Looking through windows with Sue

This is a magnificent Victorian window in the Orangery at the Imperial Hotel in Exeter, where I took my nephew and daughter to lunch earlier this year.  I love the ironwork and the distortion of the view beyonf and the reflections on the room behind me.

Taken through a rather grubby salty window in November 2010 when we stayed in Brighton at the Queen's Hotel.  The seagulls were sheltering from the cold sea winds.

I thought there were some nice shapes in this photo - the arcs of the chimney guards and the two seagulls in similar poses.

And this broken window in the Abruzzo, Italy, a year ago imposes it's own pattern on the view beyond.

The Second Challenge...

has been set by Angela. The theme is 'Through The Window', and was inspired by a visit to Lacock Abbey; the holiday is, as Angela says, proving inspiring! The end date for this challenge is the 25 October; go to it!

This was the original post...after a storm of protest, the date is now 25 November, as it should have been from the start. Mea culpa, many apologies.

Moving On... What's Next? Admin 4

Didn't we do well! Congratulations to everyone who has shown their work so far. I hope we can all comment on several of the individual pieces...it's helpful to get feedback. I'll get the images up in the gallery as soon as possible.


1. Selecting The Theme
You seem to have voted with your fingers (not your feet...), as I've only been offered two themes so far. This, alongside the discussion we've been having on here, suggests that the majority of people want to select the theme as they go along. So, I'm taking Annabel's suggestion of an alphabetic system; that makes Claire next up, followed by Elma and so on. When Claire announces the next theme (as soon as possible, please, Claire), we will have one calendar month to complete the project. Good luck everyone... I've really enjoyed looking at the wide variety of interpretation you have all brought to the first theme.

2. General Admin
Rather than start again with a yahoo group, what I propose to do is post here when there is admin 'stuff' to discuss, but to put the link on the FB page, so that everyone is aware there's information around. That way there's only one posting, but two locations and a direct link to the relevant posts from FB.

3. New Members
I have been approached re membership, and have put out a note to say that there's a waiting list. Personally, I think that this group is big enough; I would, however, consider starting a second, similar group if there was enough interest. Comments welcome...

I think that's it for now...

heart reflections

here is my piece for the light and shadow challenge. after a few experiments and false starts and a measure of despair i finally sat down and put all of that experience into this.

layered wool/hemp; silk organza; hemp/linen/ plastic transparency. machine stitched then sprayed with ink and some finger painting with red and turquoise fabric paint.

How to be 'me' and still do the challenge......

Simple but mine own. I had been meaning to play with this shadow effect for years, this challenge gave me the opportunity to play.

Challenge no. 1: Light and Shadow

My inspiration for this piece came from a photograph I took while on holiday in Fuengirola, Spain about 5 years ago. One of the footpaths in the town had a whole row of painted concrete balls going all the way down the street which caught my eye.
I'd always intended to make something textile-related based on the photograph, so this was the perfect challenge to carry that out. Didn't think that it would take me 5 years to get around to it though!

I had intended to do a lot more free-motion quilting on this piece but that didnt happen due to my sewing machine going hay-wire back in August. I put my machine in for repairs thinking I'd get in back in a week or two, but have now been waiting over 6 weeks for it! And my other machine doesn't really like free-motion work so had to quilt this piece using straight-line quilting. Luckily, straight-line quilting looks like rays of light...

This is the original photograph that I used for my inspiration:

I really enjoyed this first challenge, so roll on Challenge no. 2

Murder Mystery

I'm not quite sure whether this is sticking to the theme, but it started with a shadow so I reckon it's my interpretation of it!

I started with this photo of the shadow of clothes on my washing line. I altered it to make it suitable for a thermofax screen and printed it. I ended up printing it quite a few times on different fabrics!

For the one I actually used for this challenge, I stuck to the theme of washing by using an old cotton nightie as the top and a piece of my husband's discarded Guernsey jumper (machine felted well) as the backing. I haven't hand quilted for ages and thought I'd start by tracing the outline of the design and hand quilting this outline in red thread before I printed it. I then printed the black shadow print to slightly offset the quilting line.

Didn't know what to do next. I decided to make another screen just of the jumper with sleeves but enlarged and printed this in red.

