Unveiling 2 Samuel 3:16

And her husband went with her along weeping behind her to Bahurim. Then said Abner unto him, Go, return. And he returned.

This is my interpretation. You see the crying man face on the left, and Michal returning to David. Symbolized by the golden city up the hills. On the foreground is Bahurim and you see some tear drops scattered over the piece. 

The finished piece, I added the hills and the city of David and painted most of the tear drops blue.

Detail of the multi dimensional layers.

Another detail. I cut away some of the silk to reveal the face, tears and city structure.

I am glad I have finished this piece, it was almost scary to work on it. Mostly because I never knew how it would turn out. I thought about it so much and now I see the outcome it makes me happy to know how it's so multi layered in different ways. Hope you enjoy it too!

Techniques I used for 2 Samuel 3:16

This little piece has been a lot of work. Both in terms of struggling how to depict the verse as working with completely new techniques. I wanted to try working with an overlay of silk and mono printing both layers as you can see in my previous posts. So far the results:

Mono printing with added painting and fabric collage. I made stencils for both the man and the woman. Added fabric tear drops and a city structure at the foreground

Now I put my printed silk over the top, planning to cut away some silk after stitching. It still looks something is missing, but what?

I think there should be a tree, a barren, sad tree...So I made a stencil

and dabbed paint on it, and hopefully it will work, scary stuff ;) btw this is done on the cotton not on the silk

Now on the the next stage: quilting and stitching all the layers together. Unfortunately I forgot to take some more photo's of the progress. But the result will be seen in my next post!

Lots of experiments, slowly getting to the result.

I have been working on my colour-competion-piece. I don't know if it is going somewhere. I do like the top part, but don't know if the bottom part is beyond saving....Will post a picture of the top part

I will continue working on it, but at the moment I need time to ponder and see how I can proceed.

The 2 Samuel 3:16 piece slowly takes shape. Very slowly I must add..I was reading a book from Melanie Testa:

  
She uses mainly mono print techniques with thickened dyes and uses freezer paper to block images. She also works with 2 layers. (4 layers in total, including batting and backing). Over the cotton layer she always put a silk organza layer which she also mono prints. Then my quest started...finding silk organza (found a company called sentosatextiles.com and they sent me a meter for FREE, how kind!) , how to make thickened dyes. Or can I use other paints? After many hours of research I decided to use: screen printing ink, textile paint, acrylic paint, acrylic inks. And then see which one is most suitable and which one won't alter the handle of the fabric too much.

I feel like I am doing Science Projects all the time :)

I have never done mono printing either, so after watching many youtube videos I gathered enough courage to at least try. It's a fairly random process, so I should not be so scared. Nothing lost after all!
You start by putting a few blobs of paint on the acrylic sheet. Move it around with a brayer and scrape away bits of paint by using glad wrap, stamps, and basically any objects which leave a mark. Put fabric on top, apply a little pressure and take it of and Voilà!

Tools ready: Acrylic sheet, cotton, paints, brayer, comb, lino cut, stamps, ink, sequin waste, bubble wrap.

Print from a Lino cut I made. Done with screen printing ink.

Close up from Textile paint with comb strokes and bubble wrap.

Lots of random patterns.

And my piece of silk organza...It doesn't show in the picture, but it is actually quite nice. 

 

And finally...my VERY Rough draft of the piece.

I very much enjoyed the mono printing process. Will definitely try some more pieces. I think I am going to use acrylic paints as they are cheap and leave the fabric not too stiff. Hoping it will work together with the silk organza and quilting!

Blogger silence

The next verse I will be working on is the following:

2 Samuel 3:16
And her husband went with her along weeping behind her to Bahurim. Then said Abner unto him, Go, return. And he returned.

And maybe that's the reason why I have been so silent ;)
I have been thinking a lot, but have not come up with a good idea yet...
This is about Michal (David's wife) who was taken away from David by Saul her father. He gave her to another man (Paltiel). Later David claims her back. So in this verse we see Paltiel her husband, crying behind her as she is on her way back to David.

Sad story......

I know it's just procrastination, but I have another reason why I haven't been working on it :)
I have been designing and working on a piece which I can't reveal yet. If it turns out well I would like to submit it to an international competition http://livingcolourtextiles.com/
The theme is Living Colour

Another mentionable event is that Prof. Donald Knuth has placed a link to my blog on his "homepage". I received a kind email from him saying that him and his wife enjoyed my work and that he was pleased that I had found inspiration from his book. Another quote from his email:

We belong to a fine Museum of Quilts in San Jose; they might
be interested in exhibiting your work some day.

