Stitch Week Finals Part 2

On the very last day of Stitch Week I photocopied a bunch of city photographs to show people some different ways of working from a photo. I had everyone trace over the major shapes with Sharpies to establish the geometric structure of the composition, then switch colors and draw over the photo with ideas for which stitch to use to recreate textures.

I find it very interesting how different people approach the same image. Below is the beginning of Joi Dye's version:
Joi chose our rusted fabric for her foundation, and sketched out her composition in pencil so that she could enlarge the image. Although I suggested she could enlarge the photo on the copy machine and trace the composition with carbon paper, she felt comfortable with her drawing skills and did it freehand. Her stitching started off with recreating the brick texture in gray using a satin stitch (which turned out to be a long running stitch densely spaced- way to innovate Joi!). By the end of class she had a portion of the wall complete and the telephone pole filled in with long straight stitches. Joi was obviously thinking about her composition as areas of color and texture.

Here is Rachel Schade's rendition of the same image:

Rachel's is much smaller and began with a carbon transfer of the photocopy and an applique of ochre gauze over the entire composition. The bold black outline suggests that she is approaching her image as more of a line drawing. I was happy to see that Rachel searched out a new stitch to try that would more closely approximate the barbed wire instead of using running stitch. Having an embroidery encyclopedia at hand is really helpful. Props to Rachel for all the fantastic books she brought in during the week!

Both of these artists successfully incorporated multiple techniques for image-making in embroidery which they learned this week. Both artists, although starting from the same image, have a unique vision for their individual interpretation.

Stitch week Final Projects

I thought I'd go through individually on my student's final projects from Stitch Week. After demos on applique and how to work from a photo or sketch, students started a final project.

Here is Sue Becker's translation of a friend's painting. The friend may actually be her husband (didn't catch that detail) and the painting may have been done at Fleisher (but I'm not sure)

She had both a large copy shown here and a much smaller copy which she used as a template to trace with carbon paper onto her white silk. She started off with the black gauze overlay covering the entire composition, but then I asked her if she wanted to keep any areas the pure white of the background. She played around with cutouts and finally decided to only use the gauze in the background and hair. I think this helps emphasize the space and increases the contrast levels, both in color and in texture. She then started stitching the hair, using a whipped running stitch with bullions and french knots to represent the corkscrews. With the encouragement to see stitching as comparative to drawing, Sue seemed suddenly more confident in what she was doing and the work seemed to progress quickly.

I think many people have been trained to compartmentalize different media. Painting and drawing and printmaking and sculpting and stitching appear to be so separate. But in truth we all learn to speak a visual language and our skills are transferable. Especially once you get the hang of what you're doing in the new medium.

Sue's piece reminds me a bit of Shizuko Kimuro's life-drawing stitching.
More later!

Different Interpretations

The Thursday night class had a week off for the 4th of July, and came back to class with a lot of work done on their collaborative print samplers. I like how the "puppy" print shows up in different samplers as a puppy (with the adjacent spiral as the body), a purring kitty, and an owl. Most importantly, each one shows the hand of the artist in each woman's unique style for color, pattern, and technique. Enjoy:

FREEDOM TO MOVE... TO LIVE. I concur.

Busy Fingers

After a day of dyeing and rusting, and another of painting/printing/drawing on fabric, my week intensive Stitch and Surface students had itchy fingers to start stitching.

We tried some sketching to try out what individual stitches' possibilities for mark-making can be and then went at it. Spider webs and vandyke stitch were extremely popular. Go-figure!

As you can see, we tried out the collaborative print idea again. I don't think people expected all the different things they've tried when they signed up for this class. It's fun pushing students' expectations and creative experiences!

Color Harmonies

This evening was the night for Color harmonies in Color theory class at Fleisher. ( I think this is the longest work day I've had in months). These mandala coloring book pages are a fantastic resource, as it allows students to just play with color and not have to worry about design.

monochromatic: using shades, tints, and tones of only one hue

Complementary: using colors opposite each other on the color wheel

Split-Complement: using one major hue and the 2 colors that lie adjacent to its complement

Analagous: using 3-4 colors that lie adjacent on the color wheel

Triadic: 3 equidistant colors around the color wheel (primaries, secondaries, 2 tertiary combos)

Tetradic: using 2 set of complementary pairs in a composition

In the image below, clockwise from top left, is analagous, secondary triad, complementary, and monochromatic.