Looking at this, I thought it was becoming like a murder mystery! The red one looks like a body reaching up to the ghostly shapes on the line! Or is that a product of my overactive imagination?!

Anyway, I decided to carry on hand quilting. I outlined all the printed shapes and then decided to quilt round the red 'body' in concentric echoes of the shape, a bit like the background lines in The Scream by Munch. And added a washing line.

I'm not sure how much extra quilting to do or whether I shall leave it quite minimalist and spare with just some blanket stitch round the edge.

Here are the other pieces I printed in case this turns into a series!

This one uses the same fabrics as the first but I machine quilted it prior to printing rather than hand quilting:

And this one is just a large piece of the nightie fabric:

Off the Wall

Like some others here, I had a couple of false starts.  One idea I really liked was way too complex for such a small scale textile piece, and another, ultimately, didn't seem enough of a challenge and I became bored of it.

Shadows on the Wall

Fortunately, inspiration struck via my blog reader.  A virtual friend had posted a photograph on her blog, which fascinated me.  She had photographed the shadows of leaves on her garden wall, and I was intrigued how the texture of the wall interacted with the shadows, being more or less visible according to the depth of the darkness. Meanwhile the angle of the sun and the wind playing with the leaves rather abstracted from their actual flat shape, which was also interesting.

Wall Shadows

I decided this was something I wanted to explore in my challenge piece, and here it is, worked on quilters' calico overlaid with black twinkle organza and black chiffon, stitched in shades of grey and cream by machine.  It's about 30 x 30cm or 12" square: I squared down a piece of A3 paper to get this size and was happy working to these dimensions.

At present the edges are raw and I'm not sure how or if to finish them.  The little quilt looks quite well in the mount I found which fits exactly (good old IKEA) so it may live in the frame for a while, until we determine some sort of common practice.

I enjoyed this challenge very much, however much panic and self-doubt it induced - and, as you see, these I overcame to meet the deadline (just)

Shadow Drawing

Above is a photograph, taken by my late husband, of evening light through our front window.  I've also been fascinated by the different shapes cast onto my bedroom curtains at night shining through my neighbour's plum-tree.  At first I agonised over what to do - have always been fascinated by light through trees but wanted to do something different.  As time grew closer to the deadline I came across the photograph which reminded me of the shadow-drawings done by a former art teacher.

I have a method for approaching artwork - it begins with a long period of reflection and observation.  Sometimes but not always it will involve drawings, painting and so on.  In this case not.  The period of reflection allowed me to see that the shadows on my bedroom window were paler in some places than others, that in places shapes were crisp and elsewhere blurred, for example.  (I think this is my equivalent of the processes used by Oriental artists traditionally - according at any rate to a book I read as a teenager - of spending a whole morning looking at something and then drawing it in a single stroke).

Anyway, here it is.  I found a nice piece of silk charmeuse I'd dyed, plus hand-dyed silk organzas and polyester voile, together with back mistyfuse-type stuff, ironed the mistyfuse stuff onto the organzas, then cut and overlapped the shapes onto the background fairly freely, using different colours and fabrics to give different depths of shadows (Mags, you are NOT to try to identify any real botanical items - this is an abstraction of the sorts of shapes you get in gardens (well that's my story and I'm sticking to it)).  Then layered and machine-stitched (free motion) and bound with more of the silk which was the most difficult part - rotary cutting silk binding strips isn't something I'd recommend.

Not exactly a single stroke but pretty quick nevertheless.  Started Monday night, finished Weds afternoon whilst sitting chatting to a friend.  Not a great work of art but I sorta like it..

First Challenge.....................Sunset Shadow

 Here is my first Challenge offering.  I have had the sky hand dye for ages just waiting for something to use it on!  It is fused applique and the shadow is fused organza. both machine stitched on and trapuntoed to try to give more shadow. Backgrounds heavily FMQed

Shadowlights by Paula Rafferty

So here it is my first Internet challenge called

Shadow lights

It's a whole cloth digital print 48cm by 61cm

Machine quilted and coloured with watercolour pencils

This is a close up image which shows the effect achieved by playing with an image in Photoshop.

I started this piece by little brain storming sessions in my head while doing other things!

Which them got transferred onto paper; phrases such as light n dark, good n evil, duality of self kept recurring.

I have also been making some self portraits and played around with some ideas combining these.

