Posts Tagged ‘Paintings’
Band costumes for Grease
Craft has a interesting image. It never seems to be taken seriously for one… When I tell people I paint, they are conjuring up an image in their heads… often romantic and a bit ethereal… but when I tell people that I’m a dress maker or costume designer, there is a different reaction… and when I tell people I sew a bit, they tend to switch off completely! So, depending on the company, and the reaction I want, I change accordingly.
I recently completed a rather exciting wedding dress (pictures below) in a sumptious peacock blue dupion silk with tailored jacket… it was designed to dance in (jive, mainly), and so had a bit of a 1950s feel to it. From design concept to completion probably took around 15 hours… more time than many of my larger sea and city scapes, and was considerably more complicated!
The band were asked to do a Grease theme birthday party… so I just had to make myself a red & white polka dot dress!
As an artist/designer/crafter(?) I have reached a conclusion that I just like making stuff, and actually, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a tea cosy, a costume for a ball, an exciting cityscape or a patchwork throw made up of small bits of old Indian fabric found in a bin liner in Camden Market….
So, if I want to impress a sophisticated audience, then I’m an artist (darling)… but usually I can’t be bothered.
Hello Blog People
In this blog I’ll describe the initial phase of a project. So many of my students “don’t know where to start”, so I thought I’d use my own studies for the C & G Embroidery course (Distant Stitch, www.distantstitch.co.uk ), and take you through….. I use this method for ALL my artworks, whether designing a bedroom, a wedding dress, a hat, a bag or creating a painting…
1. Research, research, research….
Look at what other people have done before you. No work of art is totally original. We are all influenced by the world around us.
For my course, we were given a starting point of either crosses or stars. If you are studying art &/or textiles, you will probably be given a brief… My students have just completed “The Sea”, “Cubism/Music” and “Renaissance Portraits”… If you are working totally free of all restraints, and just can’t get started, look out of the window!
I have used images from a variety of sources, including wrapping paper, wallpaper, NASA, glassworks and fabric pattern.
From these images, I began to create some of my own. I have used watercolour paint, wet on wet… using tons of water… I have also decided to use the colours Lime and Violet (I will be creating a blog on using the colour wheel a bit later). Lime and violet are complementary colours.
In part 2, we’ll go on to developing the ideas using positive and negative space, different textures and distortion.
I’ll leave you with Monty! Cate
