Monday 14 July 2014

My Paris project begins at last.


It has been a long time since my last post, much longer than I planned.  The reason...... we were going to fit some new flooring in the bathroom and some new taps.  That was the intention but it turned out to be the start of a major refurbishment throughout the house.  We haven't finished yet. Still some new windows to have fitted and the main lounge to refurbish but we are getting there.  Last of all will be my work room which has been doubling up as storage for new doors, bathroom suite etc etc etc.  It has been hard unplanned work and an opportunity to sort and dispose of a lot of old unwanted things.  Lots of bags for the charity shops and many trips to the local tip.

While all this has been going on, I have had little time for my textile work.  I have managed some and some photography.  I have started my Paris project at last.

We have visited Paris three times now so hundreds of images to use as my design source.  As usual, I opened images in Photoshop and played with them saving any images which I thought a potential for a piece of textile work.  As always. I needed a file to keep all the sketches, printouts, patterns etc.  I used an image I took on the Arc de Triumph.  It us a close up of the detail around the base of the structure.

Arc-de-Triumph-_3172


I tea dyed some cord which was couched in place and used machine patterns which represented the carving on the structure.

Paris-file-cover-close-up-detail


This is a close up of the embroidery.
When this work was complete I designed the title of the file.  I stylised the text and digitised it to stitch out on my machine.  This was machined onto felt and applied to the front of the file.

Paris-file-cover


I have had a bit of a thing for 'altered vessels' and had made quite a number of them (you can see them in an earlier post).  I decided to make one for my Paris project. I used an empty vinegar jar as it was the right shape for what I had in mind.  The jar was covered with moulding place and then painted with metallic paints.  I made a simplified drawing of the Eiffel Tower and cut five of them from pelmet vilene.  They too were painted and then highlighted with gilding wax so that it was close to the present colour of the tower.  They were stuck onto the jar.  I made up a chain and charm of the tower and hung it around the top.

Paris-Eifel-tower-altered-jar


One of the places we visited was the Institute of the Arab world. This building was incredible and had so much to photograph.  I used this building for many pieces.  One of the walls was made up of ceramic tiles joined together in a grid.

DSC_9110


I used this to create a blackwork pattern and stitched it on the front of an iPhone pouch.



On the roof on the building was a pavement of large embossed metal tiles. I do not know the meaning behind the designs on the tiles but I liked them.

DSC_9119


I played with this image creating a number of designs.  One was a B&W/silver design.  This silver design suggested an embossed shim piece.

DSC_9119-b&W


I embossed the design on silver shim and applied it to the front of a small booklet.

Paris


Keeping with this design, I simply applied another filter and achieved the following design.  I loved the colours and had a piece of electric blue metal shim, perfect for it.

DSC_9119-saturation-full,-aetherise-1


I embossed the shim and again applied it to the front of a small booklet.

Paris-Arab-centre-roof---embossed-blue-shim-note-booklet


I am not sure exactly which images were used to create the next set of pieces.  The images were played with and manipulated to create lots of patterns.  These patterns were printed onto T-shirt transfer paper and then ironed onto pelmet vilene.  I created numerous bookmarks and bag tags.

Bookmarks

Bag tags

I printed a larger design of one of the patterns and again ironed it onto pelmet vilene.  I made it into a pocket booklet.

Paris-pattern-transfer-pocket-book


Continuing with this theme, I printed two of the bookmarks twice more and cut out windows in the designs. I printed small images of Paris on acetate sheet, cut them out  and then sandwiched them between two of the windowed bookmarks. They were then highlighted with silver pens, stitched and beaded and made into hangings.

Paris-acetate-images-hanging-side-1Paris-acetate-images-hanging-side-2

That is all I have photographed for now but I do have quite a number of finished pieces still to photograph.

Once they are photographed I will post them here on my blog.

So for now cheers to all.  I will be back painting more walls tomorrow.