Trying Another Background

After seeing all my bits and pieces for the assessment piece, Sian gave me some more ideas for backgrounds, one of which was to try plain white panels set at angles. I like this idea - it can look interesting by itself while not being too busy when the projection is going. Here are some photos of my trials using artist's stretched box canvases - the mysterious dark shape at the right is a metre rule to show the scale. I haven't worried too much about placing the canvases other than trying to echo the lines/shapes that will appear - the arrangement would need to fit the space where it is being shown and the size of the projection may vary. I was hoping to get some strong shadows as well but may have to wait until the summer - it is cloudy and wet this week and we have had virtually no daylight in the house. The three pictures below show stages of the animation - the odd colour is because the canvases are bright white but the wall is slightly peachy. My husband has been very understanding about the blu-tac marks on the wall but I think he would draw the line at repainting it white just for a photo.

Picture quality isn't brilliant - it is a case of juggling focus on the projector and the camera and not getting in front of the light. It is quite interesting to see the slide projection close-up on the canvases as the greys split into different coloured pixels. One rainy Sunday, I should try copying the design in paints onto a spare canvas.

Animation Frames

In case it is not working, here are some stills from animation 1 on my website to get a flavour of it. The animation cycles through overlays of these images on a loop, so the second one gradually appears on top of the first and the first fades out. Then the third appears on top and the second fades out and so on ad infinitum. It is not as interesting as the black and white one but quite soothing.

Module 2 Chapter 3

Samples for contemporary laidwork - incorporating a shape. Three trials to interpret the design. Clockwise from top left - design on paper; machine stitching and strips of fabric over fabric shape; machine stitched shape overlaid with grid; threads wrapped over a frame held with hand stitches, shape created by stitching another grid on top. The second picture is a close up of this. The colour scheme refers back to work from module 1.

Sample for Background

A quick addition to the last post - a scaled down sample for a fabric background (20cm square). Top a scan of the sample, below it is overlaid with one of the frames from the animation printed onto a transparency.

Some further thoughts on using this piece in different ways 1) get individual frames professionally printed onto box canvases and hang as a series. 2) use individual frames as a basis for further digital development eg as a tube in Paint Shop Pro 3) play with simplified version with software for embroidery machine to produce repeatable motif.

Assessment Piece

Work continues on this piece (see September entries). I have finished the animation finally and need to sort out a background. Unlike the earlier drafts, I haven't published the animation on my website because the file is so large.

To clarify my ideas for the background, I have tried blu-tacking various things to the wall and projecting images onto them to get an idea of the effect. I have done this simply by printing small images onto OHP transparencies and using a slide projector so they are very grainy - the real thing would be better quality (I hope). In the photo below, the wooden stick on the left is a metre rule to give a sense of scale.

The first picture shows various pieces of fabric keeping the blue theme from earlier work - all but one are from my dyed samples so I could repeat roughly the same colours. If I used a fabric background, I would wrap toning threads around in straight lines to echo the paper samples. To see what I mean, see Animation 1 at my website.

An alternative idea is to use a metallic background so I tried sticking up a few different metal samples - eg puree tubes, shim, drinks cans coloured by heating (these are all bits I already had stashed away). From the picture below left you can see there is a problem with reflections and with some parts being too dark to show the image. The piece of metal at the bottom right of this picture with the clearest image is brass shim which has not been used and is smooth, but as it would be rather boring by itself at full size, I heated it over a picnic stove to add some colour - see picture below right.

There are of course other options - I like the idea of using something old and rusty but so far haven't found anything suitable. It needs to be a bit over 1m square and portable enough to wall mount for exhibiting (or maybe lean against a wall). It would also need to be fairly light coloured to show the black lines clearly - all suggestions gratefully received!

Perhaps I could create a project by taking a projector out and about to different locations and filming the results - for example by running the animation against some storage containers or warehouse walls or a gasometer. Now all I need is a fairy godmother with a data projector (is there such a thing as a battery model?) and a camcorder.

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Four little samples loosely based on laidwork. Clockwise from top left 1) scraps of fabric held in place by a grid of long stitches and cross stitches 2) torn fabric strips laid on soluble fabric, threads couched down with lines of machine stitching. Dissolved and applied to background with rows of running stitch 3) dyed pelmet vilene, wireform held down with long stitches, couched stuffed cotton ribbon, on top a grid of long stitches held down with small stitches at the intersections 4) close lines of long stitches, lines of tailor tacking held in place with cross stitch.

Module 2 Chapter 2 Continues

This is the second batch of designs based on laidwork. All of these were made using artist's masking fluid and I wanted to do these to have a more consistent colour scheme from which to work samples. Unfortunately, in some places the masking fluid stuck fast and wouldn't shift without tearing the paper even though I used the same paper as before.