I've been working on a very colorful and large commission. In order to experiment with color, and also show the client how the front and back sides of monoprinted and painting fabric can look completely different, I made a sample as I was also painting the fabric for the commission. I also stitched the sample fabric with black thread, to show how that would look.
The result from the sample is 12 x 12 x 12 July 2016.
The right side of this piece is the front side of the fabric, and the left is the back. Notice it almost looks batiked on the left side? That's the different layers of fabric paint resisting additional layers.
The small circles on the right and left sides are thin pieces of acrylic skins of photos of a neighbor's lawn with leaves last fall. The large black circles were handstamped with rubber erasers.
This is my tenth year working on my 12 x 12 x 12 series. It gives me time to create one 12" x 12" x 1" piece on board each month. It's a wonderful opportunity for me to experiment with an idea or technique or a combination of both. Some of the pieces over the months and years have been really good, and others not so much. The only rules I have are that I have make something in the given month, and I can't throw the work out, even if it's unsuccessful.
Last autumn I took hundreds of photos of leaves or pine needles to use in the 2016 12 x 12 x 12 series. Part of the challenge is to figure out different ways to incorporate them each month. I almost decided to not use the acrylic skins of photos this month, but then realized the circles would be a good addition to the design.
