Module 3 Chapter 9 continued....

Sian, as always, offers helpful and thought provoking comments - the most thought provoking of which was to cut the piece up, as I had done on some of my sketchbook pages at the beginning of the Chapter.

Cutting up your sample piece without a clear idea of what you are going to do is a bit daunting, so I decided to make some photocopies and cut them up first! I made 4 versions.

Version 1 : I freely cut a photocopy into strips, mounted them onto a piece of A3 paper, and added some more spirals using a torn paper stencil, a sharpie, an oil pastel, and a graphite stick.

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Version 2 : This time I cut the photocopy using a rotary cutter and the Fibonacci sequence, added more spirals as above, but this time let them escape from the confines of the patterned area.

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Version 3 : Same again, only this time I reduced the spaces between the top few strips as I felt they were beginning to get isolated from the rest of the strips. 

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Version 4 : Same methods and a sort of distillation of things! I still think the spaces at the top are too big.

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So, reasonably happy with where I was going with this, I cut the sample into strips, free machined spirals onto a piece of calico, and applied the strips to the background using stab stitches around the edges. I reduced the spaces between the top strips, and I'm happier with that.

Deciding how to add the spirals took quite a bit of thought. I particularly liked the marks I had made adding the spirals which I thought worked really well with the monoprint marks underneath. I decided to have some Thermofax screens made, so I made two sizes of spiral using the same torn stencil I had used for the paper versions. 

Printing on to the fabric was another "make or break" moment, so I decided I'd better capture where I had got to before I took the plunge!

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The Thermofax screens were made by Thermofax Screens (www.thermofaxscreens.co.uk). It's a simple process - you do the artwork, email them a scan, and two days later the screens arrive - brilliant!

I tried them out on paper......

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....and then went for it!

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Definitely not the disaster it could have been. 

So what's left to do?

• I'm pleased with the dark spiral ( I used Paynes Grey acrylic paint), but the other three spirals need a bit of definition. I've printed a spiral onto one of the discarded fabric pieces to use as a sample.
• Although it doesn't stand out quite so much on the photograph, I am increasingly unhappy with the colour of the green central spiral, and need to find a way to amend that.
• I need to decide what else if anything needs to be added. I have pinned a spiral at the top. I was trying to echo the cream spiral in the middle, so I free-machined a piece of calico using whip stitch, and then removed the thread on the top, so as I was just left with the loops.

 I just need to look at things for a few days to decide what to do!