Saturday, November 6, 2010

Let's have a hand for ...

This reminds me of the southwest -  the symbolism, the color of  the sky, the heat of the sun, the hand reaching upwards to feel the warmth that radiates towards mother earth .  Soy Wax resist and hand dyed on cotton, felt, beaded, stamped, machine stitched.
This piece is beaded with copper and turquoise colored seed beads.  It is approx 8" x 11" and part of the hand series I am working on.  The fabric is cotton with a "recycled" felt middle layer and cotton backing.  Hand dyed and designed by myself using soy wax resist method.
What do you think I should call this one?  Hmm?  I guess this is pretty obvious what the title of this small piece is - Yes you guessed it "little bird".  This was kind of a fun little piece to make with a quirk or two in it.  Originally it looked kind of empty (without the bird), thank goodness for iron on fusing!  All original fabric designs, beaded, hand dyed and embroidered by me on cotton fabric.
This piece is still in progress.  The color represented here around the hand is not quite as dark as it appears in reality.  I am not quite sure that the bow will remain as is - I may change it to a ribbon in a different color.  Some more thought on this piece before it is done is needed.
This is about 99% finished.  I will be tweeking this piece slightly just to highlight the hand a bit and finishing the edges.  The color saturation showing on my monitor is a bit deeper than the actual piece as the colors are somewhat neutral and soft.  I was very pleased with this piece's outcome.  It is on bamboo fabric measuring approximately 18"x22".  Hand dyed using the soy wax resist method, machine stitched and hand embroidered.  The "flowers" are variegated silk commercially dyed.


In this piece I used soy wax as my resist method and decided to use very saturated dyes to color.  The soy wax does not give the same crackle effect that paraffin wax does which may be more desirable in some instances.  Here I like the solid line for the vine along with the leaves being more solid as I wanted to have definite veins in the leaves where I wanted them. There a number of methods used in this piece to help with texture and backround.

This looks so much better here than in reality.  It is very pale and all of the design is made using sgraffito method.  The entire piece was cover in a heavy layer of hot wax which was then completely cooled.  Once cooled and etching tool was used to scrape off the wax down to the fabric to create the design you see here.  Dye was brushed over the lines and left to soak for a few hours.  The excess dye was then removed along with the wax.  The whole piece was then sewn and embroidered.  This is the result so far.

If you like orange here is something really saturated with and orange ground.  The hand appears to be dipping into the water through the vines crawling from the trellis to the left.  This piece is machine quilted with no other embellishment.  It was created using soy wax as the resist and dye paste gel.  It was left for a few hours before the excess was removed.  It is a very bright piece measuring 18 inches by 22 inches (estimated).
 All of the above pieces are at one stage of completion or another.  Some needing only to be bound at the edges.  My theme is obvious here being the human hand.  I just went along and whatever came of the "theme" so be it, I didn't really think about it much except to have a hand in the piece and limit the color palette somewhat.  Feel free to leave a comment as to your opinion or thoughts on this grouping.

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