11 February 2013

Fun with Gwen Hedley

Or at least her book, Drawn to Stitch. I decided to start stitching smalls samples at night while I watch Netflix. I was doing an exercise on pages 40-45 about mark making and while doing that stamped some small (4" X 6") pieces of cloth with black acrylic paint which I will "stitch around". Here is the cloth


I'm not sure what I am going to do but I'll see.

Now this is the result of the exercise. I took some newspaper and ironed steam a seam onto the back. Gwen never mentioned taking it off - if or when - but I did and I'll tell you when. She did saw to leave it on while making marks. She had quite a few pages involving what types of lines to make and potential implements to use. I did make a note of what I used in my (ahem) journal. Some were India ink with the Japanese calligraphy brush, china maker, colored pencil - plain, pastels - unwrapped and drawn length wise across a rigid collograph, ink in an eye dropper, my foam donut (must take a picture of this piece of material that was rescued packing material from something I bought - one of my absolute favs - picture soon), sharpie, credit card on edge and others as well.
The directions said to make one and cut it in half so of course I made 2. Also of course and as usual I forgot to take pictures starting... but I did take some soon after making a few marks.


Book open


A stamp (top and bottom rows) and that soft wide mark that looks like a tire print (said favorite foam donut), Round circles of Noodler's Polar brown ink applied with a sponge circle and the curvy brown line from the eye dropper. The wide brown line was Noodler's brown rolled on with a Q-tip. I tried to make the marks as though the two sheets were attached


Then I cut each sheet into strips, one sheet vertically and the other horizontally using curvy cuts with a (gasp) rotary cutter I reserve for paper.


 Both finished sheets before cutting (above and below)


Then I wove them together (with the paper backing removed) as in the directions from the book. Removing the paper backing was NOT in the directions but the slight tackiness of the steam a seam helped keep it all together. When done I trimmed up the edges - just eyeballing - and placed the woven two layered piece on a sheet of thin brown packing paper that I had ironed flat in advance.


Finished
Gwen had further ideas about what to do with this which involved close-up shots of the piece (cropped)





and 2 transfer techniques...more later

2 comments:

  1. What fun! I shall be putting Gwen's book on my wish list! I look forward to following your progress!
    BTW I have no idea what a foam donut (doughnut here!!) could be!

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  2. I just got some Steam-a-seam for another project... will have to try this exercise from Gwen's book soon. I love your results!

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