Leaves or no Leaves?

I have planned three pieces of work to plop into those frames (I will get the goddesses framed).  This was the starting point for the first piece.

Nice I was happy with it.  Then over the past few evenings I have taken it up to the house and done an hour or so of hand stitching on it.

The piece now has a very different feel because of the strong “journey line” through the centre and I don’t want the leaves to cover up my stitching.

So – there will be no leaves.  I have tried a variety of other “inclusions” on top of the stitching – but none of them speak to me.  So I am contemplating just leaving it as it is and letting the stitching speak for itself.

This is quite strange – as I don’t usually do things in quite such an abstract way ….do I?

Please excuse the colour of the mount board – it is in fact cream – although the rest of the colours are not to bad – I think I forgot to set the “white point” on the camera.

Close up details.

Um -  the focus is not the best it could be, the chiffon and organza layers appear slightly glarey under the flash  of the camera

Well …

Well – I feel that I have spent enough time on this piece – not one of my better ones, now to decide:-

1) Plop in ready made frame

2) Have it framed.

Decisions, decisions!

Your comments are invited and welcome.

Click on image for a larger view.

Artist’s Friend

All artists need a friend who they can turn to for a critique of their work.  A friend who will say more than “Oh that’s lovely”.

When I lived down south – my Artist’s friend was Linda – but now we live 100’s of miles apart.  Although we still communicate about our work – it is not the same as being able to physically see the work and each other.

I have however, discovered a new “Artist’s friend” who has a creative eye and a good sense of what works and what doesn’t.

With this in mind – I took the “margarine goddess” (previous post) around to her house earlier in the week.

Unfortunately – (or fortunately) my friend told me what I knew in my heart of hearts – but what was reluctant to admit to myself.

She said;-

“Karen the piece is lovely – but you cannot put it in that frame – it needs to be properly framed, with at least a triple mount”

I knew that.  I knew that the piece was worthy of spending a bit of money on the frame to make it look a million dollars, but I had got myself into the mind set of doing pieces to fit frames I all-ready had.

It is not the first time this has happened, the framing bill for artists is a nightmare – you create the work, then get it framed, and then you may or may not sell it.  This means you have very expensive “frames” sitting around the studio – which you have paid for.

Periodically I try selling work that is not framed, but a lot of people get concerned about the dust on unframed textiles or they don’t feel that they are buying “art” if it is not framed in a traditional manner.

Then – I make the mistake of seeing some reasonably priced, nicely made frames and buy them thinking – “Oh I can make something that will fit in that” and for some reason this rarely works.

Good framing makes a deal of difference. Good framing is when the textile and the frame work as one cohesive piece of art.

So am glad my friend told me the truth – and I envy my framer when I come to pay my  bill for this batch of work.

The image above is a detail from another piece ….. that might fit in the now empty frame!

When is a piece finished?

Sometimes it is difficult to know when a piece is finished.  Often when I think a piece is done – I put it out of sight for a while, then I can come back to it with fresh eyes and I will see any glaring omissions or imbalances.

As a working artist – I have to balance the amount of time I spend on a piece with the “asking price” and this piece is a good example of that.

I love hand stitching, especially seeding and french knots – I could seed and french knot until the cows came home, or until  I make a hole in the end of my stitching finger.  I know,  I know – that’s why thimbles were invented.  However, I have decided that I need a summer thimble and a winter thimble – my hands were so cold in the studio to-day that my thimble kept falling off.

So, when I wore a hole in my finger, I decided to stop the french knots and running stitches on this piece – to work at it anymore would just mean that I was going to pay myself about 6p an hour – assuming that it sells.  In all honesty, on this piece, another few hours of hand stitching would not add to the work.

So when DO you decide when a piece is finished?  I think for me there is a whisper in my head that says “enough” and I stop.  The enough can be made up of many things, enough hours spent on one piece.  To do more would be to “overwork” the piece. Enough, because suddenly I have ideas for the next piece and want to move on.

On reflection – I think it is easy to overwork a piece, my rule of thumb – is that I stand back from the work and squint at it. There is the fine line between the stitching looking spotty, or blurry – if nothing jumps out too harshly then the seeding and knotting are probably right and then you have probably reached the “Enough” point.

This is just popped into the frame with no mount-board or backing – just to give an idea of how it will look.

