Crochet with Digital Prints

Crocheting elements for this piece is a challenging journey.  My thoughts have been running around thinking of other configurations to use with the finished crochet, but the last few days have been spent enlarging the crochet surface on all sides.  You can see the back, front and detail of the piece so far.  

As the crochet evolves, pieces of digital prints on recycled dictionary paper are strung on the cotton in various colors.  Slow going, but the textures are amazing and as I work different words and pictures come up in the random selections of pages and words that were over printed.  I get to see all sorts of phrases and words that combine with the prints that will never be found again.  Yesterday I took one of the squares out of the mix for my journal.  Underneath the printing was a picture of several anthurium flowers. I still have one of those plants from my last trip to Hawaii.  There are tons of word treasures in the prints.

My current plan is to crochet this out with all 100+ sheets of torn paper and then complete another layer of texture to strengthen the piece to hang.  This is really digital alternative surfaces in a interesting textural composition.

Recycling Paper with Digital Prints

This new piece in the works combines digital prints on recycled dictionary pages, ice resin, cotton cording, and crochet to create an extremely textural surface.  The words play against the colors in the digital print.  Once the prints are torn and strung on the cotton cord, the prints are crocheted.  There are over 120 prints that have been lightly coated with ice resin that takes them to a shiny surface. Not sure how many prints are in this so far, but there is lots to go.  The interesting way the prints and random shapes are connected assist me in wanting to push forward.  I'm loving the textures as they combine with colors and shapes.  Slow going, but fun!

Working with Printed Metals

One of my new favorite things is using prints of printers plates, metal mesh and the usual beverage cans and mixing it up with other elements.  I have also been toying with metal mesh printed and then assembled into squares.  I'll show you the cube thing later, but for now here are a couple of the mesh pieces I have been doing for studies.

 This first pic is the study for one of my 2 ft x 4 ft book pages. Created with printed beverage cans-the base is a beverage can in a bark pattern, the next layer is a different can print attached to the top of the base can. I put the cans together with a crochet strip of a paper wrapped metal that I get from a bead store here in Prescott.  This makes the connection pliable and bendable.  Each square has hemp that connects it to the crochet.  I will be printing cans in the next few days to make a similar piece for my forest book page.

 This piece is created in a random manner.  It contains beverage can pieces and metal mesh pieces woven through a piece of black hardware cloth with copper wire.  Yes it is time consuming but pretty much most of what I do it.  Case in point is the piece below.

This has 3 layers- bottom in aluminum hardware cloth in its original silver state.  Over that is a piece of aluminum window screen attached to the hardware cloth with beads and stainless wire.  The top is cut out from a digital print on a printers plate.  The cut out has been wrapped with the same stainless wire that connected the beads.  This is a detail of the piece.

Mixing it Up

Mixing up textures creates amazing surfaces.  These detail pics show a variety of digital prints and other elements.  Included in the textures are: digital print on lutrudur, cheesecloth skin, canvas and silk.
Other materials: wire, recycled art quilts, dyed burlap, dyed canvas, crocheted hemp. piece fabric, dyed cheesecloth and denim. The fabrics are cut and assembled through the squares of 1/2" grid hardware cloth. The pieces are drawn through the mesh the way you would latch hook yarn to a canvas without using a latch hook.

Textures of Book of Forests 1 Continued

Textures featured here are another back to back section of Book of Forests 1.  The top page is a digital print on watercolor paper.  On top of the watercolor page is a pattern taken from the other print.  This pattern is printed on a bark paper purchased from an on line paper company.  It doesn't have the same texture as my amate bark paper, so now my bark paper prints come from my hand made bark paper.

Here is the opposite side of this group of pages.  It has a watercolor paper digital print base. Pieces of watercolor paper are cut with crochet added around the cut shapes.  These elements are then attached to the watercolor print base and attached to the front side before folding and adding these pages to the accordion style book.

