Transformations

In 1882 John Constable painted some cirrus clouds using oils. The original is in the V&A, Heres a link. 

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O82649/oil-painting-study-of-cirrus-clouds

In 2012, only 130 years later,  I attempted to copy this painting using pastels. Not quite my first time using pastels , but I am a real novice.

Then I made a felt picture using merino batts. I have used merino tops many times, but never batts before. They are very fine short fibres randomly mixed,like fluff, rather than lined up neatly as they are in a top. Interesting different, one I need more practice with !!

I then photographed this felt picture and printed this using my ordinary printed onto silk. I never even knew this was possible. 

It is not as clear as it would be as a photograph but recognizably,upside down, I think.

Finally, I felted the silk using some merino tops , yellow , white and blue fibres. I mixed some white and blue fibres together with my carders for the background. The shrinkage of the silk gives a wonderful crimped effect - unfortunately some of the colours have been lost.  

Transformed from oil on canvas,via the V&A website, to pastels on paper, to felt, then via the computer and an inkjet printer to silk and then shrunk into a small silk and felt picture, 130 years after the original was made.  

Bizarrely this small size felted silk is almost the same size as Constables orginal oil!

Crinklely clouds

The trauma of the missing vivid violet was eventually resolved by a home made and not so vivid purple. After a lot of tracing and transferring of one or two lines at a time I was close to the final intended effect. I am sure it was worth the effect, because after crinkling all defects were well disguised.

The finished and slightly wobbly printed polyester organza had to be felted. I had tried to felt polyester before with no success so I knew be it needed a lot of persuasion to felt.

So I laid out a few purple , to make the point , merino lines and then random white blue face leicester fibres. With lots of cold water and soap I eventually persuaded the odd fibre to struggle its way though the polyester and start to bring the whole thing together. What a lot of hard work.

Eventually it looked kind of laminated and normal felting with warm water could commence. I think it was worth all the effort to laminate it because when it started to felt , I was suprised that all the lines became zigzags surrounded by crinkles. Quite a cloud like texture if not cloud like in colour.

I am quite pleased with it,although its shape is a bit random ,  but I am not sure Constable would recognize it.

Block printing

Well after the random uncertainty of mono printing, I have to admit block printing suits me better. It's not that I want complete certainty and I certainly like variety, but it's just more controllable.
I made three blocks based on the shapes in the deluge. I choose, a swirl , and geometric pattern and a series of curving lines. 
I made the blocks with PVA glue on heavy cardboard. This had the disadvantage of when dry it wasn't completely level , some of the lines printing with different thickness, but I liked this effect and the more I used them , the more this evened out.

Here are my blocks after use.

I  made some backgrounds- inspiration the deluge of course.!  And printed over the top using my blocks.

I really enjoyed the random printing , but the regular one one a bit too stylized for me and not is easy to be completely regular , when you had blocks of different sizes.

Overall I would choose the random one as giving the best effect.

Looking forward now to doing some printing on fabric now.