On my way - Jean has made a start........

So where am I at?   

 I now have more time .....it is fair to say I am keen to work with more of what I call my 'raw' work - the experimental stuff I have played with - rather than  more predictable stuff. I am  working on some free pieces based on the village where I live - not that many houses, but five farms - one of the farms in the centre of the village is selling off the barns for redevelopment as they are rather dilapidated. I am  using these barns as my source for some textiles pieces. It was inevitable that these barns would be lost as farm buildings given the state they were in so I want to record something of them in my own particular way.

 I am using the peeling paintwork of an aged and swollen barn door as a starting point for my first piece.


I have played around a range of different techniques to create the effect of peeling paint including using painted  fusible web  which was then distressed and also  thickened dyes over a wax resist. 


I have tried  using chiffon and organza over the fusible web and used various waddings and directional  quilting to replicate the swollen grain of the aged wood.

As ever some samples were more successful than others but I have enough to go on now to develop my ideas further for probably a small series of two or three pieces based on this starting point.
 Hope to be able to get a piece finished over the next week .
Jean Marshall