Book Review - 3D Mixed Media Textile Art by Textileartist.org

As an aspiring artist at the beginning of my journey I have a forensic fascination with how established artist got to be where they are. So an initial flick through my review copy of 3D Mixed Media Textile Art by Textileartist.org shows headings that really resonate with me.

First, a table of contents that lists a superb cohort of textile artists such as Sian Martin, Gizella K Warburton and Karen Nicol. But most importantly each chapter is divided into:

• 'Beginnings'
• 'Inspiration' 
• 'Process and Practice'

Those are exactly the questions I want to hear answers for from artists I admire.

Beginnings

Right now what I don't want is thematic essays on art perspectives I didn't even know existed. I want the nuts and bolts of how and why. I also want to be seduced by stories of running away to Paris after art school in the 60s and making a spectacular career as Karen Nicol did.

Jean Draper detail of Aftermath from 3d mixed media textile art © Textileartist.org

I was amused by Jean Draper's beginnings because they are diametrically opposed to mine.

"A lack of aptitude in Latin... meant that Jean was demoted to the B stream. What might have originally been perceived as a knock was actually a blessing, as it enabled her to take Needlework as a GCE subject and so influenced a lifetime's work."

At my school Latin was pitched against Needlework when the time came to choose, and I not only had a natural aptitude for foreign languages (alive or dead) but was assured by well-meaning parents that "I could draw any time." And so was influenced into a lifetime of office work!

Inspiration

Hearing about artists' inspirations validates themes I might be interested in pursuing. Landscape, architecture, birds, memory. It makes it OK to be interested in minute subjects. This is where the artist communicates.

I have some themes that keep coming to stay: what happens to people's stories after they die. My father recently passed away. What will happen to his stories? Like the time he shook hands with Emperor Haile Selassie or escaped an African revolution in the clothes he was wearing. What will happen to my stories?

This is also the scary part isn't it? The part where you give of yourself. Jean Draper is haunted by a devastating wildfire. Faig draws inspiration from society and tradition in his rugs.

Faig Ahmed details of Tradition in Pixel and Flood of yellow weight from 3D mixed media textile art © Textileartist.org

Some inspirations, though, I can't say I understand. Like June Lee's intrigue with "the idea of prejudice and the difference in values and standards between oneself and..." I just trail off at those inspirations. They sound too much like that Art Statement Generator. Plus I don't see how her work actually embodies her statement. I feel alienated. Silk heads, do I like them? Could I do it? No and no. But I understand that this is what June Lee needs to do to communicate something from inside herself.

June Lee detail of Bystander from 3D mixed media textile art © Textileartist.org

Faig's take on Persian carpets is of particular interest to me as I grew up in the Far East and the homes I've lived in have been full of these kinds of carpets. Or rather, not these kinds at all, Faig's rugs are humorous and poignant.

One of the most interesting parts of revealing artist's inspirations is when they speak about other artists or people that have influenced them. It has widened my world to new people like Magdalena Abakanowicz or Mark Newport.

Process & Practice

Because I'm unashamedly at the imitation stage of my journey, finding my feet, it's really helpful to have blow-by-blow explanations of how work is actually done. I like to know whether sketchbooks are used, when computers come into play, how much primary observation is done. This is gold dust to the newbie. This book is brimming with explanation on that front.

The photography in 3D Mixed Media Textile Art is really good quality and nicely close up so you can scritinise the details that catch your attention. The landscape orientation of the book means that the images breathe and there is no 'spine' (if such a thing exists electronically) awkwardly splitting them in two.

Conclusion

What is this 'being an artist' thing? It's needing to say something about your world or your life. It's "a lifestyle" according to Faig. I'm not there yet, by a long chalk, but I see it in the artists in this book and I look forward to reaching it.

I'm starting to imagine what I would write for my beginning, inspiration and process. I know the beginning bit, and my inspiration is taking shape - thanks to being introduced to lots of new artist as in this book. As to process, well, I have a long way to go.

Screen Printing

More progress from my class: my very first screen printing.

I'd always thought of this as a rather mystical, unobtainable technique that I would never experience. Only really expert artists made screen prints! And all those people who were doing Art while I had to do Latin at school.

This is what happened:

The prep work for the stencil and the cutouts from the stencil.

The stencil based on my bird theme.

My flight of birds across a piece of tie dye I'd made. I like this a lot.

Detail of the piece above showing the patterened texture of the fabric.

The flight across some patterned textile.

And again, trying to join more than one repeat of the stencil.

Overlaying the stencil with the cutouts.

