The Rose Tapestry at 50 Hours

Hello!

I just wanted to leave a little update of pictures of the rose tapestry (I am no longer calling it Leviathan. I would like to reserve that as an inspirational word, so that I may choose to base more work around in the future). For now I will just refer to it as the rose tapestry until I have found a suitable title.


I wanted to continue the scale effect at the top of the left hand petal, but I wanted it to follow the angle of the petal, so I wove the diamonds a bit differently from those on the right. The texture created from the slits between scales, and the silk soumac knots connecting everything worked out really neat! I'm also enjoying that coral, orange and minty green action. It's really coming to life!


I am getting ready to tackle the turquoise and lime green petal, so I had to take a break from weaving to do more dye work today. I ran out of green! That little ball at the top right is what I had left after the first two yellow/green petals. It's a size 30 cotton crochet thread. I definitely needed more than that to finish. So I made all these colours!


Here are a few more close ups of the tapestry. If you want to take a closer look just click on the pic!


I'm weaving each section of colour with a bobbin or yarn butterfly that almost always consists of 3 colours together. This way I get to play with a lot more variations of colour, and it gives a stippled effect. It also makes blending/gradation a lot easier.


I started a sketchbook strictly for Leviathan inspired work (I think I'd like to do 8 of them). It will include everything from images,textures and colour combinations that stir me to word maps, poetry and song lyrics, quotes, essays etc. I will try to post images of the pages along with the tapestry progress. I know this will not only help me to log ideas/inspiration for future use, but also to write my artist statement in the end.

I hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend!
Thank you for stopping by,
♥
JQ

"Vestige" My Dimensions 2011 Entry!

Mission:

Explore beauty in asymmetry through a subtle intricacy of texture; Evoke the precious timelessness of handwork.


Hello Everyone!

I just wanted to post a couple pictures of "Vestige" and show a bit on how I framed it and packaged it for shipping. I've submitted it and will find out Friday evening if it was one of the 35 selected for Dimensions 2011 or not. There were over 150 submissions--SO MANY absolutely beautiful pieces, and I'm excited just to have been on display in the same room as them even for this brief time. I mean I'm on pins and needles hoping I'll get in, but the competition looks fierce! :)
All of these images should be click-able if anyone wants to see them in a bit more detail.

The frame was made by cutting a rectangular hole out of the center of a 14" x 19" x 3/4" MDF. I Painted it with several coats of white acrylic paint. I know that most gallery walls are white, and I wanted the frame to be unobtrusive. The only time you see it is if you are looking at it from the side.


I ran a strip of sticky-backed, hook side Velcro in white along the top and bottom edge of the frame. The soft side Velcro is hand stitched onto the top and bottom edge on the back of the tapestry. Screwed two little "L" shaped shelving brackets onto the frame for mounting it onto the wall. Included a small bag of extra screws in the packaging.


I stitched on a little handmade canvas tag at the back bottom right, in far in enough that it can be seen even when the tapestry is on the frame. I used a permanent fabric pen to write the title, year and my signature. My signature is also woven into the tapestry but it is super subtle. Too subtle, but I know for next time.


With the packaging I tried my best to make the box as professional and presentable as everything else. I taped a clean sheet of packing paper to the top to hide the few tears that were left when I carefully pried the stickers off the box.


Inside this box was already set up for transporting something breakable! Lucky me!


So I placed the tapestry and frame into a brand new clear plastic bag, and voila!


Here's the latest photos of the rose tapestry after roughly 35 hrs.



Thank you for stopping by!
♥
JQ

Leviathan Day 13 (29 hours)

Hello and happy Friday everybody!

This week weaving has been a little slower, but save for a two day break, I managed to put an hour in a day. This is the way she looks after 29 hours of weaving:


I'm using a knot called soumac (that is used a lot in rugs) to add texture. Here is a diagram I found*:


I'm usually looping around every warp thread. This is a diagram of how the knot is used in rug construction.

You can see where I used black in the shaded areas how it sits along the surface. I'm trying to duplicate the line quality in any given area so in some places the soumac uses a double thread and others just a single.


I'm also using soumac where the green silk delineates the scales on the yellow petal. I like the way the silk shimmers next to the cotton. I can't get a really good shot of just how bright the colours are and how shimmery the silk looks, but under the right lighting it's really sensuous!


And this is the area that I'll be moving on to later today. With tapestry you have to build up certain areas before you can weave others. I couldn't weave the yellow/orange pink area of the petal in the foreground until I had woven up the leaf in the lower left and the green/yellow petal to the right, because this pinkish petal increases to lay over top of the other two areas. So now that I have the scaly green area done I can weave the 2 areas of black line work shading at the left and right and then continue weaving the yellow/pink petal over top of that.


I hope to be back on Sunday to post about how I finally decided to frame my Dimensions entry, and the title that resonates the most for me so far. I find it sooo difficult to give things titles. Submissions are due Tuesday! Time flies!

Thanks for visiting!
♥
JQ

*Diagram of soumac was found at: http://www.hillco.co.uk/info/rugcon1.htm