Saturday, June 14, 2008

Prints

In my quest for Fifties-inspired textiles I found Angie Lewin and her fabulous linocut prints - together with her textile designs, available from St.Jude's - they are contemporary but have a distinct retro feel that I love

These cushions remind me of some other lovey designs from Heather, at SkinnylaMinx, that you can find on Etsy

...my first reaction would be to go and put some golden yellow warp on the loom...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really like the simplicity of this design (movement and the flow of the flowers) and the use of only two colors.
Luisa

Anonymous said...

If you did a weaving project, how wonder how that would turn out in weaving?
Luisa

Donatella said...

I've been thinking about it - I wanted to post something about the design process and how you turn inspiration into a fabric - but I was busy getting married! - anyway, usually it's a matter of shapes and colours, and of course weave structures! You use an image as a starting point and then feel free to experiment. In this case I would like to emphasize the positive-negative effect of yellow-white and develop the idea of simple lines/contours to describe or maybe only 'hint' to a certain shape. I hope I'll be able to work on it soon and maybe show you some pages of my sketchbook!

Anonymous said...

Grazie for your comments. It would be interesting to see the process of your weaving creation once you will be able to work at it. Personally I have never worked from an image as a starting point. After I decide with what colors I would like to work with, I gather my cones and usaully spontaneously I put the colors (yarn) together, in a small piece of board(wrap it around), and then see how it looks and feel. I will do a few of this because the combination is infinite, before I decide with which one I am going to go for the project.
Tanti auguri per il tuo matrimonio.
Luisa

Donatella said...

Grazie Luisa! I am now a married woman!!!
The process you describe is another way to approach to the loom, more spontaneous and less connected to a source of inspiration. On the other hand, if you use something, you are sort of "constrained" to work within the boundaries of your chosen inspiration source - and this usually ends up in pushing you further than what you'd have imagined. I did not mention it before but all this work is only carried out by sampling, sampling and sampling!

Anonymous said...

I am not sure what a married life would be like, but I am sure quite different than being single. Well, it's great to be happily married with a person one gets along with.

Now that I remember there was one time that I did take a workshop and the teacher told her students to take a magzine and take pictures one liked, and work from that. So,I kind of knew, but I never got around it and put it into practice. Sometimes,
I find myself when I have to do something differently than what I am used to, I am a little reluctant at first to the new approach. I will give it a try and use the different approach next time around.

By sampling, you mean that you do lots of small weave samples on the loom before doing your final piece, right! I imagined and I am aware of it that you have a process before doing your final piece. I have heared many times from other weavers and Handwoven magazine, to always work on samples before doing the final project.

Luisa

Anonymous said...

Hi Donatella,
I forgot to mention to say thank you for reply. I appreciate your answers.
Thanks,
Luisa

Donatella said...

Luisa,
you're welcome!
That's exactly what I was talking about - I make samples, I change my mind, I get new ideas, I feel free to experiment (and of course I would never do that on the warp for a final project)..and I usually end up with more material to work on, and even those gone 'wrong' are usually very good starting points for other projects. The whole process is a lot more conscious.
Have a go, you'll like it!