A Whole Load of Samplers! The Prints.

In one of the last posts for this section, I'd like to talk about the large sampler exercise right at the end. In this case, I was asked to make a larger sampler of my own choosing, in any method, with any fabric. I couldn't decide which technique I liked best - my goal being to make a fabric that would be quite graceful, and not too loud, with blues, greens, and black as the main colours. I chose three methods to take forward to the final stage: lino printing on green crushed velvet, lino printing followed by fabric painting on dark green drill, and stencilling onto black stretch velvet. Details on each print can be found below. Each print is approximately 75 x 100cm. Firstly, the green crushed velvet.

This first sampler is printed on a very difficult fabric to photograph! I've chosen this image in particular because it shows the range of colours produced by the fabric base. A standard kind of green-yellow in shade, and a lovely silvery blue in the light. For the most part, this print came out well - in a technical sense. There are few areas where the blocks weren't aligned or pressed right, and in the areas where painted 'bridges' between the blocks were necessary, the pile of the fabric didn't clump together, though in my earlier, smaller samplers, it did tend that way. I'm pleased by the fabrics I've gotten from my main block, and happy enough with the texture of the fabric, and how it's developed a print that in many ways was quite plain.

This second sampler on green drill is more of a work in progress. It's made with a lino block again, obviously - but the fabric paint additions are notes for later work. I think it'd be a good idea - a similar idea to what I was trying to achieve with my earlier stencil of extra leaves - to add more realistic leaves at random across the fabric, to make the repeat area appear larger. The different colours of the leaves seen here would act as a base - the tones of the painted in leaves spread about accordingly. Some with a blue tint to them, some with yellow, some with a brighter green. It might also be an interesting idea to make another sampler like this one, but give some or all of the leaves yellow-brown tips and outlines.

My third large sampler is a rather strange shape. After testing both kinds of black velvet available (see previous post) - the scraps I had left, and the new, cheaper stuff that is available to buy near me, I decided to use my remaining older and higher quality fabric to make a sampler about the same size as the other two featured in this post. Unfortunately, the fabric wasn't quite wide enough to fit the stencil across for a full repeat in the last column. That wasn't my only mistake, however! As you can see, despite my efforts at stretching and pinning out the material to avoid the stencil slipping, there was an incident. The action of the sponge meant that at one point, the stencil slipped down the fabric vertically, giving a strange, ghostly effect to the lower third of the middle column. However, if that particular mistake is ignored, the main effect of the fabric, in my view, is of an interesting mixture of sharp and distorted, bright and subdued, and with contrastingly dappled and bold lighting. It's a difficult piece to describe in physical terms. It's less prickly in the areas with paint applied than the crushed velvet, and much darker 'in person' than this photo would have you believe. Out of the three featured here, I would have to say it's my favourite, albeit the hardest to make!