Chapter 4 Shape and Pattern – (part 4 : Revisions)

Exercise 9 Re-visited – 19 June

Much appreciated positive feedback received from Sian on most of Chapter 4.  However, there are some revisions required. My previous attempt at drawing a letter on a page was very ordinary so I was not surprised when Sian suggested I have another go at it. I had some more thoughts of how to put together the shape and a letter so tried a few ideas:

My first attempt (09 c1) comprised colouring three overlapping shapes with the Derwent water colour pencils. My idea was to colour a textured P over this using sequin waste as a rubbing plate. I liked the first part, where the overlapping areas produced different hues I secondary colours.  However, the overall colours looked quite pale so I decided to dampen them to bring out the colour and then it all went wrong…  Perhaps I should try this with a different water based medium e.g. Koh-I-Noor colours.

Ex 09 c1  Overlapping shape coloured	Ex 09 c2 Large P overlaid by rubbing paper on top of sequin waste

For the next attempt (09 d) I drew my shape in outline onto the plain paper with the water colour pencil, and rotated it several times – perhaps at this stage I should have coloured the shape in so they would be more obvious. I used a white oil pastel to draw a lightly shaded P with the intention that it would create a mask for a later colour wash. I put a pale yellow coloured wash (dilute dekka silk ink) over the page, but it is all very feint. Try again Penelope! Is there a message here with using the water colour pencils and pale colours???

Ex 09 d Rotated shapes and mask

	This time (09 e) using oil pastels to draw overlapping shapes, then a blue coloured wash (masses of Koh-I-Noor), then the P in oil pastel. The mask worked, the shapes can be seen,  but I don’t like this one at all.
Ex 09 e overlapping shapes and P

Feeling a little despondent I decided to create something digitally…

Ex 09 f  Digitised shapes rotated printed from computer	Cut-out P on dark background

In this iteration (09 f) I digitised the shape and made the background transparent, for use on the computer. This allows me to resize and recolour the shape for use in printing.

I hadn’t been happy with the previous overlays so thought I would try a different style. I like tessellating shapes and patterns so had a go at creating a repeating rotating pattern across the page, then printed it on good quality paper. On the back of the page I cut a reverse large P, but I gave it bumpy edges…

This was my best attempt s far so I sent it off to Sian with the question “Is it OK, or is it too fussy?”

If I am asking that question obviously Sian is going to say, Do you think it is too fussy, how can you change it? Changing Size/ Scale? Changing Colour? Changing something?

So back to the drawing board with this idea…  This could be why I don't like adding text to my work – it all becomes too complicated.

Oh No! Now I am in digital mode the possibilities are endless. I can change colours of foreground and background, stretch and rotate as I like… I spent most of the morning playing around with different layouts, size, scale, stretching, rotating the shape, changing the colour of shape and  backgrounds in MS PowerPoint. I seemed to have ended up in a rabbit hole and could not make up my mind how to progress this. This example (09g) is the one I like most.  But I don't want to spoil it with a letter….

Ex 09 g Tessellated shapes with coloured background (layout in MS PowerPoint)

Having left exercise 09 at the point above, I worked through the exercises for 17 and 18 (see below).  In 18, I was using textured wallpaper to make blocks for printing.  Being pleased with the result, I decided to have another go with this exercise.  Using a striped texture and mottled texture I cut two more blocks.  This time I printed the P at an angle,  the linear stripes seemed to go well with the shape.  I used a bold colour (the Jackson's Water Colour  Indigo), then using its complimentary yellow-orange, again  a good quality paint from Jackson's, I printed my shape over the P.  I am much happier with the outcome.  I have printed it on pale cream cartridge paper, which leaves it looking a little dull.  If I were to continue pushing this exercise, the next step would be to experiment with different coloured backgrounds, outlines or textures to see what would give it a little lift.  At present I am reluctant to put a colour wash over it in case I spoil what I have achieved so far.  

