Lots of Glue

On weekends, I promise myself I will sew clothes for myself and Steve, but this weekend, I pulled out all sorts of paper, glue, wax paper and paints. I swept aside all the kitchen chores and refused to relinquish the kitchen table.

I tore paper, glued it back together, added other paper and glued it on to paper.

Watercolours don't work so well with the papers that I have been using. The paper is too thin and the colour just seems to fade away.  I am trying inks on some pieces.

Rayon paper is interesting to work with. It is fragile and tears easily, but once it is in place, it holds up nicely. There is a very pale mauve laid over the two stronger colours, softening everything a little.

On paper that had been painted this summer with disappointing results, I added more layers of paint, this time watered acrylic and then added a white wash over everything.

You have to squint a little to see that I added paint to the glue for one piece,

then everything hung to dry, along with two bras.

A day later, I hung it all up to photograph.

This is a very light tissue paper called Swedish Tracing Paper. It is supposed to be used for making patterns in dressmaking, but it is sooooo easily torn. I don't know how it wouldn't frustrate the hell out of the dressmaker. Since this will eventually be torn again, it doesn't really  matter.

When I was putting paper away, I discovered a roll of the pink, red and black rayon paper. I had left over glue and decided to add these colours to the collection. In a few weeks some more rayon papers should be delivered and I hope to add some greens and pale blues.

Underneath these colours are some truly awful reds and oranges in watercolour. After adding the blues, greens and yellows, I was still unhappy and decided to add white directly to the paper. The brush was a little dry and there wasn't much paint in the dish. The thin white glaze was just the thing to sort it all out.

I am happy with both these pieces. Above, torn strips of tissue paper glued over each other randomly, as well as flecks of the mauve rayon paper. A couple of blue bits blew in when the cat jumped onto the table to see what was going on.

This is the highlight of my day's work. This began as squished pansies and hydrangea petals. It is my next project (along with the other 4 or 6 or 10) . First I reinforced the back with a sheet of paper, then I took a huge breath and added some blue acrylic splatters and lines, then another deep breath and some light mauve lines and splatters. I think there are some soft green splatters in there as well. After my heart rate came back to normal, it went back up again. I think I've succeeded in making this a background that will be very fun to stitch into.

Show and Tell

Phoebe was here over the weekend, and we were able to finish three of the four garments I made for her.
Ta Dah! The hedgehog shirt.

The green t-shirt.

The over shirt with polka dots.

But not the skirt. According to the pattern pieces and her measurements, I needed to use a size 14. Surprised, I measured and thought this might end up being too small. I cut it out a tiny bit bigger than a 14, inserted the zipper and darts and basted the sides together. She tried it on and it is huge. I think the pattern pieces are just wrong. We turned the skirt inside out, drew the seam lines and new darts on with a pencil crayon and I will start again.

In the painting show and tell category, I plod along. Two free hand images meaning draw without looking too much at the paper.

small bottle with water and a pin cushion

This is a favourite technique of mine, as is drawing with my left hand.

tea cup with tea bag

Both of these are drawn with my right hand. The excellent smaller graphics are collaged on.

 I was staring around to find a new subject to draw and I saw a stitched piece taped to the wall. Why not draw my own art? Self-referencing at it's best. The piece is a yellow linen with green squares and a small section of scrap with orange stitches pinned on. The funny face was unintentional.

I did it again without drawing lines first and let the paint bleed into itself. I drew the small squares, some detail lines and the sewing needle with a  black pen. I bow low to the roaring crowd.

In other exciting news, I freed the space heater from the dark closet and plugged it in.

Now we are experiencing high temperatures and the room is very comfortable without it. I'm back from an orientation meeting for the homeless shelter I volunteer at. All the shelters in Halifax are already at full capacity and we haven't had a frost yet. We've also been told to expect a snowy winter. It's when I hear this sort of thing that I remind myself how lucky I am to have an extra room to put a heater in so I can spread out.

Stitching turns to paints

My Mom's birthday quilt has been banished under the table while I obsess about painting flowers. The taxes languish (no surprise) on the sideboard and the meatloaf isn't being cooked. The second week of Carla Sonheim's class is done and it was tricky. This third week looks even more challenging. Boy, will I be brilliant when this is over.

  

Here we painted lots of watercolour splotches, covered with light and heavy layers of gesso, let it dry and then went in with pencil to define things. I'm not a fan of grey and I'm disappointed with this. I tried it again,

 

 

This time I was clever and used a black fine line pen to do the outline bits and details. In an effort to conform, I lay over a wash of a light colour to unify the images and blamp, the ink ran. Not so clever. Black when wet, turns to grey. Argh.

Things really went crazy after that. We painted with the gesso (white acrylic gunk), layered upon it several times, carved into it in different ways, made several samples with different combinations of colour washes that we then rubbed off, and finally, we made some flowers on the last day. This whole business about shading to give life to the shape of the flowers is a bugger. I came back to these images time and again over the weekend and just couldn't get what I wanted. I think I'm too afraid of making mistakes, yet this is a learning experience and mistakes are what I'm supposed to be making.

I've decided to take a major lesson from Karen's stitching class and just keep layering details on until either the image implodes or I finally get what I want. Titivate, I believe Karen calls it. I need to be bold with painterly titivation.

In between learning all this, I needed some down time and turned to a new brainless knitting project. I'm loving it. A light mohair shawl, elephant grey that will be so yummy next winter. Only two days left of official winter. I'm putting a fire on in a few minutes. I'll do the taxes in front of it. I will avoid the temptation to throw the paperwork into the fire.

Flower Course, first week's results

 Here's a little spinning tip I didn't have images for in the previous post about spinning. I think it's worth the price of the course.

If you slide your finished yarn through the holes of your knitting needle gauge until you get a reasonably snug fit, you can find the range of needles that will work for that project. So obvious and yet.....

I have begun the "Crazy Flowers" course with Carla Sonheim and am I ever out of my depth.

http://www.carlasonheim.com/

I can do the first lesson, sort of. I threw out the first attempt at the first lesson because it was so hopeless. Carla's lessons concentrate on layering transparent colours, adding shading and little bits of dots and stripes and floaty things and shazam, a cool looking flower. Hmph.

Here's what I've managed to do so far. I've done day two and three over a couple of times. I guess that's why it's a four week course, by the end of the fourth week, I should like something I've done.

Ten flowers with pencil crayons, markers and some water colours to infill the big flowers.

After shading, more pencil crayons and some white pencil crayon to dull out the backgrounds. Carla used white ink, but I was too scared to wreck the whole thing. The white pencil crayon seemed the cowardly thing to do.

 Pencil crayons layered over top of each other, then water colour to mess things up and desperate attempts at ornament.

I see some small moments of success here and there. Forgot to worry about page composition, but then really, too much at once is too much.

Eventually, I just tried to erase the whole things with grey watercolour. The good thing about a mistake is that there is always the other side of the paper that can be used.  When I took Karen Ruane's on line courses, I already knew how to stitch. This course is wiping the smug look off my face. That's OK, it is still winter and I'm wearing a scarf, so no one can see my look of terror. I am off to do something with a thick layer of gesso (white gunky stuff).