Looking through some of my hand dyed fabric, I came across a piece that didn't really appeal, but which reminded me of autumn trees. I decided to "go" for it, and cut a section out that I felt looked like trees against a sky. The really green section was also cut out, turned on its side, and became the forground with grass and shadows. I had some other hand dyed cotton tucked away, in pinky orangy browns, and decided to use strips of this for forground trees. That's as far as I've got, but will continue to work on this piece to see what can be achieved.
I felt like playing....having fun, and wasn't too bothered about the outcome! I collected lots of leftover bits from other projects and "trial" pieces, jiggled them about to make a pleasing arrangement, and filled in the gaps with bits of hand dyed or silk painted fabric. These were all placed over some wadding, and then I quilted them down, and covered the joins with black/purple wool which was machine couched down to cover the joins. Not a work of art by a long stretch, but enjoyable, and it has given me an idea for a future project!
I wish I'd taken a photo of the screen I made to print this. It's "breakdown" printing, and something I think I'm going to be doing a lot more of. I dropped lots and lots of elastic bands onto a sheet of clingfilm, placed my screen over the top, spooned print paste in two colours, petrol blue and golden yellow into the well, and then pulled my squeegee across four or five times to make sure the paste had really penetrated through the mesh. I carefully pulled off the clingfilm, but left the elastic bands on the screen so that the dye paste could dry giving me lots of texture. When it was ready, I used the print paste in it's natural colour, and pulled the paste through the screen onto dry, pre-soda soaked cotton until the screen had no colour left. You may be able to see from the photos, how each print has varied in depth of colour. Not sure what I'll do with these panels yet, but I do quite like the results
