Flyover is complete, and I decided against adding beads, seemed enough going on in this piece. Now it's framed and on to the next adventure. I had a bit of difficulty in stretching the linen on this piece, though I pressed it and pulled behind the support, but I think the hoop may have distorted it slightly. The other linen pieces if I remember rightly, I did on stretchers. Anyway, it's as good as I can get it, no point mourning. And it works in feeling with the monotype it's paired with.
Off to study my stumpwork book now. Fine stitching for a rising light level as the season turns. But I also need to attend to what needs to be completed for the exhibit in April, coming right up at me.
I warped up the earthloom at the library, and put the cartoon behind it, and did a couple of really difficult establishing rows, but need to get in and do a lot more before it's really under way. This is for the artist in residence gig.
The weaving design relates to two pieces in the exhibit, since I realized that one pair had a nice blocky large feeling which might work in weaving, too. So it will be a trio, film photography, charcoal drawing, weaving. Title of this group: Four Sisters. I also have a small ink and watercolor work on this subject, but that may or may not make it into the exhibit. We'll see. Four pieces for four sisters, hm.
And there are large stretcher bars in my future, from which I will probably make more looms so as to have more than one thing going at a time. And I'll have to get into spinning,again, if I can remember how to do it, to produce more weaving material!
And there's a large weaving and music collaboration in my future too. I think I have to write down my priorities in art before I get in a total blur!
Current stage of Flyover. This afternoon I'm off to warp up the earthloom at the library, to get my weaving initiated, so I would like Flyover completed very soon. It will only be a day or two at this rate.
Here's where Flyover is now.
You'll notice that I'm doing a lot of other design ideas
without using guidelines, just painting with the needle. That's how I
get the more interesting shapes in here. There'll be more of the floss
blue/purple/black to come, to solidify a couple more areas. And maybe a
few beads.
the concept of road as river is starting to show, and buildings as bridges, too, visual puns and optical illusions. At least I hope they're visible to anyone other than me!
I've come to like the silver thread more. It's stiffer and less willing to curve than the softer gold threads,but we're figuring it out as we go. And the design is starting to make more sense, too.
Flyover is under way, with mixed threads for the buildings, half a dozen shades of blue, purple, black, mixed and alternating in a split stitch. Then the silver highway, in metallic thread couched down with a fine metallic thread. The top part will fan out separately, and the lower part will be closely stitched. We'll see how this works.
I like this stage very much, because I'm just starting to see what might happen in this piece. Exciting point.
Here's the newest adventure: a monotype and the stitching it suggests. There will be a lot of split stitch, a bit of beading maybe, and who knows, goldwork may happen, too, you never know.
Monotype framed at 14 x 18, stitching probably 8 x 10, height precedes width as usual.
I transferred the main points of the design onto the linen using a fine Pilot pen, on the fabric, and a fat Sharpie on the transparent stuff I taped to the window behind the fabric, my usual version of a light box. Works fine, too, against bright snowlight. And we have plenty of snowlight at the moment.
Here I'm showing you the current selection of flosses and couching thread and beads. I think more silver will happen than I show here, though.
Title, this time it has one, Flyover. It's about the entrance to NYC when you suddenly come in on the bus and see crisscrossing highways many levels to see through, and the city back there.
The energy level and implied movement and goal directedness is astounding every time you see it, and that's part of what I need to convey if possible in the stitching. I think it does come over in the monotype. That's in black blockprint ink, additive style monotype, printed onto a sort of brownish paper forget what, it's been a while.
This is the piece I showed you in progress. It's 11inh,6inw
It's the concept of the cable junction boxes out on the street, created in woven embroidery floss and woven beads. Very glad it's done -- five moving parts even after all the bits were woven,and the finishing was gnarly to do. But it seems to be repaying the effort.
What I don't have yet is a title, yet again. Not big on titles, in fact Maggi Johnson, a great artist and one of my early teachers and great encouragers and insisters that I start to exhibit said, well, dear, you know what you mean, and I know what you mean, but a title might let other people know what you mean, too! so since then I've tried to name pieces. Sometimes I need a little help.
Pushing ahead on the pairs project, ready for April, I'm sorting out my thoughts and threads on this piece, which incorporates floss weaving and bead weaving. It looks a bit wild at this point, and there's one more section of beads to do, but I think it's getting there.
It's the pair to a couple of photographs I took near home of cable related junction boxes, which I doubled then image transferred. The shapes and the threads relate, but each had to go with its medium.
My latest goldwork and beaded piece, tentatively named Smoke Rising, thank you for suggestions, dear blogistas. I added in just a scatter of little gold beads to extend the image a bit, and tilted it a bit more in the frame, for forward movement as well as an upward spiral.
Next I have to do the dreaded framing, ew, and I'm into a new section of woven beadwork. I plan to mount this with the floss weaving it goes with, on fabric, I think and see how that works.
I remembered to take a pic of the bracelet I designed and wove, which Diane will own as soon as I get it off to her, probably today.
The clasp is sterling. Wear it in good health, Diane!
this computer is beginning to act like my old Plymouth Horizon, dearly loved car, which I traded in at the point where every gas refill also required a quart of oil and a pint of tranny fluid.
The netbook now requires a full bootup and re-entry of all my passwords every time I turn around. If I fail to use it for a few minutes, it shuts down totally. I think it's part cat. And it's pretending it can't remember how to connect to my printer. Or the camera.
But I'd like to get my Princeton Embroiderers blog entry done before I go shopping, because I understand this setup, not wishing to learn a new one in the middle of a blogpost. And the meeting where I'm taking pix for it is tomorrow, so we can sort of manage, I guess...
Oh,and White Rabbits for February.
