More pics

Having just been successful in uploading one more picture, I'll try some more.

On the home stretch

I have now finished 15 of my 16 tapestries in this series. Whew! It's been a big year and a half, with lots of other things on the go as well. Five of these latest tapestries have been cut from the loom, but not yet 'finished'. At the moment I am contemplating a different method of mounting them.

Putting them on ready-made canvasses that I have painted with the tapestry design, doesn't feel satisfactory. I like the look of a properly mounted work and attaching them by velcro gives them an amateur finish in my opinion.

I am planning to mount each one on a black background and frame them separately. It will mean they can be hung together as originally envisaged - or hung in any order or shape for abstract viewing, so I won't necessarily have lost anything.

I now plan to have a go at adding photographs. It may or may not work. I haven't dealt with my ultra-sophisticated security system which bans uploading of my own photos onto a site of my choice.

Halfway there

Well, thanks to Trend Micro Internet Security Pro, this page is not considered safe enough to upload any more pictures. I am going to have to reconsider this blog now. I was about to announce that I am halfway there, having completed my eighth tapestry in this series of sixteen.
I will continue weaving, but I will not be able to show anyone the results of my work unless I can somehow persuade TMISP to accept my pictures.
Maybe when I press Save Now, all this will disappear too.

On-going

This is really weird. I wrote this post two days ago, but when I added the pictures they were far too big and there seemed to be no way to replace them with the same pics but smaller, so eventually I am re-doing the whole entry. The post immediately before, 'And another one', should be read AFTER this, but that's computers.

I seem to be charging ahead. From my last effort (way back in 2009), I have woven three more tapestries (though none of them are finished-off or mounted yet) and I'm nearly finished my fourth (NB this is 'And another one'). Maybe it's the weather . . .

I am really enjoying mixing strips of material with thread in these tapestries. The texture is amazing and it always surprises me what the material looks like when it's scrunched up through being woven and beaten down. I weave the thread across it every few passes, which helps secure the material - and keeps the colours on track. I am weaving the same materials here as I did in my second tapestry, but the accompanying colours give it a slightly different hue.

In my 'den' tapestry (No 2 in the sequence) I didn't have the colour material I wanted, so, impatient to start, I decided to mix threads all the way through - the only contrasting texture is the moth's mohair 'feeler'.

I have been remiss and not spent much time searching out these little moths in the patch of grassland at the Dunkeld Arboretum, as I'd planned, so I still haven't seen one of these tiny creatures, even though December-January is their flying-mating time.

A noteworthy happening: I have just been shortlisted for the inaugural Kate Derum Award by the Victorian Tapestry Workshop. Wow! I am so excited. The award is for tapestry weavers who graduated in the three years 2006-2009. I go down for the formal opening - and announcement of the winner - on February 10.

Three of my works from the Lifeblood Series - Grampians, Nigretta and Sandford - will be exhibited, together with work from the other finalists at the VTW through February.

No exhibition at Off the Rails Gallery this month (it was closed for New Year) or February, when a Draw Club takes over the station.

And another one

This one - tapestry No 15 was on the loom yesterday and I have managed to finish it in time to add yet another completed work. I'm nearly at the halfway mark now and that's a relief. One of the problems with a long-term tapestry is that you get other ideas and enthusiasms that you want to follow, but can't until you've finished the one you're working on.

Actually I have finished another unrelated tapestry - and a piece for a tapestry competition while I've been working on these, but it's not easy. I want to keep focused on this one.

Mosaic of Arts

This weekend festival was October 31-November 1 and Off the Rails Gallery featured works on the Golden Sun Moth and the environment. I showed the two completed tapestries togather with the finished designs.

The work was not hung in the 'moth' template but in a sequence across one wall of the gallery. This was to give viewers an idea of each tapestry and potential tapestry as an individual work. I plan eventually to sell the tapestry as 16 separate works (unless I can find a patron who will buy the whole).

It went well, lots of visitors and lots of comments, so I was pleased. It was written up with a preview in the local paper, which I hope encouraged visitors to the town and the gallery.

I have now started my third tapestry and am about a third of the way through it. This one has more single weft wool weaving than the other two. It is number seven.

What I enjoy about weaving is creating the colour effects as I go. I use my paintings as a guide only, and select the thread and techniques as I go.

I never seem to be able to work two pictures at once. The top one was supposed to be larger and centres and the bottom one was supposed to be smaller and to the left. Oh well, at least you can see how the tapestry was hung and the other is me with the regular tapestry display outside Off the Rails gallery as it appeared in the paper.

Design

I have almost finalised the design, in that I have a complete design, but will adjust the colours - mainly background ones - as I weave. The tapestry was not exhibited at the October exhibition unfortunately, but look out for it at the Dunkeld Mosaic of Arts exhibition on October 31 and November 1. I will not be exhibiting it as it is seen here, but will separate out all the individual designs and tapestries to display in a single line. This will give me an idea of the continuity of the piece and how the abstraction hangs together. If you can get to Dunkeld on that weekend, please call into the Off the Rails Gallery. I have been concentrating on other weaving projects in the past few weeks so still have only two completed tapestries, but the rest will be unveiled as they and the new year progress.