Working on Commission?

Well, sort of. I'm in the process of creating a textile art piece to be used in a wedding ceremony and then it will become a piece of wall art. I've been struggling with different designs and have finally decided on 'book' type design that is somewhat like a scroll. It will be about 50"long and 8" wide and will have separate pages which will show pictures and wishes from friends of the couple on one side and then artwork in these colors on the other side. So now that I have decided on a format, I'm working on color studies to decide what colors I'd like to use, what marks I'm going to make etc. I'm experimenting with silk and cotton and using silk paints and fluid acrylics. If the acrylics are thinned to a watercolor consistency, they don't affect the hand of the fabric too badly, but I'm leaning towards the silk paints just due to their yummy color and lack of stiffness. The request was to use a bright primary palette even though that is not my usual way of working, so I'm having a bit of a time trying to integrate it into the piece, but I plan to do some stamping of other colors and metallics on top to mute things a bit and to pull the piece together with a theme.




So, I've been cutting stamps today as well and had forgotten that they are a lot of work! Maybe that's why I ended up doing etchings vs. linocuts. I started out using a shortcut technique I read about in Quilting Arts magazine using plumber's gasket instead of lino material. Big mistake. It is so hard to cut and the marks are ragged even with very sharp new tools. (See the brick red stamp on the left.) My next stamp I used unmounted easy cut lino...much better. (Grey material at right.) Plus there is really no cost savings using the gasket, it is the same price for a 6"x6" piece of that as it was for an 8"x10" piece of unmounted lino. So a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. But now my hands are tired out and need a rest. So I'll do some more painting.



Below is a sample of the more muted palette I first suggested but was rejected...oh well.