Maggi Hambling Walls of Water and Society of Designer Craftsmen.

After a  couple of weeks stuck in the house with bronchitis  it was with great excitement that I headed up to town last Friday with Sue. I had an invitation from Alice Fox to the preview of the Society of Designer Craftsmen at the Mall Galleries ( she had a piece in the 25 x 25 x 25 project as did fellow Rydal Hall  retreater Julie Bunter) ).

As it didn't start until 6,  we fitted in the 2 linked exhibitions by Maggi Hambling 'Walls of Water'.I'd already seen the paintings at the National Gallery and was a bit underwhelmed so I was interested to see the monotypes  at the Malborough Fine Arts Gallery . As I'd suspected, far more interesting! The range of marks was  amazing - very aware of the fingerprints etc.  (read the interview about the  processes here) Also the compositions, especially those with a diagonal ,  were far more satisfying.   





Malborough Fine Arts was also the venue for the John Virtue paintings I saw last year. These  black and white seascapes on very different scales , draw you i to the picture , you can  feel the splash of those waves 



Slightly less  interesting to me were the monotypes done with silver ink - partly I think due to the black  paper they were printed on but mainly because the range of tones wasn't so marked and that horizontal line more obvious.

 It was interesting to compare similar compositions in monotype ( above  with an accidental touch of blue)  and  paint (below).   Besides the difference in size and colour, I think the processes used  also contribute. The print making is one-off  and  deductive, taking ink off the printing plate ( hence those dense velvety blacks) . When I did a printing course a few years ago at City Lit that was a revelation

Whereas the painting is additive  and  I know how easy it is to go too far.

 More food for thought at the Society of Designer Craftsmen show. For all the colour and diversity   my favourite  was a large quiet  piece by Beverly Ayling-Smith composed of a multitude of tiny mended pieces of cloth ( she had a similar piece in the Prism exhibition which also caught my attention.) A lot of her work is  based on ideas around shrouds and burial traditions. Interestingly she also has a background in science, trained as a microbiologist:  

"   I feel that the scientific way of working (making small changes in experimental processes and the documentation of these experiments) has spilled over into my artistic life"

Button Journal Quilts

I've been making journal quilts for 9 years now so I was determined to finish  the last set for CQ challenge but  had to grit my teeth. I normally  use  journal quilts as testing grounds for larger pieces - with themes set this year that was rather more difficult and the earlier sets of 'circles' and 'text' were in the end stand alone with little  connection to my other work. I knew I would struggle with 'buttons' as  I couldn't help thinking of  Elizabeth Bartons' comments  on  embellishments - how so many people spend 3 minutes using their first idea, 3 months making it and then as it doesn't work, put beads on it!  

As I've been going through a phase  of curved piecing African and indigo fabrics , I used some of the scraps left over in the first JQ adding some mother of pearl buttons that also went in the indigo vat. I've been wanting to try curved piecing some other African kola and indigo fabrics  to suggest sand ripples so that was my second . I do feel that these pieces would work just as well or better without the buttons!
Then I remembered how I'd successfully conquered another embellishment  (pearls) earlier in the year and used a similar aproach for  the third and fourth examples. I scanned some mother of pearl buttons - some small ones and a few  very large ones that reflected light  and after a bit of manipulation in Photoshop , printed them on  indigo cotton, indigo silk and silk organza. I combined these with an altered photo of a shoreline and a fabric copy of one of my 'ghost' monoprints from city lit which used threads.
Much happier with these and in a  way they sum up  my creative year: seascapes  transparency, printing, indigo. 
Much happier too with this years Journal Quilt Challenge which has just been announced - a return to A4 and the theme of 'shades of... ' starting with red which is what I'm working with at the moment anyway. Hurrah!!

Violet Seas

I've so enjoyed stitching this piece , I'm sorry to have finished it! 'Violet Seas' was composed from fabrics produced in CQ Summer School with Jo Budd and I wanted to have a go at stitching on canvas as she does. It's certainly easy to stitch and produced wonderful textures where the stitching alters the surface of the cloth. The downsides  include the terrible fraying of the canvas - had to tack the edge down. The main problem is  I don't know how to mount it for hanging. I wished I'd allowed more canvas so I had more to play with. I'd like to maintain the soft ragged edges of the top fabric. Any ideas? It's about 17x 17 inches.

Shibori Seas

 Remember I said I was piecing together an indigo seascape? Well I didn't get it finished to take to Weymouth , in fact it took another month but it's now ready to layer for quilting. Machine in the distance, hand stiching in the foreground I think.  I'd forgotten how difficult it is to photo indigo and it doesn't help it's currently about 125 h x 45cm w. I'm particularly pleased with these 2 sections and I'm itching to start another watery piece to incorporate the effects I achieved here before I forget!

Working into Light

This Sunday at City Lit, only half the class turned up for the second session on monotypes (perhaps because the weather was so nice?) Their loss- we had more access to the presses! I came prepared with all kinds of ideas  but in the end spent most of the time exploring what the materials would do, inspired by  the same photos and sketches I used last  week of the sea, this time in colour!! My wrist certainly knows about the work needed with a 'push knife' to get the printing inks into a workable state.  The larger expensive rollers were in use so I  used the poor quality of the smaller brayers to my advantage - I rather like the blotchiness of the ink. Just scoring into the surface with the end of a paintbrush produced intriguing results

The bristles of the paint brushes gave interesting marks and once I'd got going with laying some standed rayon threads down there was no stopping me!

The 'ghost' prints were especially appealing. More on ghosts and thread in further posts.  

