Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Weeds - Children Make Daisy Chains


Another piece in my series on appreciating weeds. 12 x 24 inches or 15 x 30cms

I screen printed a child on an a mockup of the green earth and blue sky. It seemed OK but a tiny bit pale so I added a bit more grey and printed the children using my own handcut stencil on my actual piece. Horrors they looked far too dark. Left the piece for a few days and then decided to overprint the children with a paler shade of grey. I did this by carefully placing the stencil over each image and then placing the screen to add the additional fabric paint. They were apppaling like plasticy extrusions!! They looked worse each day, then a friend suggested covering the piece with organza. In my unusual fabric bag I found  a sheer organza with flowers and leaves so applied that to the children but it was such an improvement. Not sure if it was the answer but I added the daisy plant, looks more like the button daisies than the wild ones but I have had positive feedback about them so will leave it as it is.

The sky and ground were made with stencilling, dyeing, sun printing etc. The green daisy band and binding were sun printed. This will make my third piece posted – I only started half way but I am working on another piece and hope to have six in this collection so if it is Ok with members I will post them as I complete them.

Now to get my head around thinking of something for 2014. Posted on a gloriously warm day in December, unusual for here in Northern Ireland

2 comments:

  1. Irene! What a lesson in perseverance!!! I sometimes wonder just how many pieces have been "saved" by sheer organza of one kind or another. So glad you didn't give up. I like the children as non-descript as they are in this piece. It lets the viewer place themselves or their children in the picture. At least that is what I found myself doing. The daisy plant (button or otherwise) does pull the concept all together. Congrats for hanging in there. It was worth it.

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  2. If you feel that the children are still too dark, have you thought of adding another layer of organza over it? And it might not be a wild daisy plant, I love it :-)

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