Anniversary Outing to Bexhill

For our wedding anniversary we had a return trip to Bexhill, inspiration for my 'Breakthrough' Quilt ( about to go on display at Festival of Quilts and then at Hever Quilt Show 3-5 September)
A quick check on the breakwaters and a leisurely meal of local Sussex produce at De Warr Pavilion Restaurant overlooking ever changing sea and skyscape
Then a stroll along the beach to walk off lunch with an undignified dash for shelter when there was a sudden downpour
The rain dried just as quickly leaving interesting patterns.

Breakthrough Process- Part 4 (Painting)

So here you see them: the Quilt; the Toile; the Sample;stretched on drawing boards with masking tape reading for painting, my 'Storyboard' of reference material:journal quilts , sketches and Photoshop experiments prepared. Now to take and deep breath and plunge in!
I took less photos than usual along the way in my haste to finish. A pity, as they often prove useful to identify the point at which things go Horribly Wrong.

I started with the 'Toile' (about 12 inches square). Besides the Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic I normally use , I was also experimenting with Golden fluid acrylics, especially their interference colours, mixing them with acrylic medium to achieve a more watercolour-like effect. I also used micaceous iron oxide in the foreground for the glint of the gravel.

The Toile The Sample

The Quilt - in progress

More than anything I've done so far , apart from the inserts of fabric as the 'breakwaters' this was about painting, with the gessoed stitched old durham quilts as my canvas.
The 'toile' worked really well ( Ian 'baggsed' it for his study) , probably because of the speed with which it was done, but I struggled with the full size quilt (even though it's only 60 x60 cm).
I tried hard not to overwork it but the problem was in balancing the different areas, having to go back over and adjust. It ended up more photographic and representational than I'd wished but as Ian said, " People will like it for the reasons you don't".

I enjoyed the challenge though and I love the texture that stitched textiles bring to the painting process - this area of foam was particularly successful. Paper and canvas seem very tame by comparison now!

Breakthrough Process- Part 3 (Fabric &Thread)

One of my aspirations with the 'Breakthrough' theme besides the imagery of the breakwaters was to 'repurpose' old textiles . Having put a coat of gesso on a section of old Durham quilt (sacrilege!) I auditioned my stash of kasuri (ikat) pieces acquired in Japan. Their texture summoned up for me a lot of the qualities of the worn , textured wood of the breakwaters.
From a scale drawing of my Photoshop sketches, in fear and trepidation, I cut slits in the quilt and inserted roughly assembled structures of kasuri- I wanted to maintain that 3D rustic quality. From the left overs, I made the sample piece required.


Then the fun part (tho' I'm not sure my machine thought so - a lot of dust was generated by the gesso) , stitching wave and ripple patterns in variegated thread and using white perle cotton in the bobbin and stitching from the back (now that was a challenge!)

Having complete stitching the sample, I realised that I needed a further test piece for practising painting on so I hastily constructed a 'toile' , drawing in the breakwater shapes with marker pen.

Next step painting - the subject of my next post!

Breakthrough Process-Part 2 (Photoshop)

Next steps - design process. Having attempted some rather unsatisfactory sketches trying to combine elements I liked from both Southend and Bexhill photos, I resorted to combining images in Photoshop. I'd had a go at this earlier with one of my Honesty pieces but I got on better once Ian showed me how to resize images before doing cut and paste.

I still needed to sort out what happened where they merge. Although the shapes of the breakwater were not whatI wanted, the combination of sample and photo started to give a feel of how it might look.
Although Photoshop is definately a useful tool and one I'd use again to do this kind of compositional planning, it led in the end to quite a 'photographic' piece which was not my original intention. I probably need to introduce some kind of filter at this stage to simplify the output.

Bexhill Breakwaters at Quilt Museum

As the 'Breakthrough' Exhibition by Contemporary Quilt has now opened at the Quilt Museum,
I can finally reveal my entry displayed there "Bexhill Breakwaters"


It is 60cm square, based on photos and sketches of Bexhill-on Sea last year , constructed from an old Durham quilt, stitched and painted, with inserts of old Japanese Kasuri fabric.
I made lots of preparatory materials including the handling sample required and a 'toile' to solve problems along the way. I'll share more about the process in next few posts- good practice for the Gallery Talk I'm giving at the Quilt Museum on the 28th April!