Module 5 - Chapter 9

Crowds

5.9.1.
I made a large collection of crowds, many of which I decided were not suitable later when I thought about what I was going to do with them.

Stencils and templates
I got off to a bad start by selecting some runners. Having made the stencils and done a couple of pictures with them, I realised that the poses were too similar.

Back to the drawing board. But I still didn't find any figures I liked, so in the end I made up my own by going back to my articulated card figures and (since I did Tai Chi for some time and liked it) decided to use these poses.

This first one is done on a page from a newspaper that seemed appropriate with the background and the second with the  figures cut out of hand painted papers is done on a paper bag that I got when shopping in Hong Kong. I knew it would be useful one day

This green/blue one is done on a lightly collaged background, the next one painted background and the green background is a copy of a quilt back.

Monoprinting
This is the first time I have done monoprinting using many colours together on the same piece of paper by flipping it back and forth. I rather like the effect though I think the fabric paint used was a bit to runny in some of the colours. The blue topped lady looks like a turnip head.

Well fabric paint is not too bad, but then when I went to acrylic things got much worse. I tried some Liquatex medium to thin down the acrylic, but it still started to dry so fast that I ended up with a very quickly done rather fat outline.

Next another mixture, but still no good

The previous week-end which was very hot, I had been trying and got a lot of rubbishy results, when I looked at the temperature in the conservatory it was 24 degrees!  Oh I will be pleased to have a room of my own - soon. However I have made a lot of notes on the various mixtures used so these will be useful in the future.  My folder is absolutely bulging with pages that  are failures, but it isn't a waste if I remember what went wrong.

A while ago I was using someone else's printing inks and although it is not relevant to this module, I thought I would add a couple of dry point pictures that I did then.

I have got some printing ink of my own, but the barn didn't want to give them up when I went searching this time.  I will find them and have another go at this monoprinting. Perhaps by then I might have a "place of my own" and a little of my sanity back.