For this year we have decided to work in a series, with emphasis on colour and composition (it's a great group for learning and artistic development). I have decided to base my series round Castleford Weir in West Yorkshire, including the new award-winning footbridge over the weir photographed in a recent post, and decided on the mill-race as the topic for the first piece:
This month's challenge had also to be composed of basically complementary colours, and had to have a strong vertical, horisontal or diagonal composition.
I'm not sure whether this is creative cheating or not but I wanted a series of muted greyed colours for the stone and water so I did several blue-orange dye-runs, including (at the top of the photograph) runs of the basic colours mixed with black. The dyes are Procion MX Blue 2G (sometimes sold as cobalt or cobalt navy) and Bright (Pillar-Box) Red G plus Gold 3R for the orange.
I simplified the photograph, flattening the perspective, and exaggerating the height. The water-shapes have been simplified considerably too, to give a poster-like effect. In fact the design is what took longest (I have to work hard to get to be this simple!). Fabric pieces have been fused onto a dark blue background which has been allowed to show through in places because I wanted it not to look too smooth.
The piece still needs stitching, which I intend to do today - some of the features such as the mill-wheel will also be added in stitch. Must admit I feel quite good at the moment about the overall result.
Next challenge begins tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it.
7 comments:
You are so clever to think of this! I find it very hard to think in an absact way.
What is the best fusing web to use? I have tried several but they seem to come away still (I wonder if I am not heating for long enough)
I find it difficult to think abstract too - just a matter of keeping trying. I use a combination of Bondaweb and Mistyfuse: sometimes steam helps. In this case fabrics have tended to come loose but I intend to stitch quite a lot (have so far done enough to anchor all the pieces before they fell off!). Thanks for your comment! Hope you're keeping as well as you can.
Oh! What a great piece Sandra ! You rock !... and the Bix does too !
This looks good Sandra. I love all the dyed fabric and there are some great shapes in the water. (I have trouble with Bondaweb too, it only ever holds long enough to stitch)
I'm actually relieved Sandra to now learn that bonding isn't always easy. I have Bondaweb (somewhere!)but I used Mistyfuse the other day - I was cutting bits off which kept flying away from me like little faeries. I even ended up with it all over the iron. I too am rushing to stitch before bits drop off or even fray too much! Because me and my sewing machine don't like each other, I mainly handstitch and I confess that with this piece, which is giving me so much trouble, I have a great urge to put it in the bin! - But I will persevere... Andrina. Thank you for answering my question.
I just found your blog. I had to look because of the white cat avatar I saw when you were following another blog. I have a white cat too. His name is Criminal Mischief. 'Nuff said.
Lovely dyed colors.
wery nice thank you aluminyum treyler
treyler
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