Blue masks, dots and diamonds

A fabric piece that I am working with at the minute, patching it with white pieces of similarly stretchy fabric to create larger pieces, originally an old trouser kindly donated.

 

The pattern looks quite aggressive up close. Like masks all bunched together to scare off irritating people? Brilliant range of blues on the fabric that are hard to capture using a scanner or camera. Quite pretty with the lilac bit of paint I dropped on the corner. 

Archived Snip: Paisley Box and Max Factor

Flowers scanned

Pressed between book pages and newsprint, all-sorted flowers heads.

Colour Archive: Bisazza Mosaico

An A4 advertisement from a forgotten magazine, advertising Bisazza Mosaico,
the luxury tile and glass mosaic designers for interior and exterior decoration.
Nice to know such Artisans still exist.

Their website: http://www.bisazza.com/
(They have music playing in the background.)

Zoomed in, the use of tinted but clear glass works well with 

the sand colours and pretty motifs.

White Hibiscus and the Blue

Originally fabric I have used in some past pieces of artwork. I scanned in some of the largest parts of it before actually working with the material, simply because the pattern is gorgeous.
I've just started noticing the way the leaves swirl in on themselves. 

The slight pink at the top middle is where I spilt some dylon dye. 

This is just one of them, the quality is quite poor to save up on room. I always worry about running out, and having to go through all the scans and photos on my Google Picasa account.
Resort to Photobucket maybe?

Buttons in black and white

Black and white photocopy of buttons dug out of my old research file from university. The ones with shiny metallic areas scanned in particularly well I think. I had to leave the copier lid up just to stop the buttons backs from damaging the white foam pad on the inside of the lid.
The top row of buttons are particularly decorative, look classical in terms of pattern.

Floral lace scans in b&w

Some lace scans. Originally the lace came form a t-shirt like top I bought from a charity shop in town. The floral pattern on the top can be found on a previous post titled Chintz roses; odd colours of pink, red and purple-blue.

I haven't yet got a chance to use these pieces in any painting or work, but I used the rose print top part in my degree show exhibition as an appropriation of the typical floral patterns now commonly seen on the streetwalk and catwalk. A pattern that has been brought back out of the cupboards and dusted off, then given a pat down with modernisation - as has lace or lace imitation fabrics of course.

Thinking of doing a lace feature of prints/scans/photos for September.

So please by all means send in photos/scans of lace or bits of lace form anything via e-mail to patternandsurface@gmail.com  

 

Archived Snip: Blue flowers and Golden Light

Some found clippings from magazine advertisements:
(Can't remember which one).

This beautiful very simply coloured pale blue on white

presents two different flowers in a repeating pattern

surrounded by stems and leaves. Its hard to tell where the

repeat begins and ends in the original snippet. 

The edge of the cutting presents a nice

picture of real (or maybe fabric/fake?)

flower with the carefully printed floral image

that is either a wallpaper or a vinyl sticker.

In a beautiful kind of rhubarb red/pink.

This damask like pattern is very regal looking - suiting the wedding based advertisement naturally. The rich golds and the lighting of the image seem to show a richness of the pattern that perhaps wouldn't be seen without such effects. the pattern is very Victorianesque.

Peices of emulsion 'rock' forms

These kind of look tasty from a distance (if colourful things had food like taste to them),

but they don't smell of anything and feel very chalky - no surprise as I used matt emulsion

paints to make these by pouring emulsion mixed with a little glue onto plastic sheets,

from which the paint pieces then peeled from.  

I define these more as paintings than anything else, their forms are sculptural but their brush like strokes and spills of colours portray the personality of a painting and are reminiscent of colour field painters - with their staining of canvas, where as I have poured colours from tins of emulsion.  

 

 

 

I was hoping to include these in my degree show somehow, preferably making bigger pieces but because of their fragility I decided against it. They are brittle and crumble very easily, even after mixing three parts paint with one part PVA. Needs more experimentation.

Testing Sumptuous Plum and Teal Tension

Photos form some recent experiments on paper and an old cotton bed sheet,

using emulsion colours from the Dulux range:

The rich teal that becomes more blue than green here

thanks to being watered down and mixed slightly with white.

Bits of Dylon dye powder dropped it begin to absorb the wetness around them.
A 2B pencil drawn set of random lines.

The shiny silver effect upon emulsion is actually quite pretty.

 A bold pink that I have really began to love.

It is a very strong and bold pink - like a hot pink? 

The effect of these strokes is done by putting some white paint down first,

a thick blob that is then brushes out into a line or shape, and then

a bit of a colour on the same brush that is then brushed out on top of the white.

Not too much of the colour otherwise the effect isn't as strong.

Painting on cloth is something that really interests me at the moment -

the way the paint seems to react alongside a material that

rarely carries something so heavy as emulsion or wet ink.

Again white paint is laid out and then some random

splodges of blue are added with a smaller brush.