Ex 09 h1 Blocks with textured wallpaper	Ex 09 h2 The printed page

I now feel I can move on from this exercise having achieved something I am mostly satisfied with and see its potential.  As a bonus, in future, I might not be so reluctant to add text to my design work.

Exercise 17  Re-visited 21 June

My previous attempt at this exercise went a bit awry – I didn't quite understand what to do.  So here goes with some more trials.

Sian suggested that some shapes might be better with horizontal strips and others with vertical strips.  It suddenly dawned on me use textured wallpaper with stripes as the base then play with the two orientations. Off to the DIY store to pick up some samples of textured wallpaper, then back to playing…  In my stash I have lots of space dyed scrim, just what I need.  These are easy to manipulate to create softer edges and more texture.  Here I wanted to make light airy lines, forget the paper strips that looked too lumpy. 

Ta Dah!

Shapes with strips.  Background coloured with oil pastels, cut out shape from wallpaper and coloured with oil pastel to bring out the texture.

Ex 17 c Vertical strips	Ex 17 d Horizontal strips

I prepared these samples so they sit side by side in my book – I am much happier with this version.  I feel I have now taken this forward with something more interesting.

Ex 17 c and d, ready for distressed scrim to be glued to background.

Exercise 18  Re-visited 21 June

Second time around, I enjoyed exploring this exercise. I feel more confident about my shape and using bolder colours. I found some painted cartridge paper and waxed paper from my stash for Exercise 18.  I chose the waxed paper as it is translucent and has lovely markings from when it was crumpled.  My background image is a much stronger colour – I used a good quality watercolour from a tube (Jackson's own brand in Indigo), rather than the watercolour pencils.  Although more difficult to control the hue is stronger and more impressive. I like the result of this sample as my shape is looking very different.from its original outline. Some of the edges are hidden while others can be seen under the waxed paper.  I like how the patterns on the waxed paper change depending on what is beneath it.

Ex 18 Rectangles with gaps to partially reveal shape

I haven't yet completed exercise 19 but I will create another sample similar to the one above then couch some interesting threads onto it.

With my newly acquired textured wallpaper samples I made four blocks that I can use to print onto paper. I also have different sized templates from my digitised image.  I can now produce some better looking shapes for the next exercise.

I am so pleased I re-visited these exercises.  I have learned so much more about trying again, and using different techniques.  I hated Exercise 9 the first time around, but perseverance has paid off.  I have a result that I can move forward with.  The same goes for exercise 17 – my first attempt was a disaster, but just thinking a bit more about stripes, and how they work on the horizontal and vertical has been an eye opener.

Going bold with good quality paint has been a good lesson too.  I got a better result.

For these exercises a spent about 10 hours (most on the digitisation! and playing with tessellated shapes).  All of Exercise 17 and 18 and my last attempt for 09, were done in one afternoon.

Now I get on with Chapter 5. I already have some interesting images to play with and have been preparing different textured papers and fabrics to colour.

Chapter 4 Shape & Pattern Study (part 3)

Exploration using solid shape

Stilling wondering which one of my shapes I am going to use with this section.  I tried three ideas for exercises 3 & 4.  All are interesting so will try to make progress with the next exercise.

Ex. 4 Composite 1, counterpoint colouring	Ex. 4 Composite 2, counterpoint colouring	Ex.03 Rotated shapes traced

I thought my first attempt for rotating the four shapes was not very good as I had not understood how to prepare the pieces before tracing. I had glued each one to the page before adding the next rotated shape… I thought the composite was too spikey so  I used the simplified  set of four shapes for a second composite and just laid them on the page.  This had the disadvantage of moving while I did the tracing.  I am not sure how this should really have been done..  I still wasn't sure about the resulting shape, did it have too many gaps? too many straight edges? that, so tried with a different shape, which when traced just looked like a set of fan blades.  I felt so bad about that one it actually reached the bin… Continuing to struggle with thinking outside the box, I thought I have to just get on with the design exercises and colour the two composites with counterpoint.  At first I was very unsure about the results, but as I worked on I came to like them a bit more and could see how the idea was beginning to develop. 

