What I’m working on!

I have a private exhibition looming. It’s an unusual event as it won’t be open to the public, just to a specific group of people. The work that they will see is quite a big step away from some of the things that I have previously created. I’m just beginning a new artwork, and I thought you might like to see a part of the process.

The background fabric will be hand dyed cotton. Dull and dingy it will be a dark mustard in colour with splashes of a slightly brighter yellow and dark blue. It doesn’t sound very attractive or interesting, does it? So, how to make it more interesting? It’s too dark to respond to much more over-dyeing, so the answer is paint.

First some experiments:

Blending colour is the first step, I don’t like to use ‘raw’ colour straight from the tube or bottle. This looks promising

Looking better as it is mixed more and more. I’m not using a paintbrush for this process, I have a special blending tool which I’ll tell you about another day. They look good on paper, but will they do on the fabric?

Perfect!  Several thin layers of transparent acrylic have been built up. Some of it is printing using an old mouse mat which is a perfect printing surface. The experiments were worth it. Can you guess which colours I used?

Did you guess? I love mixing colours – you never know what you will discover. I have never used these colours in combination before, but I will be using them again. Stitching comes next, but first, some more fabric preparation.

Is it time you tried some new colours? Let me know if you do.

Author: nuvofelt

Colour has been business for a number of years. Crochet is one of my current means of expression and I enjoy enabling other creatives. Some of my blogs are kept as daily records. Take a look and you will see. View all posts by nuvofelt