Several posts (months?) ago I spoke of some painted fish, and those are now done. I had a terrible time coming up with a method of colouring the background fabric,and after several attempts at controlled painting, ended up going back to the" tried and true" low water immersion dyeing. The fish, themselves, are painted on a separate piece of white fabric and then cut out and fused onto the background, before being augmented with thread painting. In my research into Carp I found such variety of shape and colour (mainly colour) that I felt I had no choice but to use a stylized version of the fish. So if you find errors in the anatomy of the Carp, keep it to yourself. The background fabric is really much brighter, but I covered it with a layer of printed organza, to create the idea of the fish being under water. In the close-up photo, this creates some lines that aren't really there, but almost seem to add a bit to the picture.
The second piece was almost a last minute addition. I continue to enjoy the results of low water immersion dyeing with old cotton Damask linens. The colours seem to glow. With Resurrection all of the components have some aspect of recycling/re-purposing. The Cotton Damask was bought at a thrift store and dyed. The Tyvek is from a mailing envelope. It was altered with heat and then hand painted. Most of the beads were left over from other projects, or bought at garage sales and flea markets, but I had to buy two short strands of yellow turquoise for the colour.
I'm finding that I don't really like using the cotton Damask for binding. It is just too loosely woven for any strength, and the grain lines keep bending. Lesson learned.
I have one last picture to add. Just before Christmas I used some of the mono-prints I had been making, and made up some smaller, shoulder purses. they are heavily machine quilted, and beaded. I took three of them into a gallery, where they were well received, and then later, took three into another gallery, where they are now offered for sale. Here is a picture.