The actual size of the new composite shapes are quite large; to make them more manageable, I scanned them for printing to use in exploring the different techniques.

For Exercise 5 I used one of the cut out shapes from above as a mask to paint four overlapping rectangles using the Koh I Noor colours.  The painted shape was then overlain on a second set of rectangles.  This is quite an interesting exercise, and could produce some lovely results with fabrics (especially sheers).  I could play with different colour ways with the paints when working to enhance this.

Ex. 5 Overlapping rectangles with mask	Ex. 5b Overlapping rectangles and shape

Exercises 6, 7, 8 and 9

More exploration of the shape.  For 6, I used a printed version of the composite shape to save a little bit of time – printing directly onto fabric from a computer is an easy way to transfer the image for more sewing.  For exercises 7 & 8, my background paper is painted with three shades red-orange from the Koh I Noor pallet. With more time I could explore the different shapes and perhaps making an interesting edge to the whole of the page; it could have a contrasting colour beneath it to enhance the shape.  The photo does not do justice to my contrasting piece of coloured paper, this is several shades of turquoise with lovely markings.  It is a layer of paper towel that had been used to mop up some inks when doing another project.  The colours were so lovely I just had to iron it and keep it.  Now I have used it.   I was a bit ordinary for exercise 9,  the P for poppy (or Penelope??) could have been much more elaborate.  Using letters and text in my work is not something I have practised very much, again something I could explore further.

Ex. 6 Cut a window and move selection	Ex.7 & 8 Cut from edge with contrasting colour	Ex. 9 Draw & colour a large letter

I struggle using words in my work, but did write the first few lines of John MacRae's "In Flanders Field".  I haven't included it here as it feels a bit cliched and something I am not comfortable with.

My results for Exercise 14 were variable, I put too many folds in the paper, but with a little more care and precision of folding the pleats evenly this could be a fun technique on fabric.

I really had fun with exercises 15 and 16.  For exercise 15, I started with a colour washed page and my composite shape drawn with a watercolour pencil in turquoise. I added further solid and dashed lines with the  water colour pencils and the flat side of oil pastels in magenta and turquoise.  For 16, I used the template as a mask to highlight the outline and filled it with diagonal lines (not sure if this was what was required).  Although I used watercolour pencils on paper, this could be repeated using Markal Oil sticks on fabric with lines of machine stitching, or couching textured fibres, or layers of fabric cut to shape and cut away to reveal those below.  I think both these designs would make a really interesting blocks for the centre of a cushion or as motifs on a bag, book cover etc..  I can't believe how far this is from my original poppy shape. At last I feel I have made a design that is not recognisable as its original object, is unique to me, and something that I could take further.  

Ex 15. Outline shape with lines to enhance pattern	Ex 16 Drawn stripes within the shape outline

Exercise 17 went a bit awry…  I covered a sheet of paper with a colour mix of two blue and an orange oil pastel, marked the shape with a blunt point and tore it out.  It lost some of the detail.  The vertical lines didn't seem to work so I made a woven grid pattern with some  red–orange painted papers.  As an extension to exercise 7, I cut the edge of several textured/decorated papers with part of the template to add to the book .  They have been offset so each different paper can be seen at the edge.

Ex 17 Torn shape with overlaid grid	Offset edges cut with the template design

I really enjoyed my version of exercise 20.  Here I used small versions of my cut-away composite shape on a background coloured paper,  then added a running stitch outline of my original simplified shape.  It is a very basic sample, but I can see there is so much potential in using this idea to form bocks in my further studies.

