So I thought I’d show some of things I’ve been working on this past week or so.  First up is a painting I did in life drawing, which I quite like even if it is a bit hot (colour-wise). I am quite enjoying Expressionism painting and the freedom that it brings.

I did this with a palette knife and it is the first time I’ve worked on such a huge piece with one.  Theres a few bits that could do with some definition, and other elements such as the outline that could do with a bit less line. Otherwise, I’m fairly happy with it.

The next items are all taken from my Creative Textiles class.  I based these pieces on the theme Rendezvous, which seems to have gone in the direction of secrecy and covert operations.  This has led me to focus on the all-seeing eye and the building up of layers.

The first piece is a piece of silk that I have dipped in hot wax and crumpled into a ball. I then flattened it by hand and painted on fabric dye.  This is supposed to be like a weave pattern (although unsuccessful) but it has a great texture to it which you just can’t see here at all.

The next piece was a piece of devore fabric that I had batiked onto giving the shape of facial features.  I dyed with red and black again, as I felt this was quite murky and bloody.  I then used devore paste on the material to burn out some of the fabric, making it transparent in places to reveal the layer underneath.  For some reason though, I think of the top layer as being very Banksy – completely unintentional!

The next two pieces are on the same material – some kind of cotton I think.  I dipped these into the wax pot, crumpled them, then dyed.  What I love about these pieces are that they remind me of papyrus and ancient Egyptian texts.  Particularly the second piece.  As you can see, the all-seeing eye is present in both of these images, and are repeated several times in the second.  As you may or may not be aware, the all-seeing eye dates back to ancient Egypt and the Eye of Horus. Funnily enough, I didn’t intend for this effect on my first piece, but when I saw how it turned out, I definitely want to push it further in the Egyptian direction.

This part was more considered, and I used the batik spoony/poury thing (that’s my technical definition for it as I don’t know what it’s called).  I help up the cloth after it had been dipped in wax, crumpled and dyed, and then used the spoony/poury thing to drip wax down the fabric.  I then turned it sideways and repeated the dripping effect, to get a nice kind of hatching pattern, but a few of the drips ran askew, which was absolutely ok.  I wish you could see how rich these colours look, as I’m particularly pleased with these two.

So I cobbled some of my pieces together on a large sheet of paper and painted around them with fabric dye, dragging a fairly dry brush vertically in the direction of the fabric.  I love how murky this looks.

The next piece was done by etching into a piece of polystyrene, then painted over with fabric dye.  I then pressed it onto a piece of calico giving a nice screenprint.

The final piece was done using the same method except this time I used oil paint and pressed it onto 300lb watercolour paper.  I etched a smaller piece of polystyrene with a weave pattern and printed onto the paper in blocks, then I overlaid with my main print image.  I think this has turned out not too badly!

So that’s where I am just now, and as you can see, my time hasn’t been completely wasted!

Anyway, the upshot of it is, I haven’t done any work today.  I know I have to hand everything in and there are a few finishing touches to be done, but I seriously don’t have the energy for it, and my chest can’t take the fumes.  I tried to do some work and I tried using white spirits but I think I’m hallucinating now.  I’m sure I can see things moving in my living room.  Oh, I forgot about the cats.

I thought I’d grab some photos of the prints I’d been working on.  You remember I showed the collograph of the wave I’d created using calico, and hubby’s boxer shorts?  Well I have the actual collograph I used to print the image. It looks like a nice 3D piece, which I’ll submit as part of the project.  I also have a lino print, and the lino itself.  For the lino print I just painted onto the surface of the lino with oil paints and pressed it onto paper using my hands as the class I was in didn’t have a printing press.  You’re also supposed to use block printing paints for it, but they too were in the class with the presses, so I just improvised.  To be honest, I think the print came out much better using oils and my hands than it would have using block paints and a printing press.  You can see the brush marks in the lino print because I used a hog hair brush and applied the paint dry.  I was going to make a drypoint etching to get the lines into the print, but I don’t need to because the process I used imprinted the marks.  However, I’ll still do the drypoint because I can paint over the drypoint with intaglio ink, which produces lovely black lines. You’ll see tomorrow!  In the meantime, here are the images:

Collograph

Lino cut

Lino Print

I managed to get 2 of my final prints done today: the linocut and collograph (the one with calico and hubby’s boxer shorts).  I painted over the collograph and pressed it onto white card.  Next,  I laid the collograph onto a long sheet of calico and pressed it, then rotated the collograph and pressed it again so that I had one long print. I created wave like effects by gluing parts of the calico onto the card.  The image below doesn’t really do it justice, but it came out really well and  I like that you can see the marks of the cloth from the collograph on the prints.

I can’t show my lino print because I’ve painted right up to the edges and have to wait until it’s dry before putting it up on the wall.  Hopefully it will be dry by tomorrow and I can get a shot of it.

Collograph on A2 card

Collograph on calico mounted on A2 card