Fabric Sculpture

Been looking at fabric and folds. Started with looking at sketching folded fabric.

For these I held the fabric up on a string.

Where next with the fabric ??
Creating a sculpture. I have had my first play with the Paverpol. Messy or what !!! The jar contains a thick white gloopy liquid. You place the fabric into the gloop and work it into the fabric. Then leave it tpharden off... for THREE DAYS !!! Not used to waiting =)

This is my first piece held in place with string until it sets. Then I wondered bout mixing fabric and metal. I have plans to using the copper cloth I bought at Ally Pally... but then remembered a sheet of 0.1mm copper I had had for ages. Thus started to form the copper into the shape of a piece of fabric.
I also cut a few smaller pieces of the copper cloth. Found that like the copper sheet the copper cloth can also be molded into shapes, although
it does not have the same strength. Will have to try paverpol on it !!

Louise Bourgeois

No, I have not attended the exhibition yet, but been looking over the Tate Modern web site to check the details.

They now have images showing some of the piece on display. I am surprised to see how much fabric she uses in her work. OK , so I tend to think of her metal spiders and do not know much more about her work beyond those !

The website details the contents of the 10 rooms.
Room 9 :http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/louisebourgeois/rooms/room09.shtm
Shows a fabric tower made of blocks. Below is a direct link to it !

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/louisebourgeois/images/works/106a.jpg


Reply to L's comment in the last post ....
The copper fabric came from CrazyWire Company. http://www.crazywireco.co.uk/
They do the copper , bronze and steel cloth as well as knitted metals too.

Exploring the Line

Moved on to the next assignment looking at line. Started this by investigating all the different pen, crayons, pencils, paints etc etc in the art box. This is the bio page.Although some of the others covered more than one page due to the thickness of the line. The paint was great fun as even more ideas could be tried out. Liked this one of dropping thread into paint then dropping the thread onto the page to create the shapes. Having paint out had to create line with my fingers ... =)
Next will be moving on to look at making line drawings on architechural forms.

Last week at the Knit and Stitch Show picked up some Paverpol. It is a textile hardener which they were selling for create garden statues....Errrmmm can see this needs to be played with. Watch out for updates here.
I have been to look for art made using Paverpol .... Try one or two of these links.
http://home.planet.nl/~emiel.smulders/h-kunstwerk2.htm
http://www.crazywireco.co.uk/13.html This is the company I bought my pot from.
http://www.paverpolaustralia.com/instruct.html
http://www.mouseandmoon.com/Fabstatuegallery.htm - whole gallery
I also bought a fat quarter of copper cloth..yup woven copper. Hubby and I had a long chat about if metal creates a cloth or not...Is this a textile ?? Well YES, we loked up textile and its definded as a woven material.... =)

"Textile Perspectives in Mixed-media Scultpure " by Jac Scott has arrived so started to read that.... WOW!!!

Drawing on Fabric

Started to look at creating the work from the paper and stitched samples on to fabric. I started in the same way I had done with the paper, glue down paper text samples and then paint dye over. Using the dye would give me the same colours as the paper.

What I found was that as the fabric took the water more the colours merged to give different shapes to the edges. Also I was able to stitch much more heavy into the fabric so the black stitching is more dense than the paper versions.
With each sample I tried slightly different ways to add the dye looking at how much water had tobe applied before the colours started to weaken.
With all of them adding the black stitching really brought the shapeout and changed the colour of the dye.
These could look great as the side of a bag where the dyes are used to colour the rest of the fabric.

Next - handstitching along the same lines...This time I wanted to try using layers of chiffon to create the colours.. plus the useof a varigated thread and running stitch created textures direction and holds the chiffon down. Under the chiffon are more paper text samples.The close upbelow you can see the effect better.

This is the sample finished.
Tate Modern will open a Louise Bourgeois exhibtion next week. One of her Maman spiders has been errected outside the Tate building.... Through work I have tickets for myself and my friend L to visit. Work have a corperate membership so we get to borrow the cards for an evening.

I have also had a chance to take some photos of the sculpture at Guildford University. Its called Knife Birds by Bridget McCrum. Follow the link and look at her portfolio the Knife Birds are currently the first image shown. The slide show below are my photos.