You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2011.
A big British ‘Hurrah’ on this special Bank Holiday for us. Only wish I’d seen this knitting pattern sooner! No really…
Knit Your Own Royal Wedding by Fiona Goble
So remember this painting a couple of weeks ago, and how I determined to try to put it into repeat and screen print it? Well I gave it a shot this week.
I began by cutting a photocopy of the drawing into four quarters. I then joined the left side to the right edge and pencilled in where it needed to repeat smoothly. I repeated the same for the top edge and the bottom side. Once the tracing was in repeat I matched top to bottom and side to side, I narrowed the colours down to five plus the base cloth colour and coloured the tracing in so that I could see if there were any colour gaps.
So far, so good. Then I traced each colour separately onto acetate and cut it out using a scalpel. Now I could get printing. And this is where any small intention I had of showing you a step by step process went belly up.
I mean why did I think that after 20 (cough, cough) years I would still be able to remember how to hand print five screens in exact repeat!?!
Why?
I muddled through from here on using a specially unique technique of masking tape with notes on to show where the screens should be placed.
On the whole it worked well until my trusty screen holding buddy and I got a bit blase and printed two screens upside down, No repeat happening anymore. We didn’t really care by that stage; Glee was due on in ten minutes! With Gwyneth Paltrow in (and if you’re a fan then you know that those have been the best.)
Luckily the design is the type that can take a little misplacement (even if that misplacement is upside down!)
At this point my unstinting helper remarked (as only a teenager can) that she had never noticed that it was meant to be rooftops. In fact she didn’t think it looked like rooftops anyway more like “some cool, futuristic, geometric pattern”.
That’s good enough for me!
It was a fun project, which is what holidays are all about; time to play around with hair brained schemes.
BTW can I congratulate you if you made it to the end of this very long, highly photographed and rambling recount of my silk screen adventures?!
Crikey! Has it been a fortnight already since the last Creative Tuesday? Bit of a hurried entry this time – sorry.
I was thinking about how they say that every dog owner ends up looking like their own dog. Or is it that you get a dog that you subconsciously thinks looks a little like you? Either way I’m having my black and white hair coloured and my long haired Spaniel ears cut this Thursday! Head over to goodteatoo.blogspot.com to see how the other artists interpreted Long and Short.
PS I’ll show you tomorrow the screen printing I did with the last Creative Tuesday entry on Rooftops.
I’m not known in our household for being bright and breezy in the mornings. Far from it.
My biggest reservation over getting a dog was having to haul myself out of bed to walk it.
But on the rare occasions that I am able to let my other half lie-in, I do quite enjoy getting a shake on the day.
Especially when this is what greets me; beautiful blossoms, sunlight, twinkling dew and blossom petals falling like rain in the breeze. All accompanied of course by the wheezing and panting of one very happy dog racing every bird in the woods.
© Claire Leggett "Blossom" 2011
This painting has taken many layers to build up to being finished. Each layer brings a bit more detail and deepens the colours. It’s been like slowly focussing a camera lens. Speaking of camera’s; I just could not get a true photograph of the colours in this painting. The pink blossoms are grey here. Which they are not. Annoying given how long I’ve spent trying to get the right shade of pink/gray/angelfluffcolour. Anyways…I thought I’d show you what good company I’ve been keeping in the studio this week…
While I’ve been painting, this industrious soul used the above book to inspire an applique teddy bear which she then made into a purse (with a teensy bit of help with the zip). So cute! She’s so cute. The purse is so cute. Happy days. Have a great Easter weekend. God bless x
I’m racing the decaying flowers! They look really pretty but don’t last long at all when cut.
This painting is needing lots of washes of colour, over and over, layering up.
The pink blossoms are proving really hard to match colour wise because they have such a delicate graduation of shade and light that it’s hard to see where to use pink and where to add grey or violet. Good progress so far – head down tomorrow!
So many thanks to all of you who shared in my celebrations last week and left a lovely comment. I am lucky to have you all cheering me on and you are valued indeed.
It wasn’t hard to find inspiration for a new painting. The garden is surprising me weekly with the flowers that are growing (the previous owners were good at gardening) and the woods opposite are just full of cherry and may blossom trees. So when I saw this front cover photograph, I knew I’d found my jumping off point.
You would laugh if you knew just how many photographs of blossom I’d taken (the light was just right…they looked beautiful…the colours were delicious…)
Or how long I’ve taken to edit them down for this post.
The quince blossom is my favourite as this shade of not quite peach, not quite terracotta, not quite red is so unusual.
I was on a high from Wednesday’s little trip and really inspired by these beautiful flowers (am I the only one who gets a sort of heart burst when you feel so inspired by something, you’ve just got to create from it that minute?) It wasn’t until much later that I realised that I’d included this little sculpture of the girl with her hands high in exuberance. How appropriate!
I saw an article recently in a national magazine which featured this lovely gallery The Mulberry Tree on the south coast in Swanage, Dorset.
It sowed a seed of thought which took hold and germinated for a while before my better self got hold of my procrastinating self and said ‘Why not email them…NOW”. And so I did. And got the most wonderful, warm response to submit some images of my work for possible exhibition.
Fast forward to yesterday. We (the whole family crew including dog, who are holidaying at home this Easter) took off to Swanage for a day trip, to meet the owners and show the gallery my work (only me, they wandered Swanage eating things!)
I had a wonderful few hours meeting Sonia, talking and planning, getting good advice and hearing her enthusiasm in my work. I’d taken nine pieces to show. The nine pieces that I have left ‘in stock’ at the moment. My experience so far has been that people choose three. My highest hope was for three. But…and the photo’s may already have given this away to the most astute of you… she wanted to try to sell all nine! ALL NINE!!
I actually left with empty bags! I am so utterly delighted, speechless, grateful, excited, validated, inspired, thankful and buzzing. And needing to get down to some serious painting again now that I’m ‘out of stock’.
NINE PIECES people!
I was delighted when I read the “Rooftop” theme for Creative Tuesday because I had a little project in the back of my mind that had never been started and this was the kick-start I needed to dust it off and begin it.
One year ago we went to Hastings for an Easter holiday break. It’s a very closely packed seaside town built between hills and so the view from the cliff top walk looks down onto rooftops.
As soon as I saw this photo it reminded me of Paul Klee and a fabric design by Ink and Spindle that I’d seen, and I wanted to paint this view and see if I could translate it into a design.
Thanks to Mr Toast I have painted it now and all that remains is to find the time to see if I can screen print something from it once I’ve whittled those twelve colours down to a much smaller amount!
"Rooftops" © Claire Leggett
My new style crush is on Eline Pellinkhof.
Eline Pellinkhof Tapestry mural
I want to move into her house right now!
eline pellinkhof_home
