Hand Embroidery Data Samples

This week our task was to produce samples samples samples! I enjoyed linking my embroidery techniques to my data, as I didn't know how I could do this until I got stuck in. It took me a while to get into the swing of things, but I managed to link my data well!

As I have two tangents to my project, being chromatography, and oil and water, I am very glad that I had both of these ideas to work with. The circular patterns of the oil and water provided a good base for stitch, whilst I could also use patterns from Chromatography. I also did Chromatography on paper and fabric and used these in my samples. I'm now glad that I can link the ideas that I had from both of the tangents in my work back together in my embroidery samples to show development.

At one point in my sampling, I started to zoom into some of the patterns created by my resist chromatography, and represent this in stitch.

One of my favourite experiments from my sampling involved doing Chromatography on Scrim. It's an easily manipulatable fabric, meaning I could pull holes in it easily, and stitching on top of this proved to be one of my favourite techniques, tying my whole project together.

I'm happy with the samples that I have produced but after doing these samples I felt as though all of my ideas were exhausted and stuck for inspiration. After various feedback sessions this week my ideas have been growing and for my next ten samples I am going to employ some of the following ideas:

• Use stitch to show the path of chromatography (e.g.take it out of the water half way through and sew where the ink is up to)
• Stitch a piece in white first and then add chromatography to see how it affets my work
• Only put chromatography on part of my fabrics and add stitch to emphasise its pattern (e.g. just a little dot of chromatography)
• I'll also try dipping an inked sample in water, letting it dry and then trying to re-do the chromatography with the existing line of ink.
• Try resists on fabrics

Jane Thomas

Here is another very interesting artist called Jane Thomas who uses colours and patterns found naturally from the interference of reflected light rays from the surface of a thin film of water and soap held in a tiny frame (a bubble wand). 

I love the patterns and textures in all of these pictures, and I'd love to try and replicate this myself.

Ink and water!

This week, after concentrating on oil and water, I decided to look at oil, ink and water. I started by seeing what effects ink and water had on their own. I took photos of various situations annotated below.

One drop of ink.

I let the drops of two different coloured inks disperse and added more drops, I like how the previous drops created line patterns penetrating from the surface.

When the drops hit the bottom of the container they created beautiful patterns. 

When the container was left to settle, I added washing up liquid, and the ink on the surface gradually separated and fell towards the bottom creating another pattern.

After looking at the patterns created by ink and water, I decided to see what adding oil would do as well. If done carefully, it was possible to put drops of ink inside the oil droplets. I also think the ink background worked in the same way as the pictures did in my previous experiments, as the oil droplets took on the colour and the texture well.

 

After time, the droplets fell through and the falling ink could be seen from the top (through the oil droplets) and from the side as shown in the pictures below.

Giuliano Bekor

I found this artist on chicquero.com and I found it interesting how the bubbles of oil were used to add effects to the pictures of models

Oil and Water Drawings

This week I have been doing drawings which represent my findings from the oil and water experiments that I have been doing. The examples below have been done using various different circular objects around the house as stamps, dipping them in black acrylic paint. I used toilet roll tubes, old cups, rolled up paper and for the really small circles, the end of an ink tube from a biro.

3 Ink drawings representing Oil and Water in different ways.

Large A1 Drawing representing the spreading of ink in water underneath oil droplets,

For these examples below, I cut out the circular pattern on black paper, keeping the cutout circles. I created a background using ink, and placed the cutout skeleton on one section, and rearranged the cutout circles in exactly the same shape to create an opposite version on another section.

Before I stuck down the skeleton I played around with light and shadows and saw some interesting effects.

Oil and Water Experiment Developments

Today I printed out some backgrounds which I thought would enhance the photos that I have been taking. The first was a black and white stripy background. The oil bubbles mostly seemed to take either the colour black or white, yet the washing up liquid bubbles showed the stripes as shown in the second picture which was created by swirling the washing up liquid

This picture shows how oil bubbles can show tone and texture.

I love the colour changes in this picture, from the red, bright white and the charcoal black.

In this photo, the photo in the background (flower) adds a nice texture, and this shows in some of the washing up liquid bubbles as well.

As part of my experimentation, I also added other substances such as honey and maple syrup but these just sunk to the bottom of my dish.

Oil and Water Experiments

This week I have been experimenting with light, oil, water, washing up liquid and magazine pages. After taking inspiration from Sharon Johnstone, I tried to set up my own version of a light box by putting a lamp under an upturned plastic box. I then placed a page of a magazine on top, held down with the glass full of water, washing up liquid and oil.

When the light box had no picture on, the image was very clear and crisp and the light played a nice effect on the bubbles.

Some of the results with the magazine pages were really interesting, for example in the photo on the left, the orange colour caught some full bubbles, but also the edges of many grey bubbles. 

In the photo on the right, the variety of colours is striking, with the pale blue, orange, peach and the mossy greens.

The two pictures below remind me of lavender. 

For the picture below I really swirled the oil to separate the oil into smaller bubbles, which looks almost 3D, like bubbles in a drink.

When these smaller bubbles settled, this is what they looked like. I love the grey metallic looking bubbles, which I think were created by the washing up liquid gathering as well.

In the picture below, Some of the bubbles have two colours that appear swirled together, which I think is effective. With all of these examples, I love the way the pastel colours look so opaque, when the substances that I am using, are completely transparent.

To develop this, I will print out images that I think will compliment the technique to see how I can manipulate the results, as well as altering the amount of washing up liquid that I use to see If I can replicate the metallic looking bubbles that I accidentally created.

Sharon Johnstone

 After doing some basic oil and water experiments, I wanted to look for some inspiration as to how I could develop my ideas. 

I tried using food colouring to colour the water, but the food colouring didn't add to the effect as the oil also changed to that colour.

I tried swirling the oil to separate the oil into different bubbles, but I found they all joined into one bubble.

I found an artist called Sharon Johnstone, a fine artist who enjoys macrophotography in which she also explores the relationship between oil and water. Her website gave me some tips as to how she creates her work, for example, putting a picture under the glass rather than food colouring, to add some texture to the end photo, and also using washing up liquid to help the oil bubbles stay separate.

www.sjfinearts.com/galleries/oil-water-abstracts

I also found another very interesting blog which inspired some ideas, http://omnivorenz.wordpress.com/tag/oil-and-water/

Some more experiments with oil and water, this time with acrylic paint rather than food colouring.

Oil and Water!

After enjoying the effects of oil resists on my chromatography experiments, I wondered how else I could use oil, water, ink and paper to create some nice results. A case sprung to mind from my contextualising practice research in which I studied the Schmoller Collection of Decorated Papers which included marbled papers. I loved the effect and wanted to try and achieve the same look with oil paints and water. 

I added turpentine to oil paints to make it very liquify, and dropped it into water (as shown above). In some cases I disturbed the oil paints to create different patterns. 

I also explored the idea of having oil on water to see what effects I could achieve. I loved the effect of the bubbles as the water and oil were mixed.

Ontop of one of my marbled papers I drew the patterns of these bubbles with biro.