Saturday 22 March 2008

Artistic licence!!

The next three Egyptian pieces take a bit of artistic licence. I was becoming tired of the Ancient Egyptian colour scheme so I decided to use a different one - purples. I don't think I have seen any purple in any of the Egyptian art that I have seen but the detail on the pieces is still based on Ancient Egyptians.


The first mini panel used the theme of the hieroglyphics. The base fabric was painted canvas covered with dyed synthetic fibers. I used dyed mohair yarn to create the the vertical lines couched down with a zig zag machine stitch. Flashes of silver net ( don't know why I decided to do this - it just looked right and that is a good enough reason for me) were laid over the top of this. I cut an obelisk from some printed hieroglyphics on walnut ink dyed paper I made some time ago. It is held in place by some very fine clear net and stitched down with an invisible thread and believe me when you are working with it, it is invisible! I had already digitised a hieroglyph for previous pieces but needed a second one so I digitised the other stamp design I had made. These two digitised designs were stitched over the silver net. I then free machined some hieroglyphics representing the letter and sound 's' for my initials. The one that looks like a walking stick is apparently a representation of folded cloth - rather appropriate for me. It was mounted and satin stitched to a piece of pelmet vilene.


The second one was had a base fabric of painted thermal lining. It was covered with pieces of web fabric and dyed silky goat hair. This was covered with the fine clear net. I cut bits of squared silver net and these were held in place with tiny Delica silver beads. The silver feature of Nefertiti's bust profile, was created using silver lame fabric free machined in place and the mask created from silver synthetic padded leather outlined with a couched silver thread. Again it was mounted onto pelmet vilene with a satin stitched edge.






The third piece is not quite finished. The base fabric is painted canvas covered with dyed silk fibres. I put a layer of sheer fabric over the top of this. Next I computed some text 'Ancient Egyptians' into the machine and stitched lines of the test over the sheer. Then I took my soldering iron and burnt away the sheer from around the text to reveal the silk fibres.
Next I used a digitised text piece that I had used before and stitched it onto some purple voile mache using a lilac metallic machine thread. This was to go onto the top but I couldn't decide exactly where - top left hand corner or centre. I placed it in the top corner first and hand stitched over the silk fibres but decided I didn't like it that much. So I have unpicked the stitching and moved the text to the centre and used some silver net and silver beads around it and it looks much better now. Should get it finished tomorrow. It only needs edging and photographing.

2 comments:

sharon young said...

What lovely colour combinations you've used here, Shirley, purple is a regal colour so I think it's an entirely legit artist's inrpetation. I like the mixtue of elements in the top one, and the digitised cartouches are very effective.

Unknown said...

My friend, Martha Brooks Marshall an American painter who writes at http://artistsjournal.blogspot.com/
sent me your blog. I am absolutely captivated by your work! I love how you share your techniques as well. I've just started doing this in my writings as well. I'd really like to see more of the method you used with your soldering gun to burn away fabric.
Blessings
Dina Kerik