Sunday 19 August 2007

Standing Stones

Last year I read an article in "Cloth, Paper Scissors" (summer 2006. Issue 7) which was a bit like reading a yummy recipe - I was hungry to give it a go - all the "ingredients" sounded right up my street.

The article was "Fused Integration" by d j pettitt - See her website and or blog and check out her wonderful work.

http://www.djpettitt.com

http://djpettitt.blogspot.com

Her article explained how to fuse a variety of wet media - gesso, matte medium, molding paste onto fabric, and include bits of sheer fabrics , ephemera, tissue paper.

I was entranced - and I made this background piece the day I read the article - I don't think I had all the ingredients that she mentions in her tutorial - but I used what I had to hand - and this was the result. I loved it - the weight and texture were wonderful. It suggested ancient standing stones to me - and it has been pinned up in my studio for many months.

Background fused fabric.



Today I decided to work on this background - drawing 3 standing stones where the shadow of them appeared to be, overlaying with sheer fabric and machine stitching the detail. This heavy fused fabric is interesting to stitch on. It is so ridged that I did not need to put it in an embroidery hoop. It was also so dense that I used a larger needle than I usually do, with bigger stitching and heavyweight threads.




I don't know if this piece will work yet - or not. I have overlaid more sheer fabrics on the left side of the picture because I am going to stitch part of a circle in hand and machine embroidery.

The effect I want is the stones standing against a partially abstract landscape with a distant mountain - so we shall see.

With regard to pieces not working;- a friend came around today who has seen "Walking Man" on the blog - and very tentatively she told me she did not like it - phew - what a relief - I realized that I was not too keen on him either - and really it is not a very good piece - so that is one that has not worked!

So A big thank you to d j pettitt for her generous and inspiring article - "fused integration".
It is definitely something I will be trying again.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I liked the arch around the man. I just wasnt sure about him.
P