Thin Blue Line Experiments

' Strindberg Shore'

Finally got round to trying out some ideas for Contemporary Quilt 'Thin Blue Line' challenge, continuing the themes of 'Strindberg Shore' in 30 x 120 cm format. I wanted to look at different proportions of sea, sky and shore, with the horizon line between sea and sky being the blue line. Some of my inspiration (besides some more Strindberg paintings ) included photos and a drawing from Ireland and Greece, paintings by Terry Frost and monoprints by Trevor Sutton.I'm also trying out a different material - a cotton yukata fabric from Japan in blues and blacks. I quilted this with a twin needle to get slightly raised lines on what will be a 12 inch square when finished ( CQ Journal Quilt size- cunning eh!) I marked off 2 areas with masking tape to the same proportions as the Thin Blue Line and painted with acrylics, varying the horizon line.

With the masking tape removed, I quite like the contrast with the unpainted fabric. Not sure which horizon line/ proportions I prefer ( if any) - I'm afraid I 'fiddled', always a danger when working on such a small scale and the painting is not as fresh and lively as it could be.

I'm not that happy in particular with the 'sea' part or the definition of the horizon line. I'm confident mixing blues in watercolour but am struggling in acrylics ( got round that in 'Strindberg Shore' by using indigo dyed fabric after a few abortive attempts). Maybe it needs a line of blue fabric introduced or a left unpainted? More experiments needed!

Not Plagiarism

While there are plenty of quilt artists who are using acrylic paints on their quilts, I've been having an exciting time over the last couple of years developing my own style of painting over heavily stitched pieces, often with underlying 'canvas' of wildly patterned African fabrics. I thought my combination of painting and quilting was unique but of course it isn't. Through the world of blogging , I've recently come across the work of Deidre Adams, just the photos make my heart flutter, I'd love to see them in the flesh. I think its partly that they are the kind of pieces I'm aiming for myself but there's the rub - as a well known artist in the US, would the 'quilt police' think I'm copying her ideas and methods? I'm not! My explorations arose out of a mixed media painting course I did with Katherine Holmes that I first applied to fabric with fear and trepidation in January 2006 in my Journal Quilts January 2006 Journal Quilt

Having experimented on a small scale, I wanted to have a go at a bigger piece, searched through my UFO/reject pile and selected a quilt top that I'd constructed in the 90's after a trip to Austalia. This was inspired by the changing light and colours over Castle Rock (Northern Territory) as the sun set.

Horrible isn't it? The fabrics I'd chosen were far too busy and patterned to work - I even lent it to Alison Schwabe as a talking point for a workshop on reject quilts (and got some interesting suggestions as feedback). I quilted it in parallel lines to emphasise the rock formations and then applied acrylics with gusto. I had such a fun time and as it was a bad quilt to start with , nothing to lose.

I leant a lot from the process eg simpler is better, preferring palette knife to brush, not to apply too much paint at once - the bottom of the quilt was so overdone in thick brown I chopped it off ! This had the bonus of improving the composition. It's not a great quilt (tho' definately a great improvement) but the process was an important milestone. It's not plagiarism, just a good idea arising independantly for those with the courage to experiment. And now I'm aware of Diedre's work I will be more careful to make my own distinctive, for instance in use of handstitching.

When I was Small Enough.....

I've been experimenting with photos and Photoshop on the theme for TIF February 'what are you old enough to remember?' When I was a child I used this Victorian Windsor Chair upside down as a den or hiding place, graduating when a little older to a more sophisticated hideaway in combination with a wooden clothes horse. I took photos from various angles from an adult and childs perspective (above and beneath) then applied various filters aand combined them in layers , altering the opacity

The image below is a combination of photos with filter 'neon glow' applied and images above combined in layers with opacity approximately 50/50

The following images had filter 'cutout' applied to simplify the images then varying degrees of opacity of 'childs' prespective

20%

40%

60%

60% with colour saturation increased

Although altering opacity in Photoshop gives an indication of how physical layers might work, I think I'm going to return to previous studies in layering images printed on organza over images printed on cotton. This gives a subtler (and more 3d ) effect as can slightly offset the images.

I was just thinking what a difference being able to observe the Henry Moore sculptures at RBGKew has made to my thinking. I've been used to interpreting paintings and sketches - observing and interpreting 3D sculptures has been far more challenging. And exciting!

Iranian villages

Doorway in Abyaneh

One of the more interesting aspects of our trip to Iran was the variety of places we visited besides the tiled mosques, ancient monuments and Zoroastrian sites I've already mentioned. These included visits to 2 villages. The first one, Gharavol Kaneh ( House of watchman) was at the beginning of our trip enroute from Zanjan to Takab. We were to walk through the village and take tea with a family with carpet weaving taking place. Not having my trekking pole with me, I didn't fancy the steep slippy muddy path so dispatched Ian to take the photos while I did some sketching in the lower parts of the village. One of the advantages of travelling as a couple! With such a busy schedule , its often difficult to snatch some time for sketching and usually involves missing out on some aspect but it's almost always worthwhile to absorb surroundings and observe in more detail.

