BIRDS OF A FEATHER

New Project time! This time it is Birds and Feathers, I have actually been working on this for the last few weeks (hence many of the artist links are bird- related), at the same time as finishing off the Games projects.

I love birds (any wild life really) and would advise anyone to join the RSPB or at least visit one of their reserves, it's very relaxing and great fun! My favourite reserve is at The Mull of Galloway in Scotland (we used to visit it a lot as children) we would stay on a caravan site nearby and then cycle down for a wander round or an ice cream. And that was one day gone. It's a beautiful place to visit.

My first photo shoot for this project was of the ducks which wander across from the field opposite, they go onto out neighbours pond and I was able tempt them close enough with bread and crackers. All these photos were taken with me sat on the step of the front door with my sister throwing bread over my head! Adorable aren't they? I've done a few weeks of observations now, working with these photo's using sellotape, pen, ink and monoprinting.

The picture above, in my opinion is very effective, I emulsion printed a photocopy of one of my photos, then worked over it in inks and watercolours to highlight the subtle shades of the duck. I then used Biro to add depth to the shading and emphasise the darker tones. I think the inks work well, as does the use of pen over emulsion.

Below I monoprinted some of my images, some onto fabric (worked well, as the fabric absorbed the ink) and some onto old letters and paper, which offer a nice contrast to the simple images.

I scanned the monoprints into the computer then printed them out to work over as the monoprint ink is soluble and would run if I worked over them in inks, which is what I wanted to do. I didn't want to ruin or waste these lovely and very cure pieces!These are the worked into pieces, I used mainly brown, yellow, orange and green inks to create the shades, however, the colours are too bright and a little garish. I think I would be better to either water the inks down or use watercolour paints.

Although I like these pieces (they would be good for illustration or a graphics piece) they are not as effective or as strong as the first piece I did, with the emulsion and pen, I will experiment using emulsion printing and the use of softer tones and colours, as the duck pieces above are too bright.

Any thoughts or ideas as to where this project could lead, feel free to comment, all feedback is much appreciated!

FINAL RESPONSE

My final response to the games project! I love it- I kept it relatively simple and remembered that all important empty space that makes a good composition. I cut into a dictionary, as I found through my development pieces that these work best, I sank dominoes and scrabble pieces, as I had developed and improved. I left the dictionary open at the 'P' page where play was, hence I have circled the definitions to highlight then and imply the importance and enjoyment of games. I also circled 'playful' as it has connotations of childhood innocence and it's a great thing to be playful and young, with no cares in the world, just loving to play the game. I also hot glue gunned the dominoes that are out of the book to thin clear thread, as I wanted the game to carry on outside the book, it goes on and on. Just as a child wants to play again and again, never getting bored (or at least I did- we played until I won!).

This has been a thoroughly enjoyable project and I have loved revisiting the classic games of my childhood. I am pleased with my final piece and how the project has progressed and developed- from starting with my Jen Gotch work, I never imagined this is where the project would end up!

I have enjoyed making these pieces, as well as the work in my book and have, as always, thoroughly enjoyed creating my artwork! It's not a chore or dreaded homework, or even work really; it's complete and utter bliss.

LAST DEVELOPMENT PIECE

This is my last development pieces, after this is my final response and then we move on to next project- Birds of a Feather pretty self explanatory, Birds and Feathers. I glued cards and a letter onto the pages first, to add layers and depth to the piece, I also sewed into the card (around the hearts) as I found this is very effective and just adds extra detail and cuteness to the piece. I kept the composition simple, as I didn't want it to get too busy and crowded. Having the Dominoes game running through the book definitely works, simple but effective and this technique will be used in my final piece.

SCRABBLE BOOK

I decided to experiment with placing scrabble letters into dictionaries, as I thought this might work rather well and I think it has turned out to be very effective. Sometimes, simple is best. I hot glue gunned the book to the board and letters in place, as the glue is clear and really really strong. Dictionaries are also easier to cut into than other books, so I may be using them for my final piece or more often. The paper is thinner so it falls into place easily, however, I don't think a dictionary would be appropriate for all pieces, only those involving certain games. Next, I could start to combine games- I especially like cutting the dominoes into books but the simple scrabble pieces above is equally (if not more) effective.

THE SPODE MUGS

Don't worry, this is not a post where I admit to painting over a Spode mug because I liked the background, in my opinion, they are quite perfect just as they are. Painting over them would be a sin, a destruction of something which is prefect as it is.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that the alteration of the mug design ever so slightly- moving the pattern from inside rim, to outside, has really improved them in my opinion! Now, obviously our mugs don't match (dad broke one, not me this time) but the newer mug, which is exactly the same size as the older one, looks thinner and more elegant. the older mug (with the pattern inside the rim of the mug) looks stouter and fatter, when in fact the two are exactly the same.

Amazing what one small alteration can do isn't it?

Happy tea drinking!

DEVELOPMENT PIECES

Above is one of my first development pieces for the games project. I used a games board as a backing, then layered a music sheet over the top. I sewed into all the cards, in order to highlight the detail on them. Next, I laid out the dominoes in the order I wanted, before sticking them down and cutting them into the book. I like the way the game carries on outside the book, I wanted to keep the pieces relatively simple and not too busy. I also sewed into the title of the song 'Old English Memories' as I thought this was both fitting for the pieces as well as rather quaint.

