making squares and rectangles using contemporary smocking from square wave patterns. it’s based on the lozenge pattern. getting the hang of it. I drew the square waves by hand so they’re not perfectly even, so the squares sometimes don’t line up perfectly. but I like the 3D shapes they make. I need to iron/press these too to see the effect. I like the puffy (un-ironed) version also
I saw this cool photo of waveforms placed next to nature waveform patterns, so I wonder if an audio waveform pattern could be used as a smocking guide also. worth a try to see what happens
– make a mind map & taxonomy of craft vs art (fine art?) & map textiles into this
— applied function, purpose
— containers, coverings, adornment, tools (hand), machines
– plato’s forms
– machines – sadie plant article
– craft objects found all around the world from archaeological digs. in the future will they find all of our landfill, rubbish and think it was our art/ craft? how much will dissolve/break down?
– early. biomimicry by humans let us survive and evolve. look at bee flower petal nest
I’ve been making dragonscale (reverse smocking) using Michele Carragher’s instructions (she is the game of thrones’ embroiderer). I finally got it to work, after unpicking the first few attempts (& realising I’ve done it on wrong side of the fabric – right side for regular smocking). I’m using this as part of the fabric manipulation topic in assignment 3 work. I’ll use this page to add more details and summarise it (with other samples) on the assignment page later.
notes for the pattern:
first attempt – I had only drawn the dots, not the triangles and became a bit lost, so these two didn’t work out. I unpicked them and started again.
next time, I drew the triangles as a template onto the fabric also. this helped a lot, and I managed to make it correctly this time
the right side of the fabric – this shows the smocking pattern, but the “dragonscale” uses the other side, so I actually made the whole piece on the wrong side of the fabric. oh well. know for next time.
the wrong side of the fabric – showing the dragonscale. I need to iron/press it to flatten it, though I like the puffy pattern also.
i’m making notes in my workbook. might post photos here. I’ve read you take more in/remember more when handwriting notes than typing. but if i get time i’ll try type them up too so i can search later.
I tried making a bee from washi tape, but it turned out a bit wonky. I should have drawn the outline first instead of taping from memory. it was a good exercise in blending colours and creating texture and patterns and shapes though.
testing some woven eyes for my bees. these have a matte black circular warp threaded into cut fabric (calico in the first test), and shiny black stranded thread for the circular weft, travelling across and around the eye. I used the shiny thread to simulate the shinyness of a bee’s eyes, and woven circles to remind of the multiple cells / lenses of the bees’ eyes.
I learnt this technique from jude hill on her wonderful “considering weave” class / project
the first one didn’t work out as i’d threaded both ways instead of one way only.
but the next sample worked out as I had hoped (seen in my mind) so i was happy about this.
i think I’ve been improving with some of my sketching.. or rather seeing. I think i’m starting to see things differently – the shapes and lines rather than only the overall shape and outline. still a lot of practice to do, and there’s still plenty of fails, but when i concentrate more on looking and seeing and not the drawing, I end up being happier with the drawings. something to remember going forwards..
first attempt at weaving in cloth. there’s quite a few ‘mistakes’ where I flip flopped (let’s call it “flipped a bit” in engineering terms) but it adds to the charm and makes it unique (& if it were a gene, then now there’s a new mutation?)
I like the looser weave when I first started too – I almost kept it like that but decided to finish it to see what it’d look like. I did manage to pull the fabric and create a hole in the corner though. I tried to get variable spaced warps but then this slowed the weaving down a lot as I made more mistakes and had to work out where I was more often. I used different thickness & colour threads to create some more variation.
another idea i’d had since seeing a 3d weaving machine online this week was to put posts (pins in pincushion or toothpicks?) and try weave up too to create contours, maybe like a crater edge in the earth. not sure if it’d work yet. will have to think more and see how this guy’s machine is doing it http://www.dezeen.com/2014/06/23/oluwaseyi-sosanya-invents-3d-weaving-ma… it sort of reminds me of those french knitting tools (pegs with nails on the top) except you don’t twist the yarn and it builds the piece in multiple dimensions / directions.
inspired by jude’s opening post, I started a mind map to begin my “considering weave” class workbook.
I’ve been working on my fabric loom tonight – the invisible basting is done, next up loading the warp & weft. I looked up one of jude’s videos from the hearts class to remind me how to do it – a great resource!
this weekend I’ve been trying to catch up on my printing for assignment 2 ACA. but was “distracted” by doing some online classes of Carla Sonheim’s. one was a gelli plate printing class, so I’m waiting for my gelli plate to arrive. will try similar on other makeshift plates during the week (am home with my materials for a couple of weeks). the other one was a watercolour transfer class. these are some of the watercolour painted tshirt transfer papers so far. the work is still in progress…waiting for it to dry properly then add some other media, then do/test the prints onto paper & fabric. the watercolours react nicely to the coating on the paper. I hadn’t tried this before. Carla does some amazing work – I’ve been really inspired and hope that one will turn out as nice as hers (one day). I’ve signed up for her ‘imaginary creatures’ class that’s running this week also and have started reading her books (the kindle ones). the book speaks about footpath/cracks animals. I took some photos of water splotches on the footpath near home and I can really see some imaginary animals in them so hoping I can turn them into little prints for my niece & cousins kids. maybe a little zine of them. not sure yet. (I’ve taken pics like this in the path, often of the outline that a stray hair makes on the bathroom floor – my hair is long and straight but tends to make curvy shapes as it falls out). I can really relate to her opening section of the imaginary animals (blobimals) book where she mentions she loves animals. and came late to making / studying art in her life (she was 30, I am older, but similar circumstances).
this one looks a little “busy” – I’ll see how it is once I have to cut it up
this one looks like a piglet to me:
& this one – I’m happy with the lightness of/amount of water in the watercolour – usually I think I’m too heavy handed with watercolour so I’m practicing to water it down more. getting there.
we had do make some abstract shapes using patterns and a couple of ‘landscape’ type images.
explorations in textiles, mark making, drawing, sketchbooks, art school & uni art work