I wasn't happy, it just wasn't happening

and then I remembered an images of the earth from the air that I had played with in photoshop and printed on cotton on my Dad's large format printer.

It was just what I wanted, it fitted the theme perfectly with just a little extra shadow! 

I get lost in the patterns and swirls, every time I look at it I see different mythical and demonic faces and images.

I had to stop myself quilting any more. I feel the piece is more interesting with little stitch.

The eye is allowed to wonder round more freely to discover new imaged, like watching clouds!

 

Red watercolour pencil was used to highlight colour already there.

So that's it from me, can't wait to see all the other pieces and thanks Claire for reminding me about the deadline.



Inside Out I

I've written about the process so far; this is the finished piece. I think. I have been very selective about adding stitch, placing it only in the 'dark' areas of the piece, and to delineate the eyes, which I thought were the most important part of the piece, and the scar running down the side of the face, which is quilted using zigzag stitches; shades of Frankenstein's monster?

I found it remarkably difficult to stitch into my own face...until I started, and then it became just another piece of quilting, to be considered from the point of view of technique, structure and meaning. Emotionally, though, it was very difficult. I've made a lot of work about depression, but never directly used an image of myself to express feelings. It's as if I've been hiding behind abstraction, but am now coming out into the light, and letting everyone see how much darkness I carry around with me, regardless of how 'light' I appear. I'm crying as I write this, so it must be true... a therapy joke; I always weep when something is painfully true.

It will be interesting to see everyone else's posts, and the varied ways we have approached the challenge.

Challenge 1 Entry: Light and Shade

"Shadow & Sunshine"

I was taken by the idea of shadows being a degree of absence, not an absence. This piece is inspired by a photo I took of a church well on a bright snowing day. The well was very dark, however because of its material, it actually radiated light. I have always felt it to be a very simple but beautiful image. This challenge was the perfect opportunity to bring it to life with the shadow and light focus.

It's size is A3, which is working for me at the moment as I do feel that I need the limitation.

I thought a lot about feathering areas with the shading of feathers creating another dimension.

But after some thinking, that felt too fussy for the image, which I feel wants to stand alone.

The quilting had to be straight lines. Simple but effective.

DREAM ~ Angela Huddart

I made two pieces for this challenge as I had two ideas at the same time.  Both ideas are from the same photo of Dream, the 20 metre high sculpture by world-famous artist Jaume Plensa - http://www.dreamsthelens.com/ .  
I was so impressed when I visited it and took lots of photos from different angles.  Both my challenge pieces are from the same photo but using different fabrics - dupion silk on one made after posterizing the photo and I printed the photo onto Evelon & Lutradur for the other. 


For the quilting on the silk I decided to follow the contours of the face on the 'light' side and for a bit of fun I quilted curls on the 'shadow' to look like hair.


For the printed Evelon/Lutradur piece I cut up the Lutradur and lay it spaced out slightly over the Evelon, quilted a line of metallic thread in each space and the edges of the Lutradur are held down in the binding so stand away slightly from the Evelon.


The binding was the worse part as I didn't know what to do at first...leave it raw or neaten it up.  I decided on the latter when I found suitable fabrics for each piece - pale gold satin for the silk piece and a very pale blue Fairy Frost for the E/L.


I'm very pleased with how they've turned out - they're both A4 size and within my comfort zone!


Angela

DREAM ~ Angela Huddart

Best viewed from a distance!

Photo printed onto Evelon & Luradur

 detail

 Dupion Silk from a posterized photo

detail

Light and Shadow, finished - Annabel

I started with a brainstorm, had lots of ideas, and then perversely went with something rather unconnected to any of them!

A lone flower in the sun.

Light and Shadow

I will be away today when all the challenge pieces are revealed so I am writing this in advance and will have to wait for a week to see everyone else's interpretations.

Similarly to Annabel I started with a bit of brainstorming and eventually settled on an interpretation of an image I had taken at the Eden Project in Cornwall. 

This pattern caused by the sun shining through the structure of one of the biomes had caught my eye on a visit this year.  I tried a few manipulations in Photoshop and altered the colours.

I eventually settled on the first image and printed it off onto printable cotton.  My idea was to work the whole piece in stitch in the way of Julia Caprara using a variety of random stitches.  Sadly I have had to put that idea to one side as an ongoing project as it was way too hard on my hands and left me in real pain after a short while of working.

