Two whole months since my last update, time is flying this year. It appears the further into the tapestry I go the less I remember to photograph any progress. The section I've been working on over the last couple of months has been very complicated: lots of fiddly shapes and subtle colour blends and tonal shifts. However the tapestry is really starting to push on now. I'm excited to approach the bright blue horizon...
I thought it was about time I updated the blog since a month has passed since my last post. Progress on my latest tapestry has been fairly steady as I've been working on it most days.
The lower half of the composition is the most complicated in terms of weaving so at least I know it should get easier the more it grows. I'm 1ft up now so starting to get a good feel for the piece and all the colours. Onwards and upwards.
In January I bit the bullet and warped up my biggest tapestry to date. I've had the idea and composition for this piece ready since April or May last year, but left it on the back burner as I wanted to experiment with some weaving techniques which I knew would inform this piece and future work.
This tapestry is just under 6ft tall so the loom has been extended to 10-11ft high! It was a two person job warping up.
"ebb and flow ripples"
handwoven tapestry, 2020
*SOLD*
materials: cotton, linen, rayon and wool. Woven at 10 warps per inch on cotton warp.
size: 40cm square (including painted wooden frame.)
A tapestry reflecting the ebb and flow of the tide at the Sand O' Wright beach in Hoxa, Orkney and an exploration of knotting, subtle tonal blending and textural changes through varying warp and weft thicknesses.
The photographs were taken this afternoon (09/12/20) at the Sand O' Wright beach. I've been waiting for nearly a week for a dry and relatively clear day to take photographs. It was a bit windy so slightly challenging conditions for carting around a camera bag, tapestry and a board to protect the frame from getting wet in the sand. I chanced my luck seeing how close I could position the tapestry next to the shoreline without getting swept up in the tide and I succeeded!
Here are some images of what I was working on in November. I finished the piece this week so I'll be back soon with finished images and details.
This is the second piece I was working on last month. It's a continuation on the theme of tidal line cycles which I always enjoy working from. I've actually been sitting on this particular idea/composition for a few years with the drawing pinned up on my studio wall all this time. I recently came to the conclusion that I was making it too complicated. (Who, me? Never!) It's all about the fragmented scatterings of the end of a wave against the subtle, tonal gradation of wet sand. Sometimes less is more.
It's a shame that it doesn't particularly capture on camera, but there's
a shiny, blue rayon yarn (the tall cone in the photo below) running through most of the background
which gives the tapestry a really lovely shimmering quality. The shiny background and the low relief tufting create an unusual surface which play with the sense of depth and can change quite dramatically
in different lighting.
size: 65 x 22.5cm (not including painted wooden frame)
materials: cotton, linen, rayon and wool. Woven at 10 warps per inch on cotton warp.
*SOLD*
in progress on the loom.
woven detail: I used a mixture of handtufting, single warp and double warp weft to create textural variation between the horizontal planes.
in progress on the loom
