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Monday 31 March 2014

9a: Paper Weaving

9. DESIGN EXERCISE:
     a) To Make Coloured & Textured Papers

­This also needs to go into the sketch book properly, but I’m running out of time and decided it was more important to get work posted on the blog for Sian to see.

This was another of those activities where I had great fun, and got very messy – I don’t think I’ve done wax resist painting since the annual firework pictures I worked on with my daughters when they were small (a very long time ago!). I used oil pastels to make marks on photocopier paper, then painted watercolours over the top. I’d forgotten how thin and watery the paint needs to be, and hadn’t realised how small and close together the marks need to be if they are to be seen when the paper is torn into strips and woven.

I liked the paint effects I made on the paper I used to ‘blot’ the paintings – I got some wonderful shapes and shading, much better than some of my painted efforts! I kept to black, white, yellow and green for my colours, and mostly I’m quite pleased with them and feel they are a pretty fair representation of my wall. But I have to admit that whilst sap green was fine, viridian (that bright emerald green) was a mistake because it doesn’t look like any part of the wall. But it was there, in the box of paints, begging me to try it out… And it is a wonderful colour, even if it is wrong.

9. DESIGN EXERCISE:
     b) Paper Weaving


Again, I’ve done this a very long time ago, with my daughters when they were young, and with infants when I was a mum helper in school for a couple of years, but what we created then was just random colours, textures and patterns. Trying to base a weaving on a photograph of a wall (or anything else come to that) is jolly difficult, and I take my hat off to weavers everywhere who produce pictures from strips of fabric, yarn, or any other material. Perhaps it is easier with a thinner warp thread, so you don’t get quite such a square, blockish effect, and you might blend the colours in more effectively.



I did bear the colours, shapes and patterns of the wall in mind when I marked and painted the paper, and tried very hard to follow it with the weaving, keeping the dark blackish grey, radiating shape at the bottom right of the weaving.


I’ve shown two attempts here: one a conventional square design, the other fanning out from that bottom right corner, and incorporating gaps and shorter pieces, as well as some folded paper and a piece looped over more than one strip. It wasn’t totally successful, but I tried! I think I prefer the more conventional approach.



I was going to remove emerald green strips (see previous comments under 9a) because they are too bright and dominant, and are the wrong green, in the wrong positions. But even so, I’ve left them, because I think they add a nice ‘lift’ and contrast. And I like them because viridians such a wonderful colour. And I have threads that colour… And strips of sari silk… And I want to use them...

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