Starting again I used the final image  and decided to work it on the embellisher, which has been languishing for far too long.  I started with a piece of old blanket and used a piece of pre-felt for the large dark area on the right.  I soon realised that this was  a mistake as it dominated the rest of the piece.  Having pulled off pieces to break up the edge and let some light in I worked across the whole piece and gradually it came into shape.  I used carded wool, chiffon scarf, wool tops and prefelt. 

I am not completely happy with the large dark shape and may manipulate it a bit more before I'm content.  Either way it needs further work and I will be adding some stitch to finish it fully.  It has struck me though that  in another orientation this looks rather like rock structures so that may be an area for further work.

While I found it a bit daunting to start to work with this theme I found as time went on that more and more ideas were arriving.  There are so many interpretations of Light and Shadow and I feel that I have barely scratched the surface with this challenge.  (Maybe that's the title for another challenge - Scratch the Surface?).  I'm looking forward to stitching into this piece and to the next theme.  I'd like to thank Annabel for inviting me into this group and to Marion for taking on the admin.

Light and Shadow - Indigo Hill Arches

Indigo Hill Arches

48 x 36 cm

Two black and white images  of  'Hill Arches' sculpture by Henry Moore combined in  Photoshop, printed on hand dyed indigo cotton and silk treated with 'BubbleJet Set'.  Machine quilted with variagated threads, hand stitched with 'House of Embroidery' cotton perle thread .  

There's nothing like a deadline to concentrate the mind! When the theme of 'Light and Shadow' was set  I had lots of grandious ideas of looking at some pewter vases from multiple viewpoints and on  large scale. Then with reveal date looming and nothing started I remembered a  top I'd put together for a demonstration on inkjet printing using 'poster printing' function to split an image over 4 A4 sheets.The Henry Moore sculpture that so inspired me was part of an exhibition at Kew Gardens in 2007. I loved having access to these sculptures for so many months, able to view them in different lights and viewpoints and  I made several journal quilts exploring ways of  intepreting  a 3D piece in 2D textiles. This piece expands on those ideas.

After I'd machine quilted it, it was looking rather drab and uninteresting so I decided to stitch more into by hand. I haven't done much hand stitching in a while and I'd forgotten how addictive it is , sewing away watching BBC4. Still a bit dull ( and perhaps I got carried away with the stitching....) but hugely enjoyable and it's got me thinking again about indigo.

This challenge has been such  a great motivator. Thanks very much to Annabel and Marion for setting up and running it. Looking forward to seeing what everybody else has come up with (and the next challenge!)

Mags

Admin

Firstly, a reminder that this first challenge ends on the 23rd September; if you haven't already finished ( or started...), now would be a good time!


I suspect that the whole 'lets have a group on facebook to keep the boring admin posts away from the interesting art posts' is not working, basically because not everyone in the group is on Facebook. That means that I'm going to end up posting everything twice, once on FB, once here, which defeats the object of the exercise and gives me extra work, which seems a tad silly. The only way I can think of other than FB to keep the boring admin away from here is to start a yahoo group of some kind. I know that not everyone in the world likes yahoogroups , just as not everyone likes FB...but it is the only other option I can see. I would be grateful if you would let me know your preference, either a group or just sticking to the blog for everything.

Meanwhile, I'm collecting ideas for the months to come, intending to draw them from a hat, and record them on the Challenges page...it gives us a bit of extra thinking time on the later challenges. I'd like the ideas by Friday, but if for one reason or another you can't come up with anything by then, I could then add them as they come in. Hopefully, everyone will be happy with this; if not, let me know.

I'm Working On It...

...honest I am. I thought I would show you the revised photograph, here, and make you wait a bit longer to see the stitching, which I started today. I decided that the first version of the photograph I selected was just too dark, and decided to go with the one above, instead. I'm also showing you the original image, or at least, one of them, taken by my friend, Haydn. It's difficult to lay your hands on pictures of people who aren't smiling, or at least looking reasonably happy. Photographs are taken on happy occasions, to freeze a memory. Depression isn't the kind of thing people want to commemorate,or even dwell on too much. Hence, no miserable pictures. So I asked Haydn to take a series of miserable pictures. I was mildly alarmed by just how easy it was to drop into depression, or at least into depressed mode, if you like. I tensed up, hunched my shoulders, dropped my head, tried not to look up...and there I was. A clear lesson, if I needed it, and a reminder of the strong connection between the body and the mind.