Some serendipidous mixing up of colours having picked up left over pots from other classmates. One of my birds went AWOL (it stuck to the fabric on the previous pull and I didn't notice).

The back of the above piece has much neater and cleaner white spaces.

I'm not sure the sheer joy of indulging this technique comes across but I was like a kid in a sweet shop.

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This post is part of a series: see Part I -- see Part II -- see Part III -- this is Part IV
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Dyeing

We did some tie dyeing in my evening class. I really didn't enjoy it. It's messy and chemically. And I don't like the results. Reminds me too much of travelling through Guatemala in the 90s and the kinds of clothes the tourists were wearing. I don't like the regularity of the repeating patterns or muddiness of the colours.

Nevertheless here are the results.

Preparation - putting in the resists.

From my sketchbook - the results.

This one I liked - the way the red bleeds into the green rather randomly. I later overprinted it with some screen printing.

This was done by one of my classmates and I really like it because it's mostly the original fabric and the dye is irregular.

I'm not sure that I'll be doing much more dyeing but glad to have had a chance to find out I don't like it.

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This post is part of a series: see Part I -- see Part II -- This is Part III
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The London Textile Fair - 15/16 July 2015

What a shame I won't be able to go to the London Textile Fair at the Business Design Center in Islington, London. I will be away on holiday.

"The London Textile Fair provides manufacturers and their agents with the opportunity to showcase their products to the most influential buyers and designers on the UK fashion scene."  (thelondontextilefair.co.uk)

It divides into four parts: Textiles, Print Studios, Vintage Clothes and Accessories & Trims. It is definitely for trade but they don't discourage students.

If you go please let me know how it was.

Block Printing

The next stage of my class, after all the colour and texture work, was to make block prints from the theme we've been exploring: birds.

I really enjoyed making the interpretations from the pictures I'd collected. It made me feel like an artist!

Bird theme as inspiration - from my sketchbook.

Detail of the bird drawings - they look rather stitch-like. I love them!

More from my sketchbook

The block prints made from foam with the results.

Detail of the block prints

The results from my sketchbook.

Even if we didn't have that long to make work in class I thought block printing was great fun. I loved the painterly effect - I simply painted the ink on instead of pressing the ink from a plate - and essentially block printing gives you freedom to mark anywhere on your background. You can choose to be regular or random. There's something pleasingly quirky about it. I'm definitely going to be doing more of this. I may even dig out my lino.

Can anyone recommend artists who work with block printing that I ought to know about?

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This post is part of a series: see Part I -- this is Part II -- see Part III
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Review - A Stitch in Time: A Day of Embroidery at the British Library - 6 June 2015

I went to a great day-long event at the British Library themed around the new art work by Cornelia Parker: Magna Carta (An Embroidery).

"Fabricated by many hands, from prisoners and lawyers to artists and barons, Magna Carta (An Embroidery) replicates in stitch the entire Wikipedia article on the Great Charter as it appeared on the document’s 799th anniversary in 2014" (www.bl.uk/events/cornelia-parker-magna-carta-an-embroidery)

The piece itself was really impressive but more of that later. First to the event on the 6th of June 2015 called A Stitch in Time: A Day of Embroidery.

Karen Nicol

I have to jump to my immediate excitement at having met Karen Nicol who had a stand and was showing her famous sample 'sketchbook'. It is literally a set of A2-sized fabric 'pages' onto which she loosely pins a movable feast of her latest samples.

Karen Nicol's 'sketchbook'

She explains this all very well in this Embroiderer's Guild video. Also in this justhandson.tv video. I got to see her resin raindrops in 'the flesh'.

She also had many of her Lace series on show and it was priceless to be able to see them close up and touch and feel and look at the back. Above all she was very generous with her time, explaining some of her techniques and she literally talked me through every single page of her samples.

I really admire how she pushes the boundaries of surface creation. She said she sees things and wonders how she could replicate them in materials and then just experiments. Namely the resin raindrops (see videos above) and plastic bags cut into glistening fringes, the stuff magpies like me flock to. The other thing I really noticed is how often she pushes scale to extremes, for instance fly stitch and French knots with thick ribbon.

Her pieces are playful and humorous and make you wonder what goes on in her mind and how much fun she must have. Each one is also a lesson in textiles imagineering.

Jacky Puzey

I also spent a long while chatting with Jacky Puzey who demoed the digital embroidery programme she uses. Her work is really striking and her current theme is centred on tattoos.

Raven included real feathers and the scale of it (about 4' high) makes it a remarkable piece. I loved the textures and colour in her Shade suits too.

