Messing Around

[wpg]
This is just a bit of mucking about with some spattered silk dupion as the background. Then I added a section of sequins already bonded onto net tulle, some previously painted silk cut out and appliquéd on in leaf shapes and circles and some ribbon printed with flowers cut out and sewn down. I trapped a large sequin that had other little sequins bonded onto it behind the tulle. I then embroidered part of a digitized flower and leaf design in green and drew over bits with silk paints to get more little flowers and some shading on the embroidered leaves. The sewing machine is playing up at the mo, the bottom tension is causing a lot of bunching of thread and keeps breaking…it’s a bit frustrating because I have to keep stopping and checking what’s wrong with it – not sure whether the machine needs re-calibrating as this seems to be an ongoing issue…aaarrrggghhhh!

I don’t think I will really be using this for anything as I’m not really that happy with the background colour and there isn’t a real focus to the imagery. But it’s a useful technical experiment. Particularly with the silk pens – trying to get the fine detail that is possible with pitt pens on paper recreated on fabric. It’s not so easy because there is the texture of the fabric to consider which is not necessarily as smooth as paper and there is always a little more bleed with silk pens compared to pitt pens. This can be reduced by using anti-diffusant but it can also make the colours of the paint appear less vibrant.

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Nicky Perryman

Hey, I'm a textile artist based in the UK. I like playing around with fabric paint, stitching both hand and machine embroidery and I have far too many sequins. I'm inspired by nature, its mysteries, subtleties, delights and complexities. The outer natural world has its counterpart in the inner spiritual world and I am also inspired by folklore, poetry, fairytales, stories of long ago when the spirits of nature seemed less shy than they do today, as well as my own shamanic journeys into the dreamland.

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