Ex 20.  Coloured papers, with cut-out composite shape	Ex 20 with added stitching of original shape

I was daunted by the content of the chapter at the beginning and worried all my samples would be rubbish.  Those that I thought were terrible at the beginning such as exercise 2, I can now see are a very useful  addition to my 'toolkit' of design layout ideas. There are so many ideas that can be developed by using different fabrics and texture together, and by adding different simple stitches such as seeding and French knots, Bullion Knots etc.   I could have done much more in this chapter, but time is not on my side if I want to have more examples of work from the rest of the module to take to summer school. For example, I haven't yet used the blocks I made from string, nor have I made blocks using 'easy carve' foam, these are techniques I have used previously and will pursue them in the future on fabric as I progress in the next sections.

I am looking forward to find out where to go next in this textile adventure….

Time log, Cost, Health and Safety for Chapter 4

In all I spent about four full days (32 hours) on this section.  I didn't have any direct costs as all the materials were already in my work room.  The only H&S consideration was to use the scalpel carefully and on a cutting mat when cutting the stencils – I broke two of the blades so have acquired a 'sharps' box for safe disposal of the broken blades.

Chapter 4 Shape & Pattern Study (part 2)

Looking for detail

Out with the tracing paper…From my heap of photos, may first attempt is a simple outline of part of the crown with some stippling to provide some detail.  However, I think this would be more appropriate for the texture.  My second attempt took a tracing from one other manipulated photos and overlaid it three times.  At first I rejected it, but after a while of thinking (and working on some of the other exercises in Ch 4, I might revisit this shape. 

Simple linear outline of crown	Triple overlaid outline

There were two other photos that I was particularly drawn to.  These have close up details of the area where the crown meets the capsule; there is dark shading where the flaps covering the seed ejection points fold down, with a view into the cavity, and there is an interesting crack in one place.

Close up detail of seed ejection point	Even closer detail…	Detail with interesting crack

Using different tracing techniques helped me find some interesting shapes.

Cross hatching to find shape	Stippling to find shape	Shading to find shape

The enhancement of the photos at this angle and lighting effects bring our some interesting shapes to explore. The sketch facility in Microsoft Word, helped to highlight the shape:

Sketch effect from MS Word	Tracing of the shape

At first I wasn’t sure about this image as I thought it would be too difficult to work with.  I simplified it and worked through some of the exercises, but as I write my notes, I think it will be worth revisiting this shape as it has more interest.

Below is the simplified shape cut as a string outline then filled to make a solid shape.  Both templates sealed with French Polish for later printing.  The shape was cut from stiff card for using as a template for further exercises. 

Simple string outline of simplified shape (coated with French Polish); filled string shape; first attempt at printing with the template using Koh-I-Noor paints)	Simplified shape, cut in card, on layered papers readying for exercises

I wasn’t really sure about where I was going with the design exploration of this shape.  I started playing with different papers.  First with some waxed papers from a magazine folded to make multiple copies, and three shapes placed at different angles to create different shapes.  The negative space shows the layout below, then five variations of the patterns laid out in my sketch book pages.  I was beginning to lose confidence with my progress, what had seemed like a good idea, suddenly seemed very boring!

I persevered with the simple shapes attempting Exercises 1, 2, and 3 from Chapter 4.  In Ex 01 and 02  I used Koh I Noor paints, but I am not sure if I have the right idea.  I was very confused with Ex 03,  it took several attempts for me to realise I didn’t have glue the shapes into my book before rotating them (Doh!!).

Ex. 01	Ex 02	Ex 03	Ex 03 tracing

By now I thought my shape was too simple; the rotated tracing does not look very exciting in terms of my expected outcome.  However, I am not totally disheartened, this is a learning process, if the first idea doesn’t work, try another.  Next step is to look at the shapes I previously rejected to see what they can offer for these exercises.

Despite the setback, I have enjoyed looking for shape in my photos, However there is still much more to do!

I have worked for approximately 20 hours on this section (including writing the blog and preparing the images), and working out why the blog wouldn't upload….