Raven by Jacky Puzey

Cushion cover with tattoo theme by Jacky Puzey

She is also a great example of being a good businesswoman as well as an artist. She detected a gap in the need for digital embroidery processes, especially for students leaving college and not yet set up with the expensive equipment.

Several other textile artists had stands including Adriana Tavares, a rug designer, and Jess de Wahls whose pieces I find disturbing (not being a fan of dolls, which they resemble) but she is an interesting artist.

Workshops

There was a wide variety of free and inexpensive workshops. You could be part of the over 7,000 people from all over the world who have contributed to the World’s Longest Embroidery.

The World’s Longest Embroidery - the Guinness World Record-breaking embroidery from The Embroiderers’ Guild

The World’s Longest Embroidery shown hanging in loops from the ceiling above the day's goings-on

In the Stitch a Word workshop run by the Embroiderers' Guild you learnt basic stitches to replicate words from the Magna Carta.

My satin stitch had an independent mind of its own

A tip for perfect Satin stitch is to run a Split stitch all along the border/edges of the intended piece (a bit tricky on the one above as it was so small) then do your Satin stitch around this stitched border, angling your needle around the thread. I will try that out on a piece I'm working on and show you results.

I also took Blackwork and Goldwork tutorials run by the Royal School of Needlework and by Hand & Lock respectively.

Blackwork: the exemplar on the left, the reality on the right. I have discovered that I don't mind counting at all, it's quite therapeutic

I was introduced to the renowned method of unstranding your thread and rejoining the strands. And no licking the ends to get them through the eye of the needle!

My Goldwork effort: I angled my gold in the wrong direction and the borders were a bit scrappy but all in all I'm not unhappy with it

Magna Carta

Back to Cornelia Parker. The embroidered wiki page about the Magna Carta was impressive in scale and I loved being able to see some of the back via mirrors set up underneath it.

Cornelia Parker: Magna Carta (An Embroidery)

Detail of Cornelia Parker: Magna Carta (An Embroidery) showing, top, an 'image' stitched by Anthea Godfrey of the Embroiderers’ Guild.

One of the 'images' was stitched by Anthea Godfrey of the Embroiderers’ Guild. She said it took her 450 hours using techniques from the C16th. The image above (as well as the one taken for the Guardian article, top of the page) doesn't begin to do it the least justice; it was glistening with gold.

The exhibition is on until the 24th of July 2015.

A Fun and Productive Visual Exercise

This is exercise 13 from Finding Your Own Visual Language - a practical guide to design & composition by Jane Dunnewold, Claire Benn & Leslie Morgan.

The goal is to "explore value, colour and textural arrangements within a composition, using a random selection of elements within a structured collage format."

This is how it works:

Step 1: make a selection of  same sized coloured or patterned paper - I've used these Japanese papers I had but in the end there was probably too much white on them; best to use something where the colour goes right across. Ideally, also, use more than 4 as you'll have more mixing choice later.

Step 2: cut a shape out from the whole stack - I've used a template. 

Step 3: exchange the cut out shapes - I wanted to do this randomly but found I couldn't!

Step 4: tape everything together.

Step 5: now cut a line - straight or curved - right across the whole stack.

Step 6: join the halves up randomly

Keep going cutting shapes and lines from the stack until you want to stop.

I ended up with this which actually joined two of the 'pieces' together as one.

There are of course lots of variations and the exercise goes on to explore what you can do with the pieces you end up with.

Here are some more:

Each one of these is A6 sized. 

This is something I tried in Paint out of curiosity - the line is a little wobbly but it captures the gist.

Some of these came out well. The bottom two were the ones I liked least as they were progressing but there's something 30s-ish about them that I don't mind now. Persevere!

Now that I look at the one above having made a montage of thumbnails I am really liking the way the top three rows work together at that scale. And I especially like the second row right hand piece.

I didn't like the end result of this one at all but it ended up in my sketchbook and then I started to doodle with some pastels around it and ended up with all this.

As an aside, I have been to see the Sonia Delaunay exhibition (read a Guardian review) and it has definitely influenced an interest in repeating pattern along the lines of wallpaper (above and below).

This colour scheme is inspired by some wallpaper I saw at work - this photo doesn't do it justice - which had a mix of colours I would never have put together: vibrant electric blue with red and terracotta.

I got a lot out of doing this exercise just in terms of using one of the pieces to suggest something different. But I'm sure there's lots more potential to unlock, just that I'm not able to see how to yet.

But I will learn.

Do you have any exercises you do that get you going?