Fun with Warhol

I just couldn't stop playing with the stencils and did this sort of Andy Warhol grid with them in the end, using the May TIF Challenge colours which I "read" as light and medium blue, pink and a browny-pink. It was great fun and I'm not displeased with the result even though it is something I might never have done but for the Challenge.

Here's the original grid, where I left white spaces between the squares which I subsequently cut out because I didn't like them.

Here's the used stencil. I cut it out of a piece of textured wallpaper because it's stronger than copier paper when it gets wet. However, when I used it texture-side-down, the paint escaped under the stencil and made smudgy images, so that's not recommended. I should really have cut two stencils, facing opposite ways or else used some other material that was smooth on both sides - live & learn!

Here is a pic of the little rose I did a few weeks ago - I unpicked the celtic knotwork beading I'd done around it, so it's ready to be used on something. There is a glass blob I found years ago, around which I tried out the cabochon technique, thinking it could be the eye of some creature. And finally, there is a lens that I think is called a "dragon's eye". It makes the world look faceted.


I tried to take some photos holding the dragon's eye lens against the lens of the camera - here are pix of the cabochon and the rose. I think I can use these in something, but don't know what yet.

Here's the back of the cabochon.

Finally, just a comment on a comment from Purple Missus, who said in part, "James Hunting said we must call ourselves artists and not textile or fibre artists that way people will take our art seriously. After all a painter doesn't call himself a 'paint artist'". I so agree - it's not the medium that defines the artist, it's the intent behind the making.

Fishy

After finishing the needlelace bag, I resurrected an embroidery I started years ago, in which I'd made some coral reef and what looked like a fish head using a piece of abalone shell, but I could never figure out where to go from there. It was looking at beading blogs and experimenting with bead embroidery that I found the answer - the fish's body could be beaded.


Here's a photo collage of reference books, sketch, started embroidery (top left, under the needlecase). There's also a started piece of needlelace that will eventually be coral, just the outlines couched down. I photographed the National Geographic book opened to the page that inspired this idea, as well as the dust jacket shown in the top right corner.


Here are pix of the piece in progress and the finished embroidery, which just needs to be mounted once I decide whether it will be a book cover or bag or wall art.

I started this piece while waiting patiently for the first of the month for Sharon Boggon's May Take It Further Challenge. I didn't even look up the challenge on the first of the month because I was so wrapped up in this beading. Next post will deal with that.

Meanwhile, here is another fishy piece that has been collaged and now awaits machine embroidery and bead embellishment.

Needlelace bag finished

Here's the bag that I just finished this morning, using the new crochet cotton thread I bought on sale a few weeks ago.


Here's how it started, with the outline shape couched down, and the filling started. I should have started the filling at the top of the shape, but I wanted to test that I could turn at the open edges on the inside. The join doesn't show on the finished piece.

This pic shows the start of the scallops, and before I turned the strap loops inside out.

This pic shows version one, where I did a flap started in the paler turquoise thread then continued in beading, but I didn't like that so I cut it off and headed to the bookcase to check out...

Jacqui Carey's "Beads and Braids" book. Unfortunately, I don't have a maru-dai, and I didn't want to spend the time to cobble one together, so I used The Beadworkers Guild "Introduction to Beadwork: Bracelets", trying Tubular Herringbone, which I couldn't figure out, so I settled on Spiral Staircase to make the cord, finishing it in the centre with some drop beads and a feature bead.


The other book you can see in the pic is "Beadwork Magazine Presents The Beader's Companion" by Judith Durant & Jean Campbell, which I flicked through for good measure.

In my search, I found "The Beading Book" by Julia Jones which I bought ages ago, mail order, I think. At the time, I looked through it quickly then put on the shelf, but now that I have the bead bug again, not to mention the time, I'm going to read it from cover to cover and experiment with techniques.

Why all this bead mania? Well, I signed up for the 2008 Bead Journal Project - eeeekkk! Although it only starts in September, I thought I might start experimenting with techniques now.