As you can see, I cropped the image, and then added a couple of additional layers. One of the layers is a manipulated shot of moss; a rolling stone gathers no moss, but a depressed person slows down so much that moss is a distinct possibility. There is also a layer depicting a crack in a pavement, which seemed appropriate... depression often feels as if I am breaking.

This is the first in a series called 'Inside, Out', which I have been circling for some time now. Sitting down to stitch, today, I realised just how difficult it was to work on an image of oneself, particularly one which is attempting to depict depression. Obvious, huh? Well, yes, but the truly interesting thing was that once I'd started to work on it, and made the key decisions, I relaxed into it, and the image became exactly that...just another image to explore. I'm glad I started. I'm not entirely sure that I have finished, but there's time before the end of the challenge. Watch this space!

Getting In On Time

I am very relieved top say that I managed to finish my first challenge on time. The day before leaving on my trip actually. Here are some pics of my progress. I did have a hard time selecting the thread, especially for the yellow shade. I felt that the yellow was too bright, but didn’t want it too subtle. Happily, I chose the right shade and it turned out the way I wanted.

I am really looking forward to seeing everyone else’s interpretation of this theme shortly!

3rd time lucky

I'd had an idea about balls bouncing about with their shadows giving them their position within a 3d piece. After tearing up a few pieces of paper, I'm ashamed to say I gave up. What has happened to my tech drawing skills, I thought they were with me forever....

First I applied the shadows on, and then I added the foreground

 It's still not stitched down but I am pleased with the effect of this very simple piece. So tomorrow I might get round to quilting.....

Change of Plan

Forget the pewter pots, I'm inspired by something larger!! In 2007 we had an exhibition of Henry Moore sculptures at Kew Gardens (where I work) which influenced many of my Journal Quilts that year. Yesterday I found a couple of tops I'd printed with Photoshop manipulations using Poster Printing onto indigo. No time to completely handstitch as I did the one above but  maybe a combination of machine and hand quilting?

Progress...

The flu is no respector of schedules, so I have stalled a bit these last 10 days.

Finally I am starting to feel better and have been interested in everyone's ideas here. I don't do Facebook, so that isn't really relevant to me. But - I can say that my piece is A3 sized. This is a good size for me. It might end up being a little bit more or less when finished, but that's where it is.

As for the next piece, I do like the idea of having a set size for myself...but can understand those of you who don't want limitations. I am still very keen on the idea of exhibiting. Or if we decide to sell as we go along, documenting each challenge in a gallery we can distribute / blog / etc via links (like Smug) might be a good idea to keep track of everything?

I can't wait to see all the Sunshine & Shadows lined up at the end of this month...

Light and Shadow 3 - A couple of photos

 I'm working on this challenge very hard...but in my mind!  I've yet to actually sew the piece but deserve and award for brainly devotion!

Just thought I'd  share these 2 photos - one more obvious to the challenge than the other. I love the texture in the stones. Both photos were taken at Kenilworth Castle.

Also I wanted to let you know, that Marion made a wonderful offer to help with the blog, and, being a little busy at the moment, I've gratefully accepted. She is now our new administrator. Thank you Marion and good luck; I'm sure it'll be fabulous!

Just a spot of admin (2)

Please read Marion's posting below.

Is there any interest in doing this in another format besides a blog? I've started a group page on Facebook so you can see what you think.(click here)

If you hadn't thought about size and format yet, could you let me know your thoughts. It seems to come down to whether or not you want to exhibit, in which case a prescribed size is easier to manage, but you may prefer to just do your own thing. (posting on 11th August refers)

quick question...or two...

Was wondering how we were all doing... (or even if we were all doing )...

I also wondered whether we have reached any kind of a view about the size of each piece, or are we leaving that open? I'm intending to make my first piece at A4 size, content that I can make another version larger...

Am I alone in finding the blog format difficult in terms of the administration of this project? It's not designed for conversation; perhaps we might supplement it with a Facebook group to talk this kind of thing over?

ps the image is another in the series 'Inside Out'; probably irrelevent in this context, but interesting, nonetheless.