The joy of Monochrome ...

I have loved doing this challenge, probably one of my favourite yet, when you see my piece you will understand why.....I used - buttons, a shell, lace, silk rod, paper, string, cut and sew fabric and paper, florist netting, tissue, silk string, organza, lace made with dis-solvable plastic, wool, raffia, webbing tape, pin-tucks, couching, re-verse appliqué, hand stitching, machine quilting and a stick wound with wool etc. as a colour study.

As you have realised by now I had a good hunt around and found any object, piece of fabric or paper in the relevant colour that I could recycle to create texture and interest.
However, once I had finished the quilting and left it hanging on the wall for a while I thought it looked a bit flat, so out came the white acrylic paint which finished it off nicely.

It's now stretched over a canvas and ready for the next meeting...

'Cornish Cream'

Sorry it looks a bit grey in the photo, it's actually calico and white.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

No sand…just pebbles

My piece in response to the theme 'monochrome' developed from a trip to my favourite beache on the north coast, Porthtowan, with a friend who was visiting. The winter storms had changed the beach so much that I hardly recognised some of my favourite rocks where I have sat and sunbathed many times over the years.

Lots of the sand has been scoured from the beach leaving vast expanses of dark grey rocks that weren't exposed before all the bad weather.

It all felt rather depressing as we walked along. But then I noticed all the grey and white pebbles under my feet and suddenly thought maybe here is my way into the monochrome piece...

So I collected as many different pebbles as I could get home, and then photographed them as my reference for the piece of work.
















While I was thinking about this project spotted a remnant of black fake leather in local shop and suddenly it all started to take shape in my mind.  I liked the idea of a contrast of textures and slightly unusual back ground this might provide.

I made my pebbles using a range of techniques: acrylic painted Bondaweb on black and white felts, Tyvek painted with black ink before heating, and some by making collage of mesh and fibres between layers of dissolvable fabric. Then I stitched them to backing fabric with a very fat wadding to give them as much height as possible. Once all the pebbles were made I dropped them into pre-cut holes in the leather and then attached them with zigzag stitch around the edge of each pebble.

My husbands response when he first saw it finished was "I don't know if you are genius or just very weird!" Here is the final result. You decide!

Thanks for reading, Chris