Pattern Practicing

This turned out to be a week with some time dedicated to practicing pattern creation.

We drove home from our time in Greenville, SC on Thursday and Friday I was still feeling a bit zombie-like. But I had promised to lead an exercise in pattern printing for my local art group on Saturday. This easy exercise was just the right amount of not-too-hard to get my brain back in gear.

I tricked the group a bit by calling the exercise “almost-Escher” patterns. Escher’s works are now widely known and admired, especially his intriguing patterns in which one shape morphs into another.

Sky and Water I  woodcut  1938  M.C.Escher

We did not plan to tackle anything near that complexity. But a useable take-away from his patterns is the creation of all-over shapes that tuck into one another neatly. There are lots of design possibilities.

I prepped some samples in which the shape was symmetrical about a center axis and characterized by a thin-to-wide-back-to-thin shape. Think leaf forms. Or fish. Or stylized stalks of grass.

And I wanted our group to experiment with two printing methods: 1. A simple relief print (stamp) cut from a styrofoam tray and 2. Stencil printing using a see-through vinyl .

Here is my set-up for the stamps.

I find it helpful to add a block or something to hold onto when stamping with thin material. I tried gel super glue, but it only stuck minimally. (Styrofoam is very tricky to glue. Some glues eat right through it. And I needed something to set up on the spot so we could adhere backs right after creating the stamp.) I ended up using double-faced tape, which worked pretty well.

I made a few sample prints to test the cut-outs. The Styrofoam yields a slightly spongey texture, which I found interesting.

For the second print test I lightly brushed paint through my vinyl stencil. (In the photo below, the orange leaf just to the left of the vinyl cut-out is the one I printed this way.) Clear material for a stencil is great because you can see through it and place the printing spot visually.

After our time together Saturday, I realized a slightly more rigid vinyl material would have been better. A clear shower curtain liner would work. Or a rigid plastic piece like the top of a take-out salad tray. (This, though, is harder to cut.)

Here are some of my practice pieces from the afternoon’s session.

In the samples above, each image is created by a single stencil. I picked it up and moved it to the next spot to make the second image, and so forth to fill the space. The clear material allowed for easy visual placement.

A day of practice and thinking about pattern seems to be just what my brain needed to re-focus. This week I’ll be back to working on the next phase of my tree limb experiments. Stay tuned!

. . . .

For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  Mostly about what I am creating in the studio. If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail, please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: Mostly news of exhibits and my way of introducing new work. You’ll get FIRST LOOKS at new artwork and members-only discounts. You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

---

Glorious Color

Oh my. I might not have enough adjectives for this experience.

Walking into my studio, the fabrics I had painted in various yellows, hit by sun through the window, warming and coloring the very air in the room. Saffron. Sunflower. Gold. Butter. Sun-glorious, wonderful yellow.

As the next step in some tree and pattern explorations, I am painting fabrics. It’s a simple step and can sometimes even be boring. But I am enjoying this so much.

To begin with, I am mixing up fabrics much more than I normally do. Generally, I only use either sheer polyester or plain, unbleached cotton muslin for all my work. But I had a nice stash of neutral colors given to me by a friend from her church liturgical banner project (I got the cast-off fabrics) so I am including them in my mix of working materials.

Because I did not purchase the fabric, I don’t know exactly what each of them is. So, where I describe the fabric in quotes, it’s my word choice to describe the quality of the fabric. But it may actually be something else.

(Note: For textile artmakers who are used to dyeing and its detailed chemistry, you may notice I’m not too picky abut my fabric content or preparation. Unlike dyes, paints are quite forgiving. You can successfully put acrylic paint on virtually any fabric. If the weight of the fabrics in the hand are similar, they swill sew up together nicely.)

My first palette element in this next project is yellow. But, I am using it with black mixed in. This is one of my favorite color mixes. The black adds a very slight olive hue to the yellow.

(A COLOR MIXING TIP: When you are mixing a light color and a darker color, start with the lighter. I spooned out about 2 teaspoons of yellow as a start. Then add the darker color very little at a time. I added black in small dollops, equivalent to maybe half a teaspoon. If you go the other way – starting with the dark – you need to add A LOT of the lighter to get where you want to go. You end up mixing a big batch of paint.)

Adding even more black would yield a rich and wonderful array of olive greens. But, for now, I’m adding just enough to cut the pure yellow and get a bit of variety. Some of the results:

How will these be used? To start the composition wheels turning, I placed one of my newly painted pieces behind the stencil I’ll be using.

This begins to give me a sense of possibilities. But remember, when working with a knock-out stencil, the final appearance will be the opposite of this. The trees and limbs will show through as yellow, and  the background will be what’s painted in. Maybe navy-blue-black. Maybe olive green. Maybe grey. Lots of possibilities.

I’ve done some work on the next palette element: a teal blue mixed from cerulean plus raw sienna. This is another one of my favorites. These two hues mix up into a wonderful range of mixed blue-green tones.

When I’m done painting the teal fabrics, I’m going to create a batch of dark navy-black pieces, and some burnt orange. Then I’ll be ready to start mixing up patterns and overpainting my base fabrics with varying tints and hue complements.

What adjectives I will need for the pleasure of those discoveries!

. . . . . .

For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  Mostly about what I am creating in the studio. If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail, please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: Mostly news of exhibits and my way of introducing new work. You’ll get FIRST LOOKS at new artwork and members-only discounts. You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

---