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Some of these will be shown at the upcoming Fibre Fling Show April 4-5 of the Out of the Box Artists. Others won't (they are hanging in my house). All of these have been created - and stitched on - as a result of the course I've been taking at the Ottawa School of Art. Only 3 weeks left. Hover over the picture for more info.
We have been working in our class with Tibetan papers (fibrous but somewhat translucent papers) and rice papers. After creating a collage using handmade papers, fabric, photos and other interesting pieces, we had the choice of using a gel medium or encaustics (beeswax) to attach all the pieces together. Most of us put an extra piece of Tibetan paper on top, forming a sandwich. I guess I didn't add enough gel medium, and the great papers and fabrics I had in the sandwich didn't show well once the medium had dried. The colours are definitely there, but only some of the detail can be seen and only in some spots. Decision time. Do I start over and try another piece, or do I see if I can make something out of this piece. Not wanting to start over, I decided to persevere. After all, sometimes our artistic accidents turn out to be a good thing. And it's only through continuing with the piece that we know if we'll end up with something that will turn out even better than the original plan.  Although this piece is about only half finished (again I took on way too much and have oodles of homework), I'm getting a textured look by adding a design common in the 18th century (the meandering thread line in green) plus the dragonfly as a focal point. The focus is now on the embroidery instead of on the papers and fabric sandwiched in the middle, and which are now a colourful background. The picture here is just a small portion of the piece - about 1/6 of the whole thing.
The Ottawa School of Art is giving us gallery space from March25 to April 8 at the Shenkman Arts Centre - I'm thinking this piece, if finished, will be on display. If not this one, then I better get cracking to start something else!  Our task this week and last was to learn 6-7 new stitches and create a drawing out of them.
I chose to make a colour wheel. I had been wanting to make one anyway to use as a teaching tool, but didn't really want the traditional painted wheel or to buy one at an art store. So I decided to make one using coloured backgrounds and various stitch types. The thread colours I chose to use on each colour in the wheel has a specific purpose; e.g. to show complementary colours or secondary colours or analogous and so on. Rather than 6-7 stitches, I used 12 different stitches (it will actually end up being 14 as I also plan to add neutrals of black and white, which means I have a bit of homework to do to complete the whole project). The coloured bits shown here are not stitched onto the background. I added felt to the back of each piece, then covered a lightweight board with flannel. The felt stays on the flannel and I can move them around and use only a few or however many I need at a time to teach the colour wheel.
 Class was cancelled this week as the instructor was ill. I did manage to get my homework done however - with varying embroidery stitches & thicknesses, and some white beads added around the neckline on the dress. This piece was a bit hard to scan as I used a lot of white thread, on a whitish background, but I think the outline shows up adequately here and also some of the shadow lines. Will I use handmade Tibetan paper again? You bet. It looks delicate but is in fact quite strong, and I found I enjoyed working with it.  |
Artist - Anne Warburton
 
 
  
About MeIt's taken years to discover the medium I enjoy the most. And how what I have learned before somehow fits into what I am doing now. Even when I travel my needles and threads are with me so I can continue to create while away. Archives
June 2016
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