Day 2 'Artist in Residence' experiments- Inktense, Litho-coal

This experiment was with 'Litho-coal'.
Lithocoal is a heat fixable charcoal. You can draw with it and then heat it in an oven to set it or on fabric just heat with an iron. I had never heard of it till Jenny Bowker sent me some of it to try last year.

The top photo shows Lithocoal on various different fabrics such as silk tussore and cotton. I also tried smudging it. The bottom photo shows Lithocoal used to draw the black noughts and crosses and Derwent Colour Inktense pencils used for the brown areas. The underlying fabric is a pale brown linen.

For the Lithocoal (I have been unable to find a supplier in New Zealand) draw onto the fabric, cover with baking paper and then iron on hot setting for 1-2 minutes.

For the Derwent Inktense pencils. Colour in, then use water to spread the pencil colour as a wash (like you would with Aquarelles when doing a pen and wash drawing) For more intense colours use fabric medium to spread as a wash.
I have tested whether the pencil colour washes out in water but it is pretty good. There is some loss of colour if you don't use fabric medium.

Day 1 "Artist in Residence' experiments! -screenprinting

Today was my first day as 'artist in res' at Whitireia Polytechnic in Porirua, New Zealand. I have the use of an office to store my stuff and to work on small bits and pieces as well as the use of the textile studio and darkroom when the students aren't using them, On Tuesdays and Thursdays I help out with the new Textile Mastercraft class.The Mastercraft class is 6 months long and is level 5. Many of the students will go on from there into the degree course.

The black and white pictures are my first experiments. I wanted to see what would work best as a photographic screenprint. I have always done designs with strong black lines but this time I wanted to find the thinnest line I can get away with, as well as which drawing/painting media are the best.

From left to right these are
Graphite pencil, permanent marker, B&W photograph, sharpie
Fern, doily, enamel pen, weed seed heads
10-24point text(bold), magazine photo, scraperboard, comic book

Light charcoal, lino print, indian ink splatter, gaphite pencil
Indian ink drawing, charcoal, monoprint, black paint
oil pastel, rotring pen, oil pastel, Indian ink (drawn with twig)

The purple print shows the results. Amazingly most of the media worked. The light charcoal, rotring pen, graphite and scraperboard pattern were the least successful as the lines were a bit too thin or the mark was too pale. The 10 point text worked better than I thought and the text didn't work at all on the comic picture (it says '...what the' ).

Best was Indian ink, lino block print, enamel pens, sharpie, laser printer text, objects like plants and doileys, oil pastel.

That's enough for today. I did do some more experiments but I'll save them for tomorrow as I don't know how to put the photos in the right order. At the moment they all end up at the beginning of the text.

Nearly ready!

Just finishing off the last few bits and pieces before the Whitireia residency starts. One article for New Zealand quilter for their 'websearch' page and a few things to post to exhibitions and then I'm off and running with the new techniques. I hope to have the first experiments on this blog on monday evening 29th Feb., if not before. If anyone who reads this has any ideas for new things to try, please let me know. I have some heat set charcoal donated by Jenny Bowker and some 'colour intense' Derwent pencils which work on silk, which I will be starting with.

Last exhibition piece

This is the last quilt for the exhibition 'Southern Lands' curated by Dijanne Cevaal and going to Germany and France. I managed to get the whole lot in the post today - 3 day courier to Germany. Not cheap but hopefully safe. I also managed to get the commission for the Wellington company done and in to their office. Now I am excavating the floor to find all the bills and reciepts I have left all around the house. I might even manage to cook some dinner for the kids tonight before rushing out to a meeting. I don't know if anyone will read this blog but over the next 5 weeks I intend to put the results of my daily experiments which I'll be doing as part of my 'artist residency' at Whitireia. I'm happy to share techniques if anyone wants to have a go at the same time.

Southern lands exhibition quilts

Here are three quilts which I have made for the 'Southern lands' exhibition curated by Dijanne Cevaal, which will be shown in Europe. I need to make one more of these 50cm square quilts before tomorrow so that I can post them. The top one is called 'Waterways' and was inspired by a photo sent to me by a geologist friend who likes to use Google earth to home in on old ruins and interesting textures.

Commission no.2

I have also just finished a commission for a company. They wanted a quilt made of squares of different types of fabrics, lots of textures i.e corduroy, silk, leather, furnishing fabrics, cheesecloth.
I put out a call to friends to ask for shades of mid to dark blue in different weights of fabric and managed with their help to collect enough of a range that I didn't have to buy 20cm lengths in order to get 3inch squares. Thanks Coastal Quilters and Jude Hutton!

It is quite a traditional quilt in dark to mid tones but has white machine embroidery over the top. It wouldn't win any prizes in a quilt show but is going to be changed using computer imagery and have images projected over the top. Part of the brief was that it had to look 'handmade'.

Hopefully I will eventually get to see what they use it for. Like most commissions, the time frame was quite short and I did have to extend my working day to 2am on a couple of nights. Housekeeping and cooking has been non-existent the last week.

Long time no blog

I didn't realise it had been so long since I wrote anything here. I have been working on several commissions, a set of quilts to go to Germany for an exhibition which Dijanne Cevaal is curating called 'Southern Lands' and I have had bits and pieces of casual work. I just forgot about the blog. However, for the month of March I will be 'Artist in Residence' at Whitireia Polytechnic helping the textile department get their new Textile Mastercraft course off the ground. I get a room to work in, the use of the studios when they are not being used for teaching and a chance to take time for some experimentation with techniques that I have always wanted to try but have never made time for.

So I am currently trying to finish all the outstanding exhibition and commission pieces. Here is the very nearly completed grasses piece which is going to the U.S as soon as photography is completed. The first picture is a detail shot, I forgot that I needed to put the photos in first then do the writing!