Needless to say that I am very honoured to have received this message from him.

http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/316.html

Unveiling 1 Samuel 3:16

Then Eli called Samuel, and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, Here am I.

This is the distressed cheesecloth which I painted with acrylic inks

This white cotton is painted with textile paints and is going to be the background. I want to place it underneath the painted cheese cloth so the colours will influence each other and will show through the holes. Hope it will work!

 This is a close up from my drawing with stitching added

It's very visible how the 2 painted fabrics change colour, exactly as I hoped it would do!

Another detail where I added gold foil to represent the taking away of the Ark by the Philistines

And here the full piece. I tried to express how in midst of all the dreadful events, Samuel obeyed the Lord. And as His faithful servant he came when Eli called him, to tell him what the Lord had revealed to him.

 

This was quite a journey. A lot of experimenting and trial and error. I thoroughly enjoyed the process. It was a real challenge to express all the destruction shown to Samuel: death of Eli, death of his sons, Ark into captivity, war and death. And to still make a beautiful piece.

The making of 1 Samuel 3:16

 1 Samuel 3:16 Then Eli called Samuel, and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, Here am I.

For the past 3 weeks I have been designing, thinking, erasing, re-designing, experimenting with the concept of this verse.
In verse 1 of chapter 3 we read that visions of God were infrequent in those days; thus it was a special honour for Samuel to receive a Divine message. God called him 3 times and told Samuel all that was going to happen to Eli and his family and to all Israel.

God says in verse 11 that He will be sending a terrible punishment to Israel in the years to come, something so terrible that it will "make everybody's ears tingle." This refers to the capture of the Ark by the Philistines, as described in the next chapters. The religious life of Israel has reached a truly abominable state under the corrupt leadership of Eli's sons (2:17, 22), and Eli's attempt at reprimanding them has had no effect (2:24, 25). Their rejection of God is unforgivable (verse 14).

Samuel is only a young boy (probably around 12 years old), when he received this terrible message. He has to tell Eli that his sons will die, that Eli himself will die and that the Ark is going to the enemies.

Eli surely anticipates the worst, because he has already been warned (2:33). He then calls Samuel and Samuel answers: Here am I. This is the verse I have to visualize.

I see a boy, who has to deliver an awful message to the high priest who has been a father to him. He has to hold nothing back.

I made a very rough sketch where I want to show the boy Samuel as a faithful servant of God. Around him (background) is the terrible judgement.

This is a piece of cheese cloth which I felted last year and haven't done anything with yet....so I thought if I use the back side and tear it up, make holes in it etc. It could make a suitable background.

Add caption

In the meantime I thought about a sheet of lutradur which could also work. I burned holes in it with a soldering iron and tried if it would hold acrylic paints. It did, but the result is not what I had in mind.

Then...the boy Samuel. I drew this with inktense pencils, but he looked too 'girlish', so I changed his hair a bit...but still not entirely happy with it....

 Since I would like to incorporate my family into these pieces. I found this photo of Dieuwe, our second son, when he was about 12 (excuse the rat ;-)).  I played with Picmonkey to get the shading and shapes to pop out so I could draw more easily. I am not a very good drawer

, but I like this boy

Then I got my acrylic inks out and painted the distressed cheese cloth

Up to the next stage now: planning to do some quilting around the boy and finding a way of putting it all together.....And where and how to get the verse on it. It will be a challenge, but I hope that it will turn out good!

Unveiling Ruth 3:16

This is the result of my attempt to produce a stained glass effect in fabric. The sky fabrics are hand painted, the other fabrics are commercial prints from my stash. Normally quilting should enhance the look, but this time I feel it almost looked better without quilting.
I used an invisible monofilament thread to quilt the sky pieces. Unfortunately you see little punch holes which takes away from the clean lines.

Over all I like this piece and it portrays what I had in mind. Ruth (my daughter modelled for the silhouette), returning early in the morning walking through the barley fields (hence the face faced to the left). Barley at the foreground to represent the gift from Boaz. And a green background for the hope and joy now and in the future.

Someone asked me how long it takes me to design and make one piece. It differs for each one, but on average it takes me about 20 hrs. This one is no exception.

Ruth

Mounted on canvas