Alice Fox final day

On the last day of the course Alice left us to develop our own ideas from the techniques we had learned. I loved this because it gave us the chance to make the work our own and each person came up with such interesting ideas.

I loved the waxing of papers and fabrics. I'd wanted time to play with encaustic techniques for ages but could never find the time to cover a surface and find an iron to use with wax and to just play with a new technique so this was such a great chance to do just that.

I'd loved the way that the beeswax made the papers translucent and that we could make the layers bind together as one. This technique also enhances the textures and colours of the papers and fabrics and makes them glow!

I used some of my favourite papers and fabrics from the past few days to make a tiny book 3" tall. I love this range of fantastic marks that have been made on these surfaces. 

I waxed the pieces by laying them onto parchment paper on the ironing board, sprinkling them with beeswax pellets, placing another piece of parchment paper over the top and smoothing over the layers with the hot iron. 

Easy! Why didn't I try this before? Definitely doing it again!

In the photo above, the top piece is eco dyed cartridge paper on the left and rusted embroidered fabric on the right.

In the photo below you can see printed tissue paper which has been bonded with wax to some rust dyed habotai silk.

I used buttonhole hole stitch to edge some of the pages. 

You can see some of the reverse sides and other pages in the photo above. Look at the print that was made by a rusty old nail! and the rusty lace.

I added vintage bone and MOP buttons and a bone fish counter with needle woven details. I also stitched across some of the pages. The stitch really complimented the waxed pages and matched the binding stitches which bind the little book together. I'm going to make more of these little books!

Thank you Alice for such a fab course! I loved every minute.

Alice Fox Summer School part 2

I'm having such a lovely time at Alice's workshops. She has introduced us to the most wonderful techniques for Eco printing and mark making with natural materials. 

Alice makes the most beautiful little concertina books and bound books with delicate marks which Mother Nature supplies and Alice coaxes onto their pages. She has shown us how to make these little books. These are some of Alice's books.

We have used rust and plant materials to colour fabric and paper. We made little parcels of paper and fabric and wrapped them around metal and leaves and onion skins.
We then submerged them for a couple of days in one of Alice's cocktails to let the rust bring out the colours and marks. She kept us so busy doing other things but we really just couldn't wait to see how they were going to turn out!

It rained hard for two whole days! We happily stayed indoors and played with new techniques with plants and rust.
We printed with leaves onto fabric and paper. We did weaving and stitching with grass and lavender, we stitched around found objects. 

On this sample, the seed heads and feather were 'stitched' into the scrim using the object to make the stitch. I added a just few real stitches to hold them there. I have made a sketchbook to store all my samples. I love the shadows that are made on the paper.

This is a close up of the feather and the wood curl.

The seed heads were woven through the scrim and then over woven with stitch. Look at the shadows!

This is one of the leaf prints on silk organza. I decided to layer it onto rusted fabric and then stitched around the leaves with some seed stitches.

This is another leaf print with lavender. I have started stitching it to some rusted fabric and have collaged it with some other fabrics and some of my found objects.

These are some more of my objects that have been partly hidden beneath net and sheer fabrics and enhanced with stitch. The limpet shell has been stitched on and the threads have been needle woven.

Day 3! We finally opened the book parcels today! It was so lovely to sit in the sunshine after days of rain and open our little surprise parcels.
Look at how time has transformed them!

Tomorrow is the last day. I will show you the little books finished, waxed and stitched and some of the other pages in my sketch book in the next blog post. Bye for now! x

Alice Fox Lost and Found

Today was the first day of the Summer School at Art Van Go.

This year Alice Fox will be leading 4 wonderful days of Eco Printing, Dyeing and Stitch and I am one of the lucky ones who managed to get a place on this great workshop.

I love dyeing with rust and natural materials and Alice's work in this field has a delicacy and depth of feeling that is breathtaking. When one of my bestest friends told me she had put my name on the list for 'Lost and Found' with Alice I was so thrilled.

We had to take along a collection of found objects to add to our work. I took some beautiful sea washed shells which have the most subtle variations of greys, blues, pinks and creamy white. They are so matte with little hints of pearly shell showing through. Others are really pitted and textured. So very beautiful.

We also had to take rusty things with us. These were for  making  prints and marks onto paper and fabric. There is a kind of magic that happens when time and chemistry combine to make Art! 

I took these huge rusty nails!

They are about 6 inches long and came from a proper old fashioned hardware shop. They were found in the back of the store room where they had been for 3 generations of the family owners. They were so amused that I wanted rusty nails and were quite happy to see them go I think. I was so happy to have them.

I will show you tomorrow what we did today. It was so lovely, so exciting and a little bit magic.