A couple of weeks ago I made a screen print of iris flowers. My sister had drawn the design on the screen with soy wax. She finished printing for the day and because I'm so mean I felt obliged to finish up the last of the paint rather than throw it away! A piece of fabric was grabbed with no thought of colour or suitability. You know how it is when you just grab the first thing you find. The result was less than lovely but today I've been working into it and I hope it has possibilities. I'm thinking it might hang together with the two appliqued iris quilts I've almost finished.
I wanted to lose most of the unconsidered colour and introduce a flat gold background like you often find in Japanese paintings. I was also thinking of the lovely red ground you often see under gold leaf so I painted most of the pinky red out using artists' acrylic gold paint, working with a fairly dry brush so that glimpses of the original colour remained. Then I added detail and shadows with Derwent Inktense pencils in Chilli Red and Sepia. You can't tell from these images but the flowers now have very long stems - I shall have to decide if they need to be tucked into a pot or simply finish at the lower edge of the quilt. At some point I must find an iron - sorry it looks so creased right now!
What's everybody else up to? You've been a bit quiet for a few days! Linda
Hi Linda,
ReplyDeleteA Houdini like transformation. Amazing.
I've been in the garden, this is going to be a tough tussle between the needs of the plants and my artistic urges but an old friend once told me that splitting your days into short periods of a variety of different activities enables you to achieve more....I'll let you know if it works...
Yes, the fine weather has been calling me into the garden as well. It seems to have been a long winter - not too bad, but long - and the first signs of spring have given me a lift and made me want to get outside and go for a few long walks. I can't do lots of things at once these days (is that a sign of age?) so the sewing has been slowing up a bit! I haven't stopped of course, but I'm not being as productive as I can be.
ReplyDeleteI like the gold background to your irises Linda, and the way the pink shows through in places - exactly like old gilding!