Lace and Shadows

Here are some samples of hand cut paper with drawings and some photoshop samples of the kind of lace I want to make...

The lace sample has fists instead of flowers, I have chosen fists balled ready to punch because it is contradictory to the regular style of lace.

The hand cut paper has shadows reflected onto a drawing I made, which is a mixture of actual sign language and hand signals used in my local area. It says 'I Love East Anglia'... this is sort of tongue and cheek. I started looking into to sign language and discovered that there are different dialects and 'accents' which stupidly I never realised, I assumed that it was universal. So I started thinking about what the 'slang' sign language would be in my area. Hence the 'I love East Anglia'.

Repeat Print....

Fingering lace

I like the transparency and fragility of lace, especially the approach taken in the recent exhibition at Museum of art and design in an exhibit called Slash, Paper under the knife. I am interested in the traditional methods of lace making but after exploring that I would also like to try using the laser cutter... I have also recently discovered the joys of paper making and would also like to incorporate that by layering up methods to make mix media highly un-wearable lace samples.
Making lace, trapping this in hand made paper, possibly using fibres rather than paper pulp to make 'fabric' paper then re-cutting my lace design into that.
BUT i do not want to use the traditional imagery that is used with lace. It is almost always floral and, although admittedly beautiful, intricate designs, I don't want to just make my own version of something thats already out there. So i started looking into the context of lace.
Lace to me seems like a fabric that is used to convey a strong message, either one that is concealing or retaining privacy like on a vale, or a mesh on a burka or the netting that hangs off funeral hats. OR it is used to entice like the lace on underwear.
I want to write my own messages in lace, to create a pieces of work that when looked into reveal alot more than they first appear to, like lace...

so in conjunction with this and my love of drawing (which i really want to push in this project) I am going to base my work around sign language. I want to use well known hand gestures and actual sign language, defensive, offensive, inviting, ironic, historic, whatever my mood takes me to at the time probably. I have started making drawings and taking photo's.

I also have an animation idea to go with this but i will post about that when I have some images for it. all this writing gets pretty dull...

life drawing.... a bit rusty

these are some samples of my life drawing yesterday. I am trying to re-train my hand, as surprisingly not THAT much drawing is done at art college. i will be putting up what i am actually supposed to be doing to follow....

Root animation

This is a stop motion animation I made, a while ago now but I have only just managed to get a good quality version on the internet. It is starring Lucy Grey, who also did the sound. Thanks Lucy! :-)

http://vimeo.com/8098197

For the art sale....

I have a bit of a problem with publicising myself (this blog being an attempt) but after chatting to a fellow doodler I actually printed some work to go into the art sale/gallery space, priced it up and now its there to buy! Sounds like quite a simple thing but, although I have sold work before, I have never been the one who instigates it. This is quite a big thing for me :-)

Oh yeah and the pieces are on some paper that I made myself on wednesday... also a new thing.

the work is in the gallery space in Guntons building, St Andrews street, Norwich.. will be there until the 22nd december.

for the gallery

IN FABRIC

here is some pictures of one of the pieces after i had put it into the organza. the picture is digitally printed then cut into. i was originally going to set the picture in bees wax, but this didn't work because it ruined the transparency and shape of the material. so i set it in Arabic Gum, so that i could cut through and not fray the organza.

patterned flames

...some of the pictures I have made from photography, drawing and photoshop. I am going to print these onto Silk Organza or Silk Georgette, layer at a time. Then I will physically layer them up and cut through parts to highlight aspects. This development comes from my sketchbook. constant layering and cutting through pages to make my ideas link from drawing to drawing is something i find works well with my style. so this is how I am trying to interpret this into textiles... hope it works!

Making patterns into pictures...

I want to include my free hand drawings by making them into textures and patterns that I can then make a larger picture from... these are some of the patterns I have made for the purpose. I like the idea of a pattern, making up a bigger picture, it gives the larger picture a kind of history, like rings in a tree trunk. or lines on a face.