Critique on the finished piece: It's sort of what I had in mind. I wanted to create a casing to hold the cord, and it was really an experiment to figure out how to do that. Although the turned handles kind of work to hold the cord, it's not right. I have to figure out the correct pattern shape to get the casing to work. I think a sumptuous, crunchy tassel would look well in a similar design, but I kept the embellishment simple on this one because the scallops were fussy enough. I could have used an open edge all around instead of just on the inside shape. The colour was difficult to match to my stash of beads. I find the overall size and shape pleasing. That crochet cotton is lovely to work with, and the cordonnette holds its shape well.

February TIF

The challenge this month is EXCELLENT, as the old brain cell is really working. The question is very subtle in its phrasing. I started with the same ideas as KnitsOnTheBus in her Feb.5 post, having grown up in Canada about the same time.

I did a mindmap, breaking the question into lines:

What are you? which gave me fashion and lifestyle; this gave platform shoes, hot pants, mini skirts, etc., for fashion, and double glazing and throw-away plastic shopping bags for lifestyle. This gave the idea of a window with the panes done in shadow-work embroidery illustrating the fashions, windows symbolic of looking out on the past. For the bags, I thought I might cut up the plastic bags into strips and use them in needlelace techniques to make a paper shopping bag, but it just didn't appeal.

Old enough? which gave me age, youth, experience. This gave lace because I'm young enough to still be able to see to do it, it's something I don't think the world should lose because I'm old enough to have learned it from some of the world's experts in Honiton, and the clematis was ready to come off the pillow anyway, ready for designing how it would work with the rose.
So: I am old enough to remember Honiton lace making.

Here are some pix showing the finished clematis and rose...
which will eventually be one fall of the jabot instead of the clematis over the rose (or vice-versa) in two falls, which didn't work...
I've pinned both the pieces on my Brugges pillow and now have to decide fillings - I keep thinking of Four Pin for the negative spaces in the interior, using plain old Trolley Net to connect the whole shape to a horseshoe shape that will surround the composition. Needs more thought.

To remember? which gave me memory, forgetfulness, Alzheimers, senility. As I worked on the lace, I kept thinking of memory and became more and more drawn to that as design concept.
I'd read this book years ago (The Making of Memory, From molecules to mind, by Steven Rose, Bantam Press, 1992, ISBN 0593 021800), then using Sharon's palette of colours, I did a collage with organzas using naff orange bling fabric underneath, and here is a taster of where this is going - I can't stop working on it, it's so exciting I'm "in the flow" with it...The pic was taken just as I was losing the light and the flash was off, so hand shake made it a blur, but I think it works well as a taster. ...I got out the embroidery threads to select some bright orange, but decided on beading instead. I keep my embroidery thread stash in an old damask table cloth onto which I've sewn some strips of duvet poppers. It keeps the colours fresh and dust-free.

A word about TIF

I've been looking at other's wonderful work by following the links on SharonB's website and I'm very impressed with people who sketch and do mindmaps and match the colours. It makes me think I took the title of the challenge too literally - o well, sigh - as there is still some time left before the February challenge, I may have a go at doing a small design for a Bead thing - page or postcard - I like the idea of the Bead Journal Project - something like that - still using Monet as the object of admiration, still using those colours.
Eye candy for today is a beaded landscape of the parasol pines at the bottom of the road that I did at this time last year. Enjoy.

Between projects

It's that terrible time in between projects, so I'm noodling around on the internet enjoying looking at all kinds of embroidery - it's like being in heaven.
Here are some pix of finished works just to add a bit of eye candy to this post. The first pic shows some woven beading I did on a loom I made and the second is a piece of Branscombe lace I worked from an old DMC pattern book.
I still haven't figured out how to add pix in sequence within the blog - maybe cut & paste the html? It just looks like gibberish - I'll figure it out later...