This is one of a series of small textile collages I’ve been working on lately. It’s about 6″ x 14″ and built on a Timtex base. This piece started with the wool fibers in the background. By accident one day, we discovered Best’s Harbour a rug hooking studio in a small town near home. The shop had a wall featuring cut wool strips in an amazing array of colorways. Couldn’t resist stocking up on a few colors.
Back in my studio, I played with the strips by dropping them onto the Timtex to create a color pattern. Then I covered the strips with a piece of netting and sewed the netting in place. The canvas is simply a piece I tore from a larger section that I had previously painted with Jacquard Lumiere metallic paint then sewed to the backing.
The hearts started out as Polaroid dye transfers but I liked the positive image better so I three out the negative, which I was supposed to use, and scanned and printed the image onto cotton – twice. The heart is actually Sculpey clay with gold leaf embellishments that I baked onto a ceramic shape. And to finish off the piece, I attached Carolina pine needles.