A blog about making art and other things using cloth, paper, paint, colour, stitch, and all sorts of exciting techniques, some of which I'm sure I still have to discover! I hope that the joy all this gives me is visible in what you can see here.

Sunday 26 October 2014

Fish, leaves and grasses from my gelli plate.


Below is the fish I printed from my gelli plate onto some cotton fabric, and above is how it looks now, after stitching into it. The colours have changed, mainly because of the threads I have used, but I think it is more defined with the stitching.



These are a mixture of leaves and grasses, the little butterflies on the one above were printed from a stencil.



I experimented more by overprinting with a lighter paint, and I like the effect this has given.




Some of them are quite subtle, but I'm still playing really, and my next plan is to start printing more on fabric, ready for stitch. These have all been printed onto photocopy paper, so apart from maybe using them in collage work, there isn't really anything else I could do with them. 



I have taken photos of all of these, they need to be cropped, and then I could always print my favourites onto canvas, which would give me the opportunity to embellish with stitching, which is what I did with the seahorse in my previous post.



That's it for now, we've been away, and I have been busy most days sketching and trying to capture the sunrise over the sea in watercolour. Hopefully all fodder for future work with my textiles. You can read all about that on my Facebook page, Cath Stonard Textile Art.

Thanks for reading, and see you again soon!





Friday 10 October 2014

Gelli printing, seagulls, crows and robins!


A day out at the Knitting and Stitching show at Ally Pally, (Alexandra Palace) resulted in my buying the book above, 'The Gentle Art of Gelliping' by Hilary Beattie, and naturally, a Gelli, Gel Printing Plate, so that I could have hours of fun printing on paper and fabric!! I did buy a few other bits and pieces too, but these were the two most exciting purchases!


I cut out a few of my own stencils, some shells and a seahorse, above on paper, below on cloth.



Then I experimented with leaves, bits of string, elastic bands, and some of my own stamps.



More of the seahorse.



Some of my more successful leaf prints.



Just so much fun, I'm looking forward to experimenting lots more with this brilliant new tool for printing my own papers and cloth.


I have also finally finished the seagulls above, and I decided to make some amendments to the crow below, so I feel happier with that now.



Two robins, I think I must be getting in the mood for Christmas! They were both printed from a collagraph plate that I made, and then embellished with machine stitch on the one above, and hand stitch on the cheeky one below.


Well that's all for now, but hopefully I will have some further work to show soon, based on my gelli prints! Thanks for looking in folks!