Some of our group meet once a month to try out different techniques and build our design skills,   Recently we’ve been looking at using text in various ways in our work.  In advance of the session in March we each researched different font types and chose one or two that appealed to us, printing a few letters in each typeface.  Many textile artists use text in their work either to send out an explicit message or to provoke a response.  Some, like Sarah Impey http://www.saraimpey.com/ use the sewing machine to create words in their work.   That requires a bit more practice on the sewing machine so we started our exploration with soya wax using a tjanting to ‘draw’ with wax onto various surfaces using our fonts as inspiration.

In Dee’s piece above she has used heavy hessian-like fabric which was coloured red. This was drawn onto with hot wax and overpainted with a darker colour.  When the wax was washed off, which is very easy with soya wax,  the areas which were blocked with wax were revealed.

Caroline played with the letter A …. using a beautiful Japanese inspired design (see image below).  You can see how she has used the wax to write onto fabric. The next stage will be to add another colour, as in Dee’s piece above and wash away the wax to reveal the drawn design.

 

Helen used the letter Q as inspiration. She has used the same process, drawing with wax onto white muslin and then overpainting with blue and orange. 

 

Playing with wax on fabric is fascinating and can lead to all sorts of unexpected results. This image shows an intriguing figure drawn by Helen …..  might there be a whole new range of work on its way….!