In a village house - the ladies of the house (plus one of our party) snuggle under a table with a heater beneath , covered with a blanket ( Denise said it was very cosy) Ian's photo

A selection of the wools used in carpet weaving above the cotton warp. (Ian's photo)

The village was built of mud and straw and there were some monumental dung heaps. I'm sure it looked more picturesque in the winter when we saw it with the sparkling layer of snow that it would have done later in the year.

Sketches in the village.

In contrast, the village of Abyaneh which we visited towards the end of our trip (passing heavily guarded nuclear installations!) was much more touristy. It's an UNESCO site for its wonderful red mud buildings. Again I found a place to sketch while most of the group went on a walk

The place I found to sketch ( with a wonderful door) was close to a group of 3 old ladies sitting in the middle of the road, gossiping (1 was playing with a plastic crocodile). As far as I could see most of the population was very old, making a living selling dried apricots, apples and cherries, the younger ones I guess going to the cities. Abyaneh is supposed to be known for its embroidery and local costume but the stitching they had on show and for sale was very crude and most of the women were very proud of their blowsy acrylic headscarves. A few had plainer wool checked scarves which looked older. Made a change from the ubiquitous black chador

Once I'd finished my sketch and was packing up, the ladies came to investigate what I'd been doing. They made appreciative noises over my painting but were keener to see what I had underneath my headscarf, see what my hair looked like and admire my earrings. That said, sketching often gives a way into communication with local people that taking photographs doesn't. Or perhaps it was because I was on my own rather than with the group.

Sketch is at the top of this post rather than bottom as I made a mess of the uploading. Grrr.

Blue Faience

A small selection of the 100's of photos I took of blue and turquoise tiled mosques in Iran (mainly Yazd and Esfahan). The initial impact is breathtaking but after several days I'm afraid it began it began to pall. However I continued to snap away and I'm glad I did because now I can look back at them with fresh eyes and admire again. And I've also noticed that some of the colours are those of the the TIF February palette.

This last image is of a mural in Yazd that I thought cleverly incorporated motifs from the minuments and mosques in the area ( shame about the traffic lights) The inscription in Arabic, Farsi and English reads: ' Has the time not yet come for those who believe that their hearts should be humble for the remembrance of Allah and what he decided'.

TIF February - First Thoughts

TIF February Palette

Indigo 2 Forms (detail )

When I first looked at the concept and colour scheme for this months TIF challenge , I initially thought 'Yippee' as they're colours I've worked with a lot recently, printing on indigo dyed fabric . But then I started thinking that it was hardly in the spirit of 'Taking it Further' if I already use those colours anyway! Think harder.

Its been interesting looking at other people thoughts on the question 'what are you old enough to remember' - some have been very literal, others wanting to be more abstract.
I've been thinking a lot about my childhood recently in any case as on Friday we had all our furniture, goods and books (from 2x 2bedroom flats) delivered to our new(ish) house after 3 years in storage. An emotional as well as physically tiring time. Among the furniture are some Victorian pieces that I inherited from my parents including an original 'Windsor' chair with arms. This lived in the porch at home and I have vivid memories of tipping it upside down and using it as a hiding place or den. I am considering taking photos from the 'adult' viewpoint looking at it conventionally and the 'child's' viewpoint from underneath and combining the images in Photoshop using the methods I've developed for my 'Henry Moore' pieces. Perhaps it should be titled ' When I was small enough.....' . Quite how I'm going to take the child's eyeview is a challenge in itself.

Kuba cloth

You would have thought that with my policy of trying to reduce my collections of fabric and stuff and my room being full of boxes again to sort that I would resist buying anything at present. Wrong! I was browsing Ebay( pricing items I want to sell- honest) when across this wonderful framed African Kuba textile. I got it for a bargain price and as it was in West London, collected it so no postage costs. At some point I will take it out the frame to have a good look and take a decent photo but what really grabbed me in this piece was the huge variety of subtly different patterns and how they are balanced. For instance I really like the triangles round the edge only on 3 sides and the graduating symbols on the 4th. Its currently above my sewing table and I intend to make some sketches from it - part of the process of analysis. I can see it influencing ideas for the 12inch square Journal challengeIts not first time I've bought Kuba textiles - I've had a few pieces from John Gillow. I was reminded that I still have to frame this one. Its the application of patches on top of this piece that lists it above the ordinary

I've also got a few strips of indigo dyed woven strips from Cameroon( also from John Gillow) I've merged scans of some of the strips and have dyed some brownish silk myself with indigo to match . I'm thinking of combining them ,making motifs using my own dyed fabric on a larger scale. The colours of these African fabrics look like the colour palette for February's TIF challenge