The other great thing about hand stitching is that it gives me time to think.  To-day I was thinking how nice it would be to give this piece a name with “Flora” in the title – she is the goddess of flowers in Roman mythology, unfortunately, in the U.K. that word is associated with a well known brand of margarine now.

In the Studio … again

Well January was rather a wipe out for me – but back in the studio again now, determined to finish the little piece that I had started in my last post.

This small piece is a “test” piece for a larger piece of work – in terms of technical “how to”.  I want to do a picture where you “look through doors” to a glimpsed view and here is how today went.

Not enough “view” the doors are too closed.

Too much view – the doors are too open.

TO get the “foreshortened view” that I was after was proving a bit problematic, as doors and the image were made from one piece of fabric.  Next step – cut the doors off! (eeeek)

(This would be why I subtitle any workshops I teach “Destroy to Create)

Ummmm – not sure – place the doors back in, but tucked behind the ground fabric, which makes them smaller – and gives a view of the image behind. After rather a lot of un-picking of stitching ….

I think I will sleep on it.

For a good cause.

One of my “Garden blogging” friends was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, her blog “The Journey” is an account of how she is dealing with the cancer, and the treatment.  By way of a thank you, Zoe has decided to raise money for Macmillan, and she is doing this on a new blog – called Christmas Greetings.  Zoe is writing a daily series of posts revolving around Christmas and the Winter Solstice.  To tempt you to make a donation, she is also giving away a signed copy of Sarah Raven’s Complete  Christmas.

I made this piece to-day, which I am sending to Zoe – so that she can give it away on her blog. After I did it I thought perhaps I should have done something “Christmasy” to remain in keeping with her Christmas Greetings, but for some reason – my work seems quite summery at the moment.

If you get a chance do pop along to Zoe’s site, she is an interesting writer and it is well worth visiting any / all of her blogs.

Who knows – if you donate – you may be the lucky winner of Sarah Ravens book.

handmade paper, silk paper, machine embroidery, organza flowers.

Wordless Wednesday – 12th November 2008

Wordless Wednesday – Autumn Spiral

The Colours of Autumn …

My first complete day in the studio for months!

The “Fabric” that I scanned and used as a background for my digital journal entry on the previous post has been cut up, layered, bonded and stitched and now looks like this.

I have been inspired by the lovely sunshine and Autumn colours, that we have had over the past couple of weeks.

I enjoy how the leaves collect in corners of the garden. Layers of colours and textures, crisp edges and decay.

I also enjoy the rhythm of hand stitching – all in all a gentle way to re-engage with the studio.

Listen to Your Muse

This is the canvas that I made for the 8 x 8 inch canvas swap on art-e-zine. Generously hosted by Christine (her blog is here)

It is the first swap I have taken part in – partly because I had the time available to do it. And because of the format – I love the 8 x 8 format – large enough to do some interesting work, and small enough to post to America. Also it was “a favourite technique” Obviously I used free machine embroidery, with hand stitching, done on layers of organza. So now I wait patiently for a canvas to be sent to me from America.

I am doing things in the studio – if somewhat slowly – without moving my head – or bending down – but it is not stuff that I can post about just yet.

A Gift for a friend.

Rain again today – so another studio day as no gardening!

I wanted to make a piece as a gift for my cousin who became a priest on Sunday – and I wanted to complete the piece in one day. I nearly achieved it – but I have got a few finishing touches to do tomorrow.

I have taken the angel element from the large piece – as this angel is meaningful to both of us.

For the background I layered dyed pieces of tissue and tissuetex left over from the last project. I bonded these layers together using bondaweb. As I really did not like the colours – I was left with very dark blue and acid yellow – I over painted the bonded papers with golden and pearl acrylic paint – this left me with quite a strange plasticy surface – but that was fine. I then cut an arch shape out of the bonded papers.

I printed the angel onto ExtrvOrganza and then bondawebed the organza onto heavyweight vylene – which had all ready been coloured with a dilute mix of fabric dye and gold acrylic paint.

I placed the tissue layers over the angel do that she was sitting in the arch – then machine zig-zaged around the arch in gold thread. Then I did my usual thing of putting the whole lot onto water soluble fabric as a support while I did the machine and hand stitching.

As for my big piece – I have ignored it all day – and looking at it this evening – it is finished!
And …… its OK