After the excitement of the Grow Your Blog party yesterday, with new people greeting us in here, and visiting their blogs in turn and others too who had entered, today I'm back to the present! lovely to have new readers, too, joining the people who've been here before.
This is an artwork I found when I organized the studio, from when I did some Polaroid transfers before they "improved" the film so that you couldn't lift the image off. This I transferred onto sheer nylon.
To create a small artwork, I backed it with gauze, stitched a snailtrail of silk thread around, piercing both layers, then did trapunto work. If you're not familiar with trapunto, it's a kind of stuffing. You pierce the backing then stuff batting, in this case a nice roving, into the selected areas from the back. Deciding how to organize trapunto is an interesting phase of work.
It's a form of fabric sculpture, a bas relief in a way.
Then I started using goldwork, couched down with gold silk thread, and running round the contours of the raised sections. This is very engrossing work, figuring out how to get around the stitched lines interestingly.
I think I will probably put a curved doorway shape around three sides of this image, and I'll applique it to a larger work I have under way, if it works there. There's a larger curved doorway in that work that might be compatible. If not, it may be a freestanding artwork, one of a couple, since I have other transferred images similar to this one, to work on.
And there may be beading. Watch this space!
Today's the Annual Grow Your Blog day, organized and created by Vicki at Two Bags Full, much applause to her, and see the button on the right indicating this.
Welcome to new readers, and welcome back to current readers and followers. My screen name is Boud, by which I'm often referred to, but my real life name is Liz. This is my art blog (I also have a general purpose blog, Field and Fen here )
Art the Beautiful Metaphor, a joke relating to soccer, the beautiful game, is the blog where I show my current and past art in a range of media, monotypes
drawings
tapestry weaving
ink and wash watercolors
Portrait of the Artist
embroidery
knitting
sewing
artist's books
handmade paper
here with reverse drawing on glass
stick weaving
beadweaving
my exhibits
what's up in the studio
where I also review other people's exhibits
Homefront, a wonderful local organization helping with homeless emergencies and with people's need to restart their lives and whose artists show great work
Ellarslie, Museum of the City of Trenton
Mercer County College
and generally give an artist's eye view of the world and gladly welcome input from readers and observers, artists or not.
Sometimes I'm accompanied by my character dolls, the Dollivers, seen above modeling a handknit scarf I designed and made for a friend, five knitted creations with a large wardrobe each, to exhibits and to hindrance in the studio...they mainly live at Field and Fen, though, and if you like them, you can wander over there to see more of their exploits.
There will be a small giveaway to a random commenter on this blogpost, and to see it, scroll back a little way for a picture and description. No need to have a blog in order to enter, no need to do more than comment in here and you're in. I'll do the drawing on February 15 and announce the winner in here and get an address from him or her to ship the item to.
Meanwhile, browse enjoy, ask, comment, and thank you for being here.
Here's what the lucky random winner will receive, to be announced February 15th.
Image is titled Tidepool, in pearl and other beads, goldwork and other metallic threads, stitched on Belgian linen. Stitched area is 4 inches by 3 inches, and there's a margin of linen around to enable you to mat or to miter and hem.
Please note that all you need to do enter is comment on this blog on January 25th. No need to have a blog of your own, no need to sign up as a follower, unless you're dying to do that, just comment and you're in. If you're one of the followers who comment via email rather than onsite, I'll count you in anyway.
Mark your calendar, tell your friends! Some readers don't know how to comment, but do respond in email, via my mailing list, so I will include you.
So glad to report that my wrist is recovered enough to start thinking about stitching again! and that one reward of organizing the studio was that I found a couple of polaroid image transfers on nylon that I'd made years ago, set aside until I knew what to do next, then sort of forgot.
Here they are.
These are image transfers before they improved polaroid film to where you couldn't do this any more, where I used to soak the developed picture I'd taken, then remove the actual image from the paper! great excitement moving an image through the air to settle on whatever surface I wanted it on, here nylon, because I wanted the transparency of the picture and the fabric working together.
But now I realize these are stitched works waiting to happen. So today I'm hoping to set up and get to work on this.
They may be freestanding, or they may be part of a much bigger work I have under way. We'll see if they're compatible.
The other fabric you see is a piece of Thai silk, given to us all at the holiday party courtesy of Carol P., who visits Thai relatives and gave us the benefit of one of their gifts.
So this is good! new stitching adventures ahead. And I have a Jill Paton Walsh Peter Wimsey on CDs to listen to while I work. Spoken words keep the left brain occupied and the right brain can get on with its job.
The Grow Your Blog 2015 button up there is about an international blog party next week I'm taking part in. For more explanation about it, go here and meanwhile I will be thinking up a giveaway, for anyone who comes in here to comment. If you click on that link, you need to scroll down past the food, to the GYB explanation.
I have two blogs entered, Field and Fen and this one, so there will be two chances of a giveaway aren't you lucky. I have to look through my completed artworks and decide what will be nice to receive.
My other blog, Field and Fen, lurched into art territory today, in the midst of studio cleanup and gardening, but since there's art chat, too, you might want to check on it here
After a long hiatus, injured wrist put stitching out of the realm of the possible, I've tried a little simple knitting, partly to appease my Need to Make Stuff, partly to be a gentle exercise to improve my wrist. Both of which it has done.
Can't work for long, but anyway, one Dolliver will be getting a new dress as soon as it's seamed up, and there's another on the needles. Blondie Firstborn has one of these dresses and it's been a bone of contention among the other four that they don't have one, too.
These are from the Knitted Babes book by Claire Garland, from which the Dollivers came, though adapted from the originals in the book. I hugely recommend this book as fun as well as very simply presented. Makes you want to knit all the things.
And it's using yarn from friend Karen's stash, another cool point.
