Sunday 6 April 2008

in another life and cyanotype


a million years ago, after art school and before i was frank and arthur's mum, and before lusummers, i had a fabric shop with my mum...it was a brilliant experience for nearly six years, but then i found out i was having a baby and decided to close up because i didn't want to work full time and try and be a mum at the same time. we sold the premises which was really sad...because i had the most enormous studio at the top of the shop in an old barn. we used to have workshops in there too, but most of the time (when i had a day off, or we had extra help in the shop) it was mine to play and experiment in. the downside to this wonderful set-up was it was a bit of a busman's holiday...by the time i had finished helping everyone else with their fabric projects, i wasn't really in the mood to do my own thing. anyway, one technique i did have a go at was 'cyanotype' printing otherwise known as sun printing. there were many scary sounding chemicals involved in this process, and since then i have found out you can get various fabric inks that do the same job, which are brilliant. to get to the point, this morning whilst i my jimmy-jams (the best time for working, i always find) i found my old sun prints and lo and behold created these rather delightful magnets.

6 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Wow, that sounds fab, do you have any photos of the barn and studio, sounds so so nice :)

Re:form said...

If I wear my pjs more will I get more inspiration.... cool blog

Gillian Mowbray said...

These are neat. They look almost like batik.

The Hobbit said...

I liked the red and white,but, when I saw these I just stared at the screen and said wow.Not too loud mind you I,m suppose to be working up here.............

JuicyFig said...

wow - been dreaming of having the same set up myself for years, but I can see what you mean about the busmans holliday thing - same happened to me ALMOST with my African Drumming now I teach it - variety, thats the thing!

Kath
x

Anonymous said...

barn and studio and fabric shop sounds like an ideal existence - do the boys know what their mummy gave up? I'm about to move into my own barn (modern australian version, a big tin shed really!) with my own studio where I can put all my "crap" as Mr greenolive calls it and play as much as I like!