Thursday 28 May 2009

Stitching Dyed Papers

With head down working on piece for FoQ and visiting relatives and friends over the holiday weekend , haven't had much to show and tell here. While I was away I did however start stitching into one of the paper collages I'd started on Amanda Hislop workshop. The joys of variagated threads - I only took one skein , needle and thread with me! Big stitches emphasise the colour changes - have to be decisive as stitching leaves holes in the paper.





I hadn't been very happy with the initial results (above ) of collaging the dyed papers - first of all too pastel and patchy then too gaudy using Koh-i-Nor watercolour dye palette. I've had a couple of goes at it since I got home with Neocolour crayons and layers of acrylic medium, trying to unite the different areas, losing some of the freshness and textures in the process but improved overall. I like the ridges where I embedded dyed hemp string

I backed the piece with a fused piece of cheesecloth, mainly to give stability to the edge when trimmed and stitched with a zigzag (variagated thread again -machine one this time). I liked the raggy edges but it didn't work compositionally so trimmed it to CQ Journal size (6" x12"). I'm off to CQ Summer School tomorrow with Jae Maries , so it may get superceded as my June piece Looking forward to seeing everybody and making a mess with inks!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is so beautiful - and I envy you the workshop with Amanda Hislop. I must check out the workshop you are going in tomorrow; have some creative fun.

Julie said...

This certainly works in this perspective Mags. Have a great workshop.

The WestCountryBuddha said...

Wow. I love this! It's so delicate and the stitching transforms it. Have a lovely workshop and I'm looking forward to hearing what you get up to.