Painting with texture and stitch

Usually at this time of year, I'm up to my eyeballs at craft fairs. I decided to give them a miss this year as I've not been making the "gift" type of work recently which is ideal for the xmas markets.

This means I've been able to concentrate on projects more suitable for the textile/art fairs I want to be exhibiting more at next year. These are larger textile artworks and smaller cyanotype prints, available framed or unframed and a more varied colourful palette from my usual indigo!

The photos are of the ice dyed fabric, mentioned in my last blog post which have been applied some textural effects. I have used heat expandable paint and coarse pumice gel to give a dimensional surface and then stitched with embroidery thread. Acrylic paint was also used in some areas. I love the dramatic colours that have developed through the dye process, reminiscent of a nebula!

 

 

New work in progress

Moon and stars. Textile work.

I've been working on new work over the last seven months, producing samples, trying new techniques and hopefully producing satisfying results. The objective is to have a cohesive body of work to exhibit at my next show at the Contemporary Textile Fair in March next year.

Developing my previous use of indigo dyeing, cyanotype printing and Japanese boro, shibori and sashiko techniques and also doing something new such as ice dyeing.

Sometimes my ideas are just organic, that I take a piece of dyed fabric and apply texture and stitching to it with no preconceived idea. Other times there is an overall thought and look that I want to achieve. There are misses and there are hits. That's the creative process!

I enjoyed trying ice dyeing as though there is a choice in the general colour scheme, the end result is a pleasing surprise. If you have not heard of ice dyeing, it's applying dye pigment on top of ice cubes (or snow!) layered over a pre soaked fabric and letting it all melt. It gives a kind of random tie-dyed look. 

My instagram feed has more regular postings of my work in progress if you would like to follow that here.

Ice dyeing!

Finished ice dyed fabric