Semester II: First tutorial methodology beginning to work for me

07/10/2014


Blog entry 10:

Before my first tutorial of the semester, I have been looking into combining stitch with paint. I have used calico as my preferred fabric, as I am able to paint on it with gouache (my preferred paint method which I found through my research on paint last semester) and stitch onto this material with ease. I also find that calico is relatively cheap to buy and can be obtained in large quantities. Calico has several different weights or thicknesses, I have chosen a mid weight calico on which to work for many of my samples due to it being thick enough to hold the paint, stiff enough to paint onto with relative ease and thin enough to stitch through with ease. The only issue with painting on fabric, especially with a water based paint is that fabric absorbs the water, making the painting process longer.

I am currently working on a cross stitch pattern, which I have converted from a painting online. Although I enjoyed cross stitch during the summer, I am beginning to question wether this process is going to take to long to make it a viable option on which to base a project. Another issue I have found with cross stitch is that it is impossible to envisage what the outcome is going to look like until it is finished making it somewhat of a gamble. The original painting is in black and white, however the cross stitch pattern has instructed me to use a number of purple threads, this makes me wonder how different the finished cross stitch will look when compared to the original painting, this may make choosing a colour palette very difficult.

I have experimented with a number of stitch methods and found that I prefer a method I used in college known as free machine embroidery (as explained in more detail in blog entry 9). This method is done by changing the regular foot on my sewing machine to a specialised embroidery foot and dropping the dog teeth, which pull the fabric through the machine. By making these changes to a domestic sewing machine, I have allowed the fabric to be sewn in any direction, essentially allowing me to draw in stitch.

Ordinary/ common sewing machine foot

Metal embroidery foot

Dropping the dog teeth (Love sewing, 2013)

During my first tutorial, Richard suggested that I should explore stitch and paint combinations further in order to ascertain whether this process could work for me. He also suggested that I could possibly use research for my dissertation to firm up my ideas for this project. I now intend to move forward with my research into the human hand and its capability to comment on the human condition, along with experimenting further with my stitch and paint combination.

At this early stage I have made the decision to already disregard some of the ideas I first worked up in my research, for example I have decided not to take the idea of the skeleton of the hand further due to the pre-existing connotations of horror and halloween which are already deeply ingrained.