day and a monoprinting course.

The drawing day was very good - Frances Hatch, Evie Hatch and the conservator Judith Wetherall all brought something valuable to the day. We had a thorough introduction to making gesso using rabbitskin glue and calcium carbonate as well as descriptions of the use of pigment in the development of paint.

We were then ready to cover pieces of heavy card, water colour paper and a piece of MDF in rabbit skin glue used as size and gesso and once this was dry by the afternoon we could then apply marks using metal, mainly silver to create silver point drawings.

My sample pieces include elements incorporating textile fibres and organic matter. Here are the initial samples showing the use of pigment:

 

Three tests on a piece of sized card showing plain gesso, gesso with terre verde (a green pigment) and gesso binding down wool. 

 

Gesso samples on watercolour paper, the hairy section includes a gummed silk fibre.

 

 

As mentioned, in the afternoon we tried out silverpoint using a sharpened silver wire. This is an old method to drawing, used before the pencil was developed, and in the main it leaves a fine, subtle line, which artists such as Leonardo da Vinci used. You can use a broader tool such as a spoon to create a softer mark.  I am not a great drafts person and I like bold varying gestures, so this fine line effect does not sit naturally with me. I am glad I tried it, but will probably not be pursuing this technique in depth.

Paper with wool and gesso which I intend to use as a base for further work - in fact that is what a number of the samples will be for at some point.

 

A dried leaf with applied gesso and blue gouache.

 

A piece of thin worn plastic from the West Dean gardens applied to wet gesso with a little gesso applied over it.

 

Gesso made blue using gouache and then silver point lines and scratches applied.

 

 Blue silk and other silk and wool fibre.

 

 

A piece of gessoed water colour paper with gummed white and green silk fibre. I then drew with the silverpoint in lines echoing the fibre strands, and finally thin lines of rabbitskin glue with terre verde. The picture was taken in bright sunshine which cast fine shadow lines from the silk fibre.

 

West Dean 5th course - Intuitive drawing

So, it has been a while since I did a course at West Dean and in late August I attended the 5th course in my series of 10. Half way through, and having looked back at soem of my work for the OCA I have to say I think the work is improving, and going to West Dean somehow gives you permission to think in a focussed way about what is happening with the work.

The tutor was Christopher Gilvan-Cartwright. A thoughtful and inspiring teacher who brought us many techniques to try out to give us a tool box of ways of creating surfaces, textures and mark on paper with charcoal, graphite, acrylic paint and ink. There were flattish marks and heavy textures, there were analyses of line and working over te paper in blocks of colour or mass of substance in charcoal or ink.

We each got a table and an easel and he pointed out that we could think about how we want to work - at three levels: on the table, on an easel or on the floor. I tried all three and they each gave something different to how the work developed: in the table  or floor your pour ink, on the easel you can sit back and really look at the work as it progresses.

Here is my table and bit of the floor with work in progress in sketchbooks and on paper (drying where ink or oil bar was applied):

Surprisingly I tried to keep tidy, as the space on the table was quite limited. We were mostly working on A1 or A2/A3 depending on whether finished work was being made, or test pieces to try out techniques were being made.

The 'intuitive' bit in the title suggested we were going to work with Dada automatic drawing, which we did do on the first day, but after that we simply worked very freely with the new techniques being taught. He did mention the idea of the exquisite corpse drawing and I read in the course description that we would be sharing work, but in the end we didn't do much of that, and just got on with our indendent work.

I used up paints in mt sketchbook, used collage and added to some books I had brought that needed to be thought about in a drawing sort of way. The tutor gave some very valuable feedback for the FDAD side of things, so overall it was a helpful and valuable course.

Here are some works I made over the weekend:

A lot of the work was done in black and white, but I did use some of my XL graphite as it leant itslef well to the large scale of the work and sits well with the charcoal and ink,

These long coloured things are the concertina books I had brought from home to add to - I have also started stitching on them, so this brief piece of work was just to add a bit of texture in paper or paint.

A drawing based on the moon's light that looks better in reality - the black sugar paper is already greyish, but looks even more so here.