SHIBORI INDIGO DYEING WORKSHOP

This Saturday I was lucky to be able to attend a fantastic workshop at Melbourne's Kimono House.  The workshop was run by a very charming and knowledgable lady called Colleen Weste who knows many things about fabrics, Japanese shibori methods and indigo dyeing.  

I decided to attend the workshop as I have long loved traditional Japanese dye methods and the fantastic indigo colour.  In particular I was keen to learn about the 'itajime' dye method whereby you use shapes and clamp them onto fabric as the resist.  This year I have been teaching year 9 and 10 students how to make kimonos, including dyeing their own fabric.  I can't wait to try some of these dye methods with the students!

Here are some of my before and after photos from the day.  I loved it all and I will definitely be trying out some more fabric pieces.

Stitching the silk pre-dye...

Clamping with all sorts for 'Itajime'...

Pegs leave interesting marks...

I trialled wrapping a variety of items into this cotton piece of fabric including screws and champagne corks...

Itajime sample one....

Itajime sample two...

 Itajime sample two...

Itajime sample three...

Itajime sample two...Gracie likes it too!

PILLOWS!

I spent a day making pillow covers yesterday and practiced sewing a zip!  After a few dodgy pillows, I feel that I have got the hang of it!  

I screen printed this design onto 100% linen...

At Spotlight I found a really groovy, fluro pink polka dot cotton for the back of the pillow...I love it!

I also made a cover for my friend Claire who loves horses, but I liked hers so much that I made one for myself!  I also love this mustard polka dot.  I think the fabrics come from Japan somewhere.  I think I need more of this fabric!!!

RECENT ETCHINGS

In March I have been attending an etching night course at the Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne as part of a follow up session from an earlier 3 day workshop that I attending in January this year.  The course has really consolidated my understanding of copper etching and I also trialled aquatint for the first time.  One really nice thing about participating in the two courses is that I can really appreciate etching in greater depth now because I can understand some of the processes.  

I am hoping to lead some copper etching in senior art classes at work and hopefully I can play around a bit more myself.  

Oh,  and I also invested in some 'Oriental Blue' printing ink for the last week of class - I love it, well and truly!  That's why all of these prints are in blue.  It is a lovely shade of blue.

This etching is titled 'Melbourne' and the original drawing was created when I was on a school excursion recently at  Skydeck in Melbourne.  

This etching is the same image that I trialled in lino earlier this month for a lino print as part of Art Club, see here for the post.  I was curious to compare the two different printmaking techniques and how they would work with each image.  After trialling both techniques I have decided that I like both etching and lino printmaking but for different reasons.

This was the artwork in lino....

I later applied an aquatint on top of the original copper etching.  I like this image, but it is really just a trial to see how aquatinting worked.  I would like to play around with it some more I think....

PICTISH WOMAN BY GILLIAN NIX

This is another Art Club submission of mine from more recently.  The theme was 'body'....

I came across this image in a book at work a few weeks ago.  The book was titled 'The Decorated Body' by Robert Brain which immediately caught my eye because of this month's theme, Body.  

I found the image above with the following information:

"A romanticised sixteenth-centuary view of a tattooed Pictish woman, by Theodore de Bry after John White.  According to Julius Caesar the ancient Britons were tattooed with animal patterns, and it is possible that the word 'Briton' is derived from a Breton word meaning 'painted in various colours".

  How very interesting!  Apparently, Pictish women were valued much differently compared to today.  They were the royal heirs, they fought in battles and the most interesting of all is that it was common for female Picts to have their bodies fully tattooed.  I love the idea of women being completely decorated with animal patterns and floral tattoos which immediately gave me some visual ideas for this month's project.

This month I have been running some life drawing classes for senior students at work.  A few times when I wasn't too busy helping students, I was able to do a few quick sketches of the life models.  This particular pose I rather liked, and chose to develop the drawing for this idea. This is a relief lino print.  (I'm sure that you are fully aware of my slightly obsessive relationship to lino - I love it!) 

I had a few difficulties when I was printing this lino.  The irregular shape and fine lines gave me many headaches, but I got some prints that I am reasonably happy with.  Hope you like it!

Gillian 

Here is the carved piece of lino...

The original life drawing sketches...

COLLABORATION FACES BY CHRIS & GILLIAN NIX

I'm back blogging a little as I kind of forgot to post these here earlier.  This submission was part of the 'ART CLUB/AROUND THE KITCHEN TABLE' project, for the month which was 'Collaboration', and I created the collaboration with my lovely husband, Chris!

Hope you like them....

We got the idea for this project after seeing some online images from an exhibition called 'The Rituals', including the work of Melbourne based artist/designer Beci Orpin.  

We completely ripped off their idea of each artist having to make an image centred around the eyes.  We began our process by finding a head template (see below) and we both came up with a design for our own 'face'.  

Chris's face is a development of one of his characters - he has tonnes of them doodled in sketchbooks and on scrap bits of paper.  I'm a little bit obsessed with patterns at the moment, and this particular pattern is one from a mug that I have at home, and is an 'Octopus' pattern someone told me once.  I don't know for sure, but I like it.

Inking up...

We used a different print press than normal.  This one is a bit like a spongey sandwich toaster and you squeeze the lino and paper together for an even print.

"SQEEEEZE!"

The magic reveal...

"SQUEEEZE.....!"

I wasn't very happy with the alignment, ha ha!

We tried a few different colour variations...

All the prints lined up and drying...

Our favourite print...

The original templates that we used to create our faces...

BABUSHKA LINO PRINT

I thought I would post a few images of my Babushka print that I did last year.  I made it for Art Club during the 'Russia' theme.  I was sorting out my artwork this week and getting things organised and dust free - and came across this one again.  I think I would like to make a series of Babushka's.  I think this lady doll seems a little stern?!  I coloured it by hand using watercolour paints.  Hope you like!

A new project

Here are some photos from my most recent lino cutting project.  It is half of a collaboration project that my husband and I are creating for 'Around The Kitchen Table/Art Club' this month.

Here are some photos from today and yesterday.  The final should be done in the next week...cough cough...hurry up husband!!!

Using the head template on tracing paper to draw the pattern for the lino design...

This is where I started cutting...

More cutting.  I enjoyed cutting today as I was sat in the sun listening to some podcasts.  The sun is great for heating up the lino and it makes it much easier to cut...

Test prints in blue...

This is a lino that I've been working on for about a year...no joke!  It's quite funny I think, as whenever I get bored (hardly ever) I do some cutting on this lino.  I took a print from it today while all the inks were out as I wasn't sure if the textures in the background were going to show up - they did - hooray!  Who knows when it will get finished, but it's always good to have background projects in my opinion.