I chose option 4, Textiles first, as I enjoy creating unique, exquisite cloth dolls, as below.
Here are some examples that I have already created before I started the course with OCA. These individual dolls take me a long time to create, as they take shape, their different ‘personalities’ appear. I was greatly influenced by Jan Horrox, who created a basic pattern and I have added my own personal touches. I tend to draw and paint the faces with oil paint, as I know it will be everlasting.
I have recently created a modern textile drawing, which I would love to share below: The modern drawing on the left has been inspired by scrap pieces of fabric, beads, some soldering techniques and fun. I background is navy felt.
The hearts are on a plain red background, covered with a shiny chiffon type material. I have used more beads and stitching here. I have also been influenced by Margaret Beal and have started experimenting with the soldering iron and patterns.
The two books that had a great influence on my textile sewing are:
Horrox, J (2011) Introduction to Making Cloth Dolls. Malaysia: Search Press
Slater, R (2008) Clothdolls for textile artists. London: Batsford
Exercise: Lines
I used the same fabric to create lines, some thick, some thin and added the chiffon wraps on top with loose stitching. The textile drawing was inspired by an ink drawing I did. The blue chiffon wraps depicts the lines created by the water that was added. I sewed each black line with running stitch to secure it and the blue chiffon was sewn with loose zig zag lines.
Exercise: Visual and physical texture
The above pieces were fun. They highlight contrasts in colour and texture – wool, fluffy wool, buttons and fine black cotton. The overall effect was very pleasing. I only chose a small piece of a drawing as the exercise fabric was small and I wanted to create the detail. The nine circular looking items on the right, was created with a wavy look in mind, but I ended up creating these interesting lines and textures.
Exercise: Tonal variation
Here I chose a piece of one of my drawings and enjoyed creating tonal values, by using knots, different shades of cotton (grey and white) and thick black wool. The stitching shows dots, stipples and a variety of tones. This fabric drawing reminds me of a flowing river with its twists and turns and the surprises around each corner, just like you would find in nature.
All the above samples have a variety of tonal value, lines, visual and physical texture and were most enjoyable to create.
Exercise : Stitched Drawings – Drawing 1
I started off with the focus point, which was the thick cream wool and I arranged it in a similar pattern to an original line drawing. The ideas flowed out of that, as I had to create a way of fixing it onto the very fine cotton background. The thin black cotton I used, created interesting, uneven patterns and inspired me to add the shiny turquoise material to depict a shell’s inside. This sparked my imagination further, by thinking of the Jurassic Coast and the fossils that are found. I created many fine lines in between the turquoise blocks and it took form. I enjoyed the process very much.
My original layout was changed in photo two and is still in progress. I did add a few beads to secure some pieces of material, which is work in progress. Down below in the left corner is very interesting silver ‘fragile looking, freehand webbing’, which are finished off with the three tails of turquoise material to follow through with the tone and variations in size. My original drawing had more flowing lines, as per the above picture in exercise: tonal variation. I enjoyed changing the shapes and tone and am decorating each one with different stitching. I find the sewing process very satisfying and enjoyable. The second picture now reminds me of sun rays flowing out of the shell.
murieln1 