Chapter 3: Fabrics and threads

The aim of this chapter is to organise my fabrics and threads in my chosen colour scheme. Looking through my stash I was actually quite surprised to find just how much I already had. OK, to be honest I was more than a little shocked by quite how much purple I found there!

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Fig. 7

There was slightly less of the yellow spectrum but still, quite enough. I've included photographs of the relevant parts of my bead collection too in the above photographs, along with some metallic threads (I do love a bit of bling and have attended a couple of goldwork workshops in the past - my favourite by Llinos Spriggs, shortly before she sadly died, so count myself very fortunate indeed, but that does account for why I own quite so many beads and metallic threads).

 Fig. 8

I had never used Procion dyes before so sent off for a starter pack from Colourcraft and spent several very happy days with those and Helen Deigham's book.

Fig. 9

The results of the purple are slightly disappointing though I have since bought a pot of purple dye and have overdyed a couple of the more cerise coloured samples in Fig. 9 and am now much happier with the colour. All the fabric pieces were just scrunched up randomly and I shall be printing onto some of these with my gelli plate.

 Fig. 10

This piece (Fig. 10) is not quite as pink in real life as it appears to be here and I overprinted it with bright yellow fabric paint through a stencil, both positive and negative images. I'm really pleased with the result of this and shall certainly use the technique again as it would not only make an interesting background for stitch but also just as a fabric for a sewing project in the future.
 

Fig. 11

Figure 11 shows another experiment with my spiral stencil where I sprayed through the stencil with a yellow shimmer Brusho spray. The yellow has actually sunk into the fabric (which looks quite brown on the reverse) and left behind the shimmer on the surface. I love the effect of this even though it isn't yellow and plan to use this for one of my stitched samples in the next chapter, when I shall use yellow threads to stitch into it.

Fig. 12

I dyed some muslin, scrim and silk pieces too, though only seem to have taken a photograph of the muslin (Figure 12) for some inexplicable reason. These I wet first then dipped just one end of the fabrics into a coffee jar filled with my dye solution to see how the colour might wick up the fabric. It is interesting to see how the colour has separated out as it did so so that the end of the muslin furthest from the dye is actually pink, rather than purple. The end that was in the dye, however, is a very pleasant berry shade. The dye didn't wick up the scrim at all but the section of that fabric which was in contact with the dye is a very dark purple (which is the colour I was actually expecting for them all). The silk on the other hand did soak up the dye but the end that was not in the dye is a bright cerise colour. All very interesting!!!

Chapter 2: Spiral warm-up exercises

First task in this chapter was to choose two complementary colours. I returned to my photographs and to my colour wheel for this. I was initially drawn to the turquoise of the stained glass ammonite shell, but I realise that this is so often my 'comfort' palette - several rooms in my home and a lot of my clothes fall into this colour scheme. And so I chose the sunflower centre and the purple begonia leaves instead.

 Fig. 1

I played around a bit with my gouache paints - mixing shades and tints of my two colours, then beginning with a block of yellow, I gradually added more and more purple until I reached the pure purple block at the top of the right hand column. Finally I did a colour matching with some of my threads.

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I coloured a variety of papers and mono-printed spirals onto some of them with my gelli-plate (Figs 2 and 3).

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A trip to London yielded more spiral photographs which I seem to have added in here just for good measure - lovely wrought iron gates in Hyde Park and a whole collection of decorative ironwork in the V&A museum.

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I attempted to cut spirals which matched some of my research images from paper and also glued a string spiral to this page too.

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Figure 6 shows some twisted strips of paper in an attempt to recreate my spiralling chimneys. Oh, and a piece of tissue covered wire twisted into a spiral too.

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Figures 7 and 8 show my attempts at three-dimensional spirals. I could only find 5 metre rolls of corrugated card in the shops in town - which to be honest is more than any normal person could ever find a use for so I had to satisfy myself with the few small pieces that I managed to salvage from my craft box and the recycling. Some of the shapes have been highlighted with a gold paint.

 

Fig. 9

 

Fig. 10

Finally for this chapter I played on the computer. I don't have a paint programme as such on my PC but did manage some quite pleasing spiralling effects with the filters in Photoshop Elements. I was quite intrigued by image number 5 in Fig. 10 - by how applying the grain filter first darkened the image considerably. I shall definitely be returning to these again in the future as several of the experiments I made, which didn't result in spirals, were beckoning me to stitch.

Module 3 - Spiralling into Colour - Chapter 1 Research

A new module and I'm delighted to be working in colour again. The first chapter, as always, involved researching spirals and of course, once you start looking, you find them everywhere! The difficulty is narrowing down your area of interest.

 Fig.1

I began by looking at the different types of spiral and, as I usually do in my own projects, looking at word definitions. I usually find that this helps me to focus my mind and in my other sketchbooks I often also find poems that relate to the topic I'm looking at. No poems here though ... yet. 

 Fig. 2

Next I looked for examples of the various spirals I'd found amongst my images of naturally occurring spirals and attempted to draw some of them. Favourites have to be the ammonites and shell interiors though the photograph of the twining plant tendril is also fascinating.

 Fig.3

 I have a bit of a 'thing' about chimneys (especially the beautifully decorated Tudor ones at Hampton Court and the like) and photograph them whenever I visit a National Trust property or when I'm just out and about. So I had lots of images of spiralling chimneys and Gaudi never fails me either, whether it's his fanciful chimneys, his use of colour, his beautiful mosaics or his naturalistic forms!

 Fig.4

Finally I looked at spirals in art from a variety of sources. I found this quote (not a poem) by Hundertwasser about spirals, which I found interesting. A recent visit to Harrogate Spring Flower show had given me lots of spirals too as there was a whole section in the floral art marquee on the subject. I found examples from across the world and through time and managed to draw a few examples of these. Never a confident artist, I have to say I was quite pleased with how the drawing of the pot came out - actually recognisable.

Fig. 5

I couldn't actually find any spirals in my house to do rubbings of but did find these two rubbing plates and then played with lots of spiralling patterns within a snail's shell in a kind of Zentangle style.