Where does the time go (Part 2)

I spent a long weekend near Chichester at West Dean College - a great place for short art courses which was once the home of Surrealist supporter Edward James - http://www.westdean.co.uk/

The course tutor was Carole Waller http://www.carolewaller.co.uk/ - very enthusiastic, inspirational and supportive.  The group was really lovely - people doing fabric arts in all sorts of different ways and happy to show their work and share their expertise.  The course was entitled Translucency and colour on cloth - painting and screen printing.   I had thought that it would be useful for my book like projects - however, it has sent me in a different direction.

The beautiful surroundings and interesting peer group gave me the opportunity to rethink my project and I went back to my one of my original 'architectural' drawings to produce a silk screen for working through options and ideas:

This I manipulated in a number of ways - as an ink painted screen - as pigment printed fabric and onto birch wood - found that I could print on wood using either pigment or ink with Manutex.  I'd used this technique with paper when doing a Screen Printing elective during my L5 course. 

This was a sample done in a collection of colours onto organdie as I was looking at the ideas of layering of ideas - memory is ethereal and changing - revealing fleeting glances and imagery - through subtle shifts of the fabric.  Of course, fabric (eg the Fabric of Society) has its own place in the public arena.

I decided to print the Clemens Street block of houses and shops in black and white onto silk organza as it was stiffer and less 'female' than the previous fabric.  I then experimented with imprinting some of my photographs of detail of the street onto Silk Habitori - you use Lazertran Silk transfer paper (similar to T Shirt Transfer but thinner).  It is quite easy to use following the instructions on the label that comes with the package.  Quite expensive though.  This is the sample (above) that I produced.   Original photograph is of a soggy tissue on a textured paving slab - one of the small detailed pictures I've been taking recently.

I then experimented with producing fine marks with ink through a simple circle printed screen with the above results.  This was with black, golden yellow and a couple of touches of turquoise for contrast.  I also did a blue and a magenta version. 

I then put everything together to see what they looked like ....

I was very pleased with the experiments that I'd produced - and felt that I could take this further.  Consequently, when I returned from West Dean I redrew the original drawing (as it was not really good enough for the production of a screen print) and am currently working to produce it as a screen. 

This is the wood with applied 'Clemens Street' block and then the screen of marks - both done with fabric ink.  Next experiment with this is to make sure that the painted blocks take the pigment or ink.  I like the ink as you can make some very beautiful marks with it ....