Paul Steiger, Curtain fabric

I found these curtains at a charity shop in town, bought and paid for them and used them in a piece of textiles I've been working on. Yup, I was surprised that it was made in the UK too.   

It's a beautiful heavy lace fabric with a good thick curtain lining and a nice creamy colour to it.

And underneath I was messing about with underlayering it with black and white striped fabric.  

Yay - its september! :D
I'm trying out some new layouts.
Hopefully I'll find something to stick to.

Found Wrapping Bears and Cute Papers

Ok so this sort of stuff is twee. I know.
But look at how the repeats at the papers edges create
brilliant vertical lines of colour that seem to waver.

I had a fiddle on Gimp with the colour as my camera
struggles with whites and greys on images such as this,
where the background is white and uploaded it here

The repetition effect is the most appealing this to this wrapping paper,
personally I love repetition, its a building block to pattern, kind of part of its DNA.

I really need to do my research as I don't know who produced or created this wrapping paper.

Vintage Clip-Ons (Accessories)

Vintage earrings and clip ons found at the Vintage fair in Newcastle:

A very delayed post but it is here.
Back at the vintage Fair in May I noticed how commonplace vintage clip ons were, clearly a type of thing that was popular at this time as in shops now there tends to just be earrings or studs that fit an ear piercing.

I know incredibly little about vintage wares, but these really interested me:

Above a great selection of all kinds of clip ons, most of which seemed shape derrived from this flower like shape with between 5-8 points, some in shapes of hexagons, heptagons and octagons - creating beautiful shiny bloomage.
A few close ups of my favourites:.

This pair form a star like shape, tapered of with points creating the octagon shape. The choice of blues is particularly interesting, one being pale and the other light - maybe they were meant to appear to be stars?

The brooch is particularly interesting with its glaze over the center that creates a boiled sweet like appearance and that beautiful border.

Below the slightly off white lines remind me of icing and the shapes themselves seem to imitate netting or lace of some kind. These would be my favourite simply with this reference to fabric.  

The abundance in usage of beads in the photos is pretty sweet, it has been rare for me to see such beautiful arrays of earrings with such a high standard of design and look using beads to construct and define.

Blue and white and often

Have you ever noticed how commonplace the blue and white pairing is?
It is on plates, with the Willow Pattern is the most recognisable representation of such mixing of colour and tone.
It works brilliantly on fabric of course.

I like how on this chiffon like fabric the print can build up,
creating layers separated by a thin veil of white, where under layers can still be seen.

And of course, lots of leaves.

Vintage Lace Box

Photos from the Newcastle Vintage Fair
at the Royal Station Hotel next to Newcastle Central Station, May 2012,
organised by Jayne Turner and Mandy Pattullo

A nice box of lace,
what more would you want to see?
If only I had photographed that nice light pink bit of lace?

A very typical looking flower with beautiful geometry that makes its form and fills it.
Have you ever noticed the similarity lace has to mhendi/henna?

This one above reminds me of a water lilly plant,

simply with its surounding leaves decorativly curling around the plant,
creating a decorative float around it.

Bus Stops and Fashion

Who would have thought it?
They go together so well -
or at least the bus stops I've seen have managed to
co exist with their adverts nicely. 
These are ones in Town near the city library:

H&M know how to make pattern and print look amazing.

Enough said.

Detailed paisley, a very chintzy styled pattern -
and when I say chintzy I mean in terms of pattern
and not in colour -
as here the colours are almost acidic,
very warm and bright.

Next top by H&M has this beautiful embellished around neckline,
studded with fake glass gems.

The head wrap or sash or scarf (multipurpose - who knew?)
also shares the paisley motifs scattered across it.
Using pinks as well.
I got far too distracted by these bus stops. 

Fabric Selection

A few photos I found weeks ago that I never posted but really should have. 
Below is a border design like piece on
a dress styled kameez (tunic top), which is a detail I love.
The whole suit puts purple alongside orange,
and then the touches of brown on the embellished
areas help when it comes to looking for matching jewelry and shoes. 

Just brilliant, two colours rarely worn in my opinion that are brought together.
The trim uses pink, white and brown shiny rayon like threads,
looking into damask like designs that
surround the flower shapes.
Lotus like blooms horizontally lined up.
The light plays with the shiny thread;
creating areas of shade, of light and dark.

The embellishments to the above neck area of a top are quite interesting, using thick black thread to create this beautiful leaf motif
and these splodge like flowers drops,
alongside swirls with sequins dotted around the shapes.
Leaves venation in gold thread – lush!

White curls, dots and webs

Ah! First post in 2012, I wonder if there will actually be snow.
I was going through charity shops again,
it is the simplest way to find interesting pattern sources
(what one magpie chucks, is another magpie’s treasure),
and I came across some interesting use of circular motions and motifs.
Take the snail shell like swirl above,
it takes the form of the centre of a flower,
whose petals are marked with stamen like shadows.

 

The neckline of this top makes excellent use of
the continuous chain of circles going from large to small to large again,
with each curve connecting to another through itself or by a tiny circle.