Textures of Crochet

Crochet is often used in my work to develop textural layers. In my spare time I love to crochet for fun. Awhile ago one of my friends sent me a picture of a large work that Prudence Mapstone an incredible crochet artist from Australia. My friend, Carol Wiebe, said that Ms. Mapstone was to crochet like I am to printing assembling my surfaces. Since i think Carol's and Prudences work is amazing, I loved the compliment. (Carol's new ebook Turn a Series of Small Quilts into an Art Book shows her innovative crochet binding for journals and books.)

Playing around with a small free style crochet project shows the amazing textures in yarn and the process of this type of fiber art. This piece is being created with one yarn color and type. The yarn pictured is nubbly, lightweight and variegated. Once all the random elements are finished they will be randomly attached together to finish the piece.

Hemp and Burlap

This weeks texture comes from a new idea in the works.  This new idea will be a group of installation type books.  In order to see how this idea can develop I am working on 10  pages.  Each page will measure 2 feet wide by 4 feet in height. The construction of the first book is being worked out moment by moment.

For the start of one of the pages hemp and dyed burlap are combined with crochet.  Once this part of the page is finished,  digital prints of patterns from the Waipoua forest will be cut and assembled into the finished piece.  The books theme is forest textures constructed by mixed media and digital prints on alternative surfaces.  Right now I am experimenting with putting the first of the books together before going forward.  Starting an environment of pushing the digital print further then I have before and continuing to use my prints in textural ideas.

 This piece is 4 feet long and 8 inches wide.  It is composed of dyed burlap that has been cut and crocheted into the piece with hemp.

Detail

Texture with Digital Prints on Beverage Cans

One of my favorite elements to work with are pieces of beverage cans that have been digitally printed.
The surface is beautiful when printed and after cutting the surface and weaving pieces together it has a inviting textural look.  Handling the work has the feeling of chain mail to me.  This piece is small at 29" x 14".

The yarn in the picture is the beginning of the bottom layer.  This layer will be crocheted with the depicted dyed silk yarn.  Yummy stuff this yarn, it's from RedFish DyeWorks.  These girls are great and have beautiful Yarns and fiber.  I met them at the Handweavers Guild of America in Albuquerque this July.  Once this piece is finished, there will be more places in my work to use their fiber. Even thinking of adding some of the silk yarn to the encaustic layers as I experiment with that medium.  See my Encaustic and Digitals post on my KathyAnne Art Blog.

Forest Surfaces 17, 29" x 14"

Digital prints of beverage cans, digital prints on metal mesh,

waxed linen, crocheted fine silk yarn 

Crochet as a Main Textural Element

Crochet is something that appears in my work often.  When I was 7 my mother taught me to make my first ripple afghan.  While the ripples were not exactly in the same place in every row,  it was a great learning experience.  Of course now I know the experience taught me to stay away from patterns and ideas that were measured and you could visually see the mess ups. but when I was 7 it was frustrating and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get it right.

These textural surface were created with alternative digital prints that have been cut and then crochet has been used.  The first piece (above) has digitally printed beverage cans, strung on thin hemp and randomly crocheted with a double crochet stitch.  The piece measures 5" x 9".

This piece is created with a base of crocheted paper wrapped wire. There is an added element of a cutout of digitally printed watercolor paper with hemp crocheted encasing the cutout.  It measures 4" x 8".

The other part of the watercolor paper cutout from the proceeding piece, was encased in crochet of heavy hemp and mounted on painted board, with a digitally printed cutout on watercolor paper.
It measures 4" x 6".

Digital and FIber in a Textural Surface

Using an alcohol transfer on watercolor paper as a base,  this textural surface was created by layering 4 other elements.  A piece of dyed burlap,  rolled and wrapped with crochet became the second addition.  The crochet piece grew to cover the surface and when finished, pieces of hemp were randomly tied to the crochet with pieces of digitally printed tyvek made the final part of the textured surface.