Setting up a blog for our mentoring project is a great idea. I thought I was being clever by linking to my Flickr photos, but obviously I need to improve my skills there.
To answer some questions:
The size of my looms: I have a portable Hagen loom with a weaving width of about 18" x 22 or 24". I also purchased, though I have not yet used, the larger
(103 cm x 74 cm, or 40 x 29") Ashford tapestry loom. The tapestry room at the Southwest School of Art is equipped with the 21 x 26 Ashford looms.
Do I dye my yarns? I have dyed (and spun) yarn, but have been using mostly the Paternayan yarns for tapestry weaving, and have access to their color card and a local store that stocks their colors. I have liked working with the Paternayan since I have enjoyed experimenting with color blending. So I separate plies and create my own colorful weft bundles.
Would I be interested in learning about color theory? Yes, and I have done some studying of my own on the subject. I read a number of common basic books about color theory (Albers, for example) and brought that back to fiber arts with Deb Menz's workbooks on Color Works: The Crafter's Guide to Color and her book on color in spinning The book Color Works was also very interesting in its demonstrations of how different media interact with color, and both books (and other articles) on how depressingly easy it is to muddy colors in weaving and in spinning. (I am an academic by training, and tackle new ideas and problems by studying.)
As for samples, I would be very pleased to sample -- my problem is actually with pre-designed samplers. So this little piece:
which is my first tapestry, started out as the sampler from Kirsten Glasbrook's book, but I got bored weaving someone else's design. So I began improvising. Her geometrics turned into my abstracted landscape. I think sampling to solve my own problems and questions would be interesting.
I learned the importance of planning with my second tapestry, in which my sad attempt at representing the northern lights fell prey to too much improvisation.
\I am still very interested in way of representing light. And have a persistant interest in citiscapes.
Then came the digitally modified collages I spoke to you about.
I worked a version of the last one as a tapestry titled Tropical City Nights:
I will get a better picture of this. The Clip-Horizontal is an interesting piece of the collage that could not be represented the way I wanted in the tapestry, because I was working so small -- the tapestry is about 11 x 12 inches, I think, on a sett of 7 epi. A larger tapestry of just this clip might be very interesting, especially worked horizontally instead of vertically, as in the small tapestry.
Working with a black background, of course, made the other colors very brilliant. I was hesitant about working the background in solid black, since all the other colors were blends of Paternayan plies of different colors, but the results were very good. In a larger version of this, the shadings of red and black, and developing the copper-ish colors, would be very interesting and very challenging.
Tomorrow I will scan the lettering design I am working from. Working colors on a gray background is an interesting project after colors on black.
Roberta
Hello Roberta,
ReplyDeletefirst a question - what graphics program do you use?
Also if I use a weaving term that you do not understand let me know. Not all weavers use the same language at times. Or if I suggest a technique that you do not know, tell me.
I think that Clip-Horizontal has good potential. I notice that Blogger clips the image short but I can see the whole image if I copy it into Corelpaint. It is a lot of black background to weave but the very
subtle 'reflections' work well especially in the vertical red shape to the righthand. Some of the red shapes at the very top of the design and the blueish shape at the bottom righthand side tend to draw the eye out to the edge of the frame. You might like to consider either moving the shapes away from the edge, or increasing the black border and perhaps introducing in the weaving some more blues/greens to balance the colour somewhat as all the blue green shapes are to one side. I do not mean symetrically, but just to give some kind of visual balance.
As far as weaving it of part of it, it would be good to weave it at a larger scale. Also you might like to experiment by posturising the image. This will break down the colours into more structural blocks and give a possible direction for colour choice to get those copper tones. There are some hot pinks and cool olives in the design when posturised. Or by introducing some complimentary colours you could get these copper tones, and use pick and pick,for a more structural effect, or mixed thread, or you can try and match them.
I thnk that the design will be a challange to resolve the balance between structure and shading and the weaving decisions that you make to achieve this.
Looking at the techniques and weaving of Tropical City Nights the subtle reflections work well, as does the choice of colours.
I will make a separate posting on complimentary colours if your wish. Let me know. In the meantime make a choice on what you which to start on first, a sample of Clip-Horizontal or to work on the lettering design, which I will look forward to seeing.
I thouight you might look at this work from Vera Hazelgrove http://vermirotapestries.blogspot.com/2010/09/closer-up.html she uses fancy yarns and handspun to get the effect of water and light reflecting off rocks, also silk in the highlights of the waves. http://vermirotapestries.blogspot.com/2010/10/challenges-and-time.html
ReplyDeleteMaximo Laura's ais another artist which you might like to look at both for colour and the way that he handles hard edges and shading or try this link
http://www.wovencolour.co.uk/6/gallery