Below from Left to right, monochromatic, triad, and analagous

Both Analagous Clockwise from top right, monochromatic, analagous, and complementaryIn zones from top to bottom, monochromatic, complementary, analagous, and triadic

Everyone should start looking around themselves with new eyes, searching out all the color harmonies. These are just guidelines for choosing harmonious combinations, not rigid rules. You can put any colors you want together.

shibori results

As promised, here are the pics from today's shibori adventure in Stitch and Surface. We had a few collapses of the easel-supported clothes line, but figured out the balance eventually. It's interesting to see the range of color results from 3 separate dye baths, blue, purple, and magenta. Not everyone had pre-washed their fabric and thus had less saturation of the dye.
With a few simple tools you can get amazing results. We used ping-pong balls, rubber bands, thread, bobby pins, and sewing for our bound resist. In the left of the piece below you can see the small circles from pinching and binding small sections. The large white area on the right side is from pleating and pinning the fabric.

A beautiful blue-purple ombre can be seen in the top right below. Her piece was bound rather loosely and didn't spend as much time in each dye bath. The piece to the left top was bound very tightly and almost completely, resulting in large white areas. I'm very happy with the "indigo" look that we got from Procion MX Navy blue.

Tomorrow we'll see the results of the fabric rusting. Within just 6 hours of binding the vinegar-soaked fabric onto the rusty objects, I saw the staining begin. By tomorrow they should be even better. Will post more pics tomorrow!

shibori day

Today was the first day of my Stitch and Surface Week Intensive. I'm trying to do different things with each class, in hopes that students will be inclined to come back year after year.

We kicked off the week with some dyeing techniques- shibori and rust -dyeing. I'll post pics later, but here is a website to visit for dyeing supplies: http://www.dharmatrading.com/

And here is a video showing traditional techniques. While the term "shibori" is a Japanese term, tie-dying or bound-resist dyeing has developed in cultures around the world. This video is from China, but there are also traditions from India, Indonesia, Pre-Columbian Central and South America, and our very own Hippy T-Shirt trend.

Crafty Cats

One of the activities the Free Library of Philadelphia suggested for their summer reading program was for kids to create a craft from a book at the library. So after picking up "Softies Only a Mother Could Love: Lovable Friends for you to Sew, Knit, or Crochet" edited by Jess Redman and Meg Leder, my daughter created her version of "Arno the Cat". She traced the pattern, cut out the fabric, embroidered the face, stitched the pieces together on my machine (with me biting my nails and hovering), stuffed it, and handed it off to me to suture...... um, I mean slip-stitch. I finished off the second one behind it. Attention spans last only so long, you know. The basic idea behind stuffed animals like these is to sew together 2 duplicate animal shapes and stuff. They're not fully dimensional animals, but they're simple and quirky, and even a kid can make them.

http://www.amazon.com/Softies-Only-Mother-Could-Love/dp/0399534849

back lots and gypsy moths

I just finished the first panel in this multi-panel piece, which you can see here bottom right corner. Not much of the printed fabric shows through now, but I know it's there, and I like that hidden element of the leaf found on site working into the image. From top right down the stitches are: trellis stitch, feather stitch, straight stitch, and fishbone stitch. I'm trying to be a little looser in my detail in this piece, relying more on texture than specific details. At least that was the original intention.

People often ask how long it takes me to do these. Now you can search back into the blog and find out. Sometimes the thinking time takes more than the working time.

This photo is for one of my students who stated a desire to work with eyelets. I found this gypsy-moth nest in the parking lot behind Liberties Walk in Northern Liberties. The caterpillars were pulsating in unison for some reason-maybe that's how they escape. The open circular areas reminded me of eyelets. Gypsy moths take me back to my youth when my grandmother waged outright war on the caterpillars on the trees on her acre of land in Voorhees, NJ. She armed us with tweezers and a can of gasoline to plop them into and called me "eagle-eyes".

You never know what will inspire you.

Pattern Exploration prep-Stripes

This summer I'm teaching a kids workshop on Pattern Exploration at Fleisher, and I'm doing my background research now. The first day will explore stripes and look at Kente cloth for inspiration. Here's a video I found on the subject where you can see the process of weaving it. I really like listening to the sounds of the looms clicking in the background.