I have been quite busy recently and have not had much time to post on this blog, but one of the things I have been working on was some swatches for the Computer Design Study Group design exercise I posted about earlier this year.
The studies I did on the computer were bases on a section of the New York Skyline, as seen on the right.
I particularly liked the small grey block effects of the window in the top to middle section. I also liked the relationship of the colours, the greys and browns with a little of the blue and turquoise (copper roof!). Another thing that struck me were the vertical oblongs.
With the computer I used a number of effects:- mosaic, wave, stained glass and combinations of these.
The mosaic effect gave me more of the block and vertical block feeling and concentrated the colours, which really brought home the colour proportion exercise we did earlier. I decided to "lump" some of the colours together, so that I ended with just 4 main colours:- sky blue, turquoise, a marl grey and a marl brown.
Lumping the colours together gave me proportions of 48% "Rustica" (marled brown with has the red browns, in as well as the dark and lighter browns), 24% "Silver" (marled grey), 13% "Fauna" (turquoise) and 5% "Sapphire" (sky blue). These yarns were purchased from J C Rennie (Smiths of Peterhead). They are a machine knitting yarn, but weave beautifully.
I warped my rigid heddle loom at 14 epi in a log cabin effect of
blocks of 1 Rustica and 1 Sapphire x 4, 1 Fauna and 1 Rustica x 4, 1 Rustica and 1 Fauna x 4, (I Silver and 1 Rustica x 4, 1 Rustica and 1 Fauna x 4) x 2.My first swatch (on the right) was woven as threaded.
Swatch 2 (above) was woven with 1 Rustica and 1 Sapphire x 4, 1 Fauna and 1 Rustica x 4, 1 Rustica and 1 Fauna x 4 and 1 Silver and 1 Rustica x 20. I wanted to try to capture the larger vertical blocks with this swatch.
Swatch 3 (above) was woven with 1 Rustica and 1 Sapphire x 4, 1 Fauna and 1 Rustica x 4, 1 Rustica and 1 Fauna x 4 and (1 Silver and 1 Rustica x 4 and 1 Rustica and 1 Silver x 2) x 3. I wanted to try to capture the small blocks (the windows in the original) with this swatch.
Swatch 4 (above) was woven with 1 Silver and 1 Rustica x 4 and 1 Rustica and 1 Silver x 2 repeated the length of the swatch. I felt that the small repeat of 1 Rustica and 1 Silver x 2 was too small.
Swatch 5 (above) was woven with 1 Silver and 1 Rustica x 8 and 1 Rustica and 1 Silver x 4 repeated the length of the swatch and I feel this gives a much better representation of the square blocks and vertical blocks.
I have begun to develop this, using the waves and mosaic and wave computer manipulations. More to come!
