Batik, drawing with hot wax, preserving the light.

Debby Bird, baik leaf, early stages applying hot wax drawing and washes of colour on silk.

Saturday morning saw the Gordano Textile s Artists give a talk & demonstrations to a full room in the RWA, Bristol. My colleagues did a great job, and despite a few technical gremlins with the projector, I think we were able to show our diversity, expertise and the thought that goes into our art work.

The theme was “Leaves” each of us responded to that starting point differently.

I thought for a long time researching leaf shape and what leaves do, then inspiration dawned as I ate a salad!

Leaves do the most miraculous thing, they take the energy from our nearest star and turn it into food for the whole planet. They use up the CO2 we worry about and create life giving oxygen.

Science has developed simple solar panels and only just managed to create a synthetic leaf (2011) there is nothing quite as wonderful as the humble leaf.

source image a cross section of a leaf, traced over with free machine stitch, to learn the cell shapes and flow of energy through the leaf structure.

My art work took a magnified cross section showing the specialised cells that do this amazing job of photosynthesis and I painted on silk using batik to build up layers of colour to show the form and movement of energy through the leaf. batik is so organic and free flowing it felt a very suitable medium to be working in.

Initial drawing to place under the silk.

mid stage batik, several layers of colour wash. (The wax preserves the lighter colours beneath).

 

batik stage detail

The final stage was to ad some relief and dimension to the piece, I used free machine quilting, which emphasises the shapes, and added texture.

free machine quilting, detail

Debby Bird’s, finished piece a batik and free machine quilted peice entitled “Every day Miracles in a leaf”