Ups and Downs of Life

I just loved making this piece. I used some linen I had dyed some time ago. I screen printed - up, down and a graph.  These were done using a stencil I cut. I then stitched a grid so I could accurately place the stamped letters. They can be seen if you click on the image to see it enlarged.
I had intended to print - down - in green but forgot before I had even got to the first one. I was looking forward to seeing the pattern made by the coloured lettering, I was pleased with the spread of the red ups. I had so many phrases to choose from.
Irene MacWilliam

Restless theme

Initially I was a bit flummoxed by this theme and could only think of the song, The westward wind is a resless wind.
Then the idea came to me when I was busy doing something else. I found  a piece of fabric that had been created for backgrounds for my year quilts. I had sort of paint dyed it unevenly, then splodged on some other paint, it had then gone to a workshop where we were doing printing and screen printing but the paints we were given more or less washed out as they were designed for paper printing. I was dubious about their stability though the tutor had said they were fast once ironed.... hence my washing of the fabric; washing fabric is not my usual practice.  I stenciled the rectangles with some old smelly fabric paint from 1995 (smell goes once it has cured). Made a stencil and then using a home made screen and binder with dye colours (Colourcraft) I screen printed the boy images. Lettering is stamped using childrens' foam letters. I then free machine quilted the piece. For wadding I used a piece of old old black supposedly 2 oz polyester, dreadful stuff but it does use it up. I hate throwing out stuff and look at everything with a view to recycling somehow.

Irene MacWilliam - Sticks and stones may break my bones.

Been somewhat preoccupied by family matters so took the easy way out for this theme. I just played so that I felt I was being creative.
I took some old sheeting and immersed it in some dilute dylon silk paint to give a blue haze to fabric, I was hoping for more mottling. I then used a new thermofax screen to give a feeling of small stones, another screen gave the stick pattern. I then used a home made screen and stencil I cut to make the 3 figures. I tried out nozzle bottles for the text but they were not suitable for this size writing as the uneven blobs are too intrusive.
Text ---- Sticks and Stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.
I used blue dyed fabric with another abstract line design for the backing. Line quilting in short lines to represent more sticks.
An unexciting piece but it was fun just using so many different screens. I used to think screen printing was so messy that one needed to be doing a lot of it to warrant the preparation of an area for it but I actually find it is easy to just do 2 or 3 prints without making any mess.

Girls and Boys come out to play by Irene MacWilliam

Childs Play - theme

A sun print using Dye-na-flo and setacolor, then the figures were screen printed using a stencil. Writing of nursery rhyme, using acrylic ink in pen bought from Art-van-go. 

The background represents the tangled life of childhood with lots of images of childhood, monsters, stars, halloween skull and bones, christmas trees etc.

Summer Adventure - Birds of a Feather

This piece was made from an old sheet.I used a home made stencil and a small home made screen for the screen printing. I got my husband to show me how to use a mitre saw so I could make small screens of various sizes. The writing was my first attempt with a nozzle shaped bottle. The binding is just pinned so I have the hemming to do while watching TV.

Gillian's Chickens

Inspired by..... This has been a very difficult challenge for me as I seldom work from images or text which was what the title implied to me. I have been thinking a lot about my friend who is ill and her hens so I decided to do a piece inspired by her hens wandering round her garden.

I first coloured some white cotton with inktense blocks and pencils. I then drew in lots of grasses using, paints, acrylic inks, Derwent Inktense blocks and pencils, Derwent Aquatone pencils and gel pens. I stamped the flower shapes with household rubbish and home made stamps and further embellished them with the same products. I screen printed the straw/sticks of the centre panel.

I then used free machining to draw in the hens.

I thoroughly enjoyed the making of this as using many of these products is fairly new to me.

Sorry for putting this in again but I forgot to include the image to go with the text. Apologies for a repeat of the text.

Irene MacWilliam
www.macwilliam.f9.co.uk

Gillian's Chickens

Inspired by..... This has been a very difficult challenge for me as I seldom work from images or text which was what the title implied to me. I have been thinking a lot about my friend who is ill and her hens so I decided to do a piece inspired by her hens wandering round her garden.

I first coloured some white cotton with inktense blocks and pencils. I then drew in lots of grasses using, paints, acrylic inks, Derwent Inktense blocks and pencils, Derwent Aquatone pencils and gel pens. I stamped the flower shapes with household rubbish and home made stamps and further embellished them with the same products. I screen printed the straw/sticks of the centre panel.

I then used free machining to draw in the hens.

I thoroughly enjoyed the making of this as using many of these products is fairly new to me.

Irene MacWilliam
www.macwilliam.f9.co.uk