The piece below is more colourful, but I don't think it work particularly well, I need to stick to pale colours and monochrome as this emphasises the technique, where as the colour seems to draw attention away from the detail of sewing into the book.I do however, like the idea of cutting down to display the board below, this is interesting and I could incorporate the board itself as well into the book. This piece, although I am not too happy with it, has helped me develop the strengths of the technique and realise that pale colours, or black and white, are what I find most effective and work best for my theme.

BETTY PEPPER INSPIRED WORK

These pieces are inspired by the technique of Betty Pepper, however I also wanted to incorporate the technique inspired by Claire Hillerby, hence I cut big sections out of the book and sunk collages inspired by Claire behind the books. I think that the pages act like a photo frame around the collages they illuminate what is in the centre, a simple but effective background. I especially link the domino game in the middle one, this is something to develop further, it is less busy than the other pieces and the composition is better (I remembered to use that all important empty space! The next stage of this contextual link is to cut smaller sections into the books, rather than cutting out the whole page.

BETTY PEPPER

The third and final artist link for this project! I am focusing on her 'Book keeping' series and talking inspiration from her sinking objects into old books. I also love the fact that everything she uses, including the fabric, has been previously owned, it has another story, another life before it became part of an art piece and I feel this a a philosophy, or rather mind-set, that I could easily adapt to my oen work.
To find out more about this amazing and original artist, please follow the link on the right, which will take you straight to her website.

JOSIE RUSSELL

This is a heartwarming story which I have just seen on BBC News and I want everyone to be able to watch and enjoy it. I have the up most respect for her.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11486077

I love her artwork, I am a fan of Textile artists (as you can probably already tell!) and she's only 23! Hopefully, that will be me in a few more years! Perhaps not collaging out of fabrics, but you never know! This is a technique I could have a look at in my next project (which is hopefully on birds and feathers) or even just have a go at in my spare time.

I hope she does become a full time artist, at the moment she only works on her artwork part time. Good luck to her!! (I have added a link to her website on the Useful links).

WORDPOOL

I almost forgot, I went to an event at Blackpool's Wordpool yesterday with authors Alexandra Heminsley and Sarra Manning, which was very enjoyable. Follow the Blackpool Sixth Form English Society to find out more, there should be some articles and reviews blogged on there soon! Enjoy!

EXPERIMENTING WITH BOOKS

After the work with collages, I began to experiment with working into books, sewing into them and adding acetone over the top. It works really well and I am considered my next artist link to be Betty Pepper (her Book Keeping Series). Again, I have combined the Scrabble letters with other mediums. I think this does and could work really well with the books, especially cutting scrabble letters into dictionaries and prehaps collaging behind. I don't know about other families, but games ALWAYS got very heated in out household and someone always went to get a dictionary claiming 'that's not how its spelt'. Amusingly that sentence often ended 'look, look.... oh. Never mind' or 'well I did believe you, I was just checking for you'. Happy times!

CLAIRE HILLERBY INSPIRED WORK

This is more of my work, inspired by Claire Hillerby. There's more hand sewing and collaging. I also incorporated my own photos into the pieces, I tea stained the photo paper first, before printing onto it to give it an authentic, aged look. This method, I found worked really well, but it looks better with black and white rather than colour photos as the backgrounds show through the white sections, hence making it look aged and antiquey!

DOMINOES IN CUBA

This is a really interesting link, not just in England do we love games, but we love the same games around the world! It made me smile, so enjoy!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11454226

WORK INSPIRED BY CLAIRE HILLERBY

These are the first few pieces I created, the one at the top is simply a collage, I didn't sew into it, I wasn't sure if it would look too busy so decided against adding any stitch or material. The bottom two are simpler as I sewed over them using the sewing machine (the same as the work on one of the earlier posts). Next I think I looked at hand stitching into them, making it more personal to me. I think hand stitching shows more love and devotion, it reminds me of when our mum used to sew our names into polo tops and jumpers for school. After a while though, she got tired of doing full names (we were growing out of the jumpers too fast) and she just sewed our initials in instead. Anyway, that's what I did next.

CLAIRE HILLERBY

I used Claire Hillerby (follow link on left to her website) as my second artist link, as I wanted to develop the use of layers and stitch, I also still had some letters and bits leftover from the WW2 project that I wanted to use. However, these soon ran out and I bought some more of EBay, (which I had never used before and I hate being outbid) as Charity shops no longer sell old letters or stamps, according to Oxfam books in Preston, they have to go straight to head office now. Anyway, I wanted to focus on Claire's collages rather than her jewellery and broaches, so I began collaging with old letters, recipes and old games instructions, sewing over the top.

The broache above has no bearing to my project (other than the fact it is by Claire), I just absolutely love it and thought other people might appreciate it!

STITCHING INTO PLAYING CARDS

As well as experimenting with the sewing machine and sewing by hand into fabric, I also sewed by hand into cards. It was incredibly fiddly but worth, I really like the final outcome but it does take a while to sew the whole lot, around 3-4 lessons. I think it would be best to just sew sections of the cards, say highlight the number or symbol (heart, spade etc). I would still be embellishing the cards and making this more interesting, but for a six week project I just don't have the time to completely sew every single card.