Breaking News

I'm sorry to say that computer gremlins have reeked havoc on some of the images on my blog and I have not been able to correct the problem.  In this case, the process shots are missing, but I was able to restore the image of the finished piece, and some close ups of the stitching which are at the end of the post.

No, I don't have anything particularly exciting to report other than I've finished a piece I've been working on rather extensively over the last few weeks.  'Breaking News' is the title of my newest mixed media piece.  It started with a cup of tea...

Last summer Doeteke, a friend of mine, was saving tea bags to use in her art and as I was drinking a cup of tea a couple of months ago I remembered this fact and started to save my own tea bags.  Then,  in April, Heather presented our GOE group with a challenge that involved using newspaper and the wheels started turning.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

My first idea was to create a collage using wine labels and an article in the newspaper that talked about Copula's vineyards in California.  I decided to get my colour palette from the tea bags: mostly browns with some reds (from the herbal fruit teas).  I started with a piece of muslin, some acrylic paints mixed with gesso (thanks to something Leah, another friend and member of GOE, had said about a piece she was experimenting with) and my old driver's license, which I used to apply the paint.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

My next step was to use some matte medium to collage the wine labels (searched on-line and printed 'cause I just don't drink enough. LOL) and newspaper pieces (torn from the article mentioned above).  I then layered on some random pieces of hand-dyed cheese cloth to give it more texture.  So far it was going nowhere and I was feeling discouraged.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

I pulled out more paint, this time adding various metallics in coppers and golds as well as the original colours I had started with.  I also collaged some of the tea bags on at this point to try to get more of a subtle effect with the wine labels.  The tea bags are great for this because they have some opacity to them.  I was beginning to see hope at this point.  Ironically however, the more paint I added the less of the underlying collage I could see.

I have also been experimenting with rust dying lately and thought that some of the rust dyed fabric would work well on this piece.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

I cut several random circular pieces (freehand so they wouldn't be perfect), and I started laying them on top of the painted piece, auditioning their placement.  I settled on a gentle curved path that rose up from centre left and then curved down toward the bottom right corner.  The piece was looking too monochromatic at this point so I added some bits of a sheer black fabric to break it up a little.

I then grabbed a paint brush and some white paint to give it some pops of accent colour.  I started by painted the three circles near the centre left and then I created another random pathway, using straight lines and adding a few square shapes.  I also did some stamping using an old potato masher.  As I was adding the white I was sort of wishing I hadn't because it was just too glaringly bright.  

Seeing as the paint had for the most part obscured the newspaper and wine labels, I wanted to bring in some more newsprint (Remember the GOE challenge!) so I started tearing narrow strips and collaged them overtop of my white painted lines.    It was perfect to knock back the starkness while still keeping some accent.  A few more teabags were collaged over the potato masher stamps to knock them back a bit too.  By the way, at this point, the vineyard article was long gone and I was using newspaper from the front page of the paper.  That's when the name of the piece came to me.  Breaking news.  I was literally breaking (or tearing) news stories, and I was seeing words about killings, blood, etc.  That and the random areas of red paint, the footprints (or are they finger prints?) created by the potato masher stampings, and I began noticing 'evidence' appearing as if at a crime scene.

The next step was to layer it with batting and a backing and take it to the sewing machine for literally hours of intensive thread sketching/quilting.  I used a coppery red colour thread to highlight some of what I now saw as blood stains, as well as doing the pebbling effect on the rust dyed circles for some added texture.  A gold thread was used to bring out some of the areas that had been painted with the metallic paints, and the rest was stitched with a subtle taupe colour to create texture while at the same time pushing those areas back a bit.

Here are a few close up photos showing the stitching.  Click on them to enlarge, if desired.

And finally, here again is the finished piece, trimmed and ready for hanging.  I photographed it on a black background so that you can more easily see the shape of the finished piece.