Inspired, Influenced, Informed Indigo Seas

 Perhaps because I've been stitching on indigo all weekend as part of International Quilt Challenge ( sore fingers but I'm fallen in love all over again with hand stitching with 'mystique' cotton perle thread) but I felt the need to raid my indigo stash and start to build a seascape. Hope to get it assembled before going to Weymouth so I can stitch it in situ!! Still a lot of work to do on the bottom half beneath what's above but for my eyes only at the moment.

 Partly inspired by the fabrics themselves ( especially the ones I  dyed at Summer School last year) , mainly by the patterns created when cutting curves into striped/shibori  as in these journal quilts.

 Influenced also by previous indigo seascapes such as 'Serifos Storm'and informed by recent paintings of the sea at Slapton in acrylics.

Childhood Memories -Dog Days

The theme of next CQ Suitcase challenge is 'Childhood Memories' and I'm not the only one that has been looking through old photos ( in my case it was about time they came up from the damp cellar for a sort) Wish I could still touch my toes!
My parents didn't take too many photos ( a surprise since Dad did his own developing at one stage and Mum took photos when she went travelling in Europe in the late 40's )

As most photos were taken on day trips/holiday which when we were younger was at the seaside ( Lake District later years) it fits in quite well with seascapes I've been making.
Not that you ever saw the sea at Southport - are you still allowed to park on the sands?
And I'm not sure I'd approve now of jumping off dunes knowing how it disturbs the ecology ( and might scare a Natterjack Toad!) But what fun it was!
My chief memories of holidays are that Jill , our Staffordshire Bull Terrior, came too and used to have a wonderful time digging holes burying stones ( and rolling in a dead seal on one memorable occasion!!)
I still haven't used the printed fabric that I produced on Jae Maries course at CQ Summer school last year that reminded me of Bamburgh Castle from Stag Rocks so I've been playing in Photoshop to see how I might use photographs in a non-obvious way. Maybe introduce some colour in the stitching?

Painting Pebbles

This week and next in my drawing class is devoted to our own projects. After a lot of dithering, I decided on a return to seascapes with an attempt to simplify and find patterns rather then the 'photographic' results I often seem to end up with (probably as a result of working from photos in the first place). I'm quite pleased with what I achieved with acrylics on canvas board although I'm going to set myself some homework before next week as I struggled a bit with the pebbles.
I've been rereading 'The elements of drawing' by John Ruskin and one of the exercises is building up the shapes and contours of stones with consecutive washes of watercolour. Sounds like it might be useful observational practice - I'm going to be working larger next week, on a piece of gesso primed Durham Quilt.

May Journal Quilts

Both my Journal quilts for May have a sea theme. 'Bexhill Pixels' ( CQ 6 x 12 inch) is a souvenir of my birthday outing , based on photos manipulated in Photoshop inspired by the Susan Collins 'Seascape' installation at the De La Warr Pavilion, particularly the projection of images onto a window framed by real seascapes beyond.

Susan Collins: Stokes Bay 08-09-27 14.13

My favourite digital print at the exhibition (detail above) contained bright splashes of colour: "Pixel interventions where ships, yachts, people, birds, windsurfers etc pass in front of the camera when a pixel is being captured."

Using Neocolour II crayons, I ruled lines of colour on a used colour catcher, lightly sprayed with water to diffuse the colours then painted with acrylic medium to seal the surface. I found half a shirt from a charity shop (imitation ikat print from Mauritius), perfect for the background. Stitched with variagated threads by hand and machine. I was aiming for a less regular size to the hand stitches to indicate the pixels but it's so hard to be random! Back to the drawing board.

The indigo back (below) has possibilities.


The BQL Calendar Challenge for May was trapunto ( using an additional layer of wadding stitched behind the letters as stuffing) Following a workshop with Angie Hughes on lettering, I've used words from an August Strindberg quote in a couple of pieces so continued the theme using 'sea' and 'sky' in 'Jazztext' font size 400.

Having got carried away looking through my indigo stash for something suitably marine, I neglected to read the bit in the instructions about choosing PLAIN fabric. I tried to make the letters stand out a bit more with some FMQ and some hand seeding stitches but it's decidedly subtle. Only by taking photographs at a jaunty angle then cropping could I emphasise the shadows.

I'm afraid I'm just reverting to type - in our family we consistently applied the principle:

'If all else fails, read the instructions'.

Pixelated Seascapes

Thanks to Olga with her post on her trip to the seaside, Ian and I caught the train down to Bexhill on Tuesday for my Birthday Outing. It took about 2 hours with only a change at Clapham Junction :we had a walk along the beach ; a look at the Susan Collins exhibition; a delicious leisurely lunch of local produce and a bottle of Rioja overlooking the sea;another walk along the Prom and a final look at the exhibition before heading home. What a blissful way to spend what should have been a working day!

Although the large scale digital prints in the exhibition were intriguing (particularly those with odd coloured pixels where ships, birds etc had passed in front of the webcam), it was the 5 real-time projections set against a window with the seascape panorama behind that absorbed us. I've download one from the website but it's not quite the same without the backdrop. Visiting the exhibition twice, at midday and then around 4pm , made us much more aware of the nuances of colour depending on the direction of light and the weather conditions ( it was supposed to rain , but despite some clouds , it remained sunny all day). As soon as we got home I downloaded the photos I'd taken and had a go at using the 'Pixelate Mosaic' filter in Photoshop. Not quite the subtlety of those in the exhibition but worth exploring further.

Pixelated Cropped Image Bexhill 28/04/2009 15:18

Bexhill 28/04/2009 12:07

Bexhill 28/04/2009 15:52

Bexhill 28/04/2009 15:26

I'm thinking how these images could be interpreted in material - torn strips perhaps? These gorgeous dyed fabrics that arrived on Monday fit the bill perfectly ( a generous gift from Sandra for guessing the identity of her mystery photo correctly).