It seems like it wouldn’t be the start of a new year if there wasn’t an art collab. This year, I am starting off with the Stencilgirl Self Portrait Collaboration hosted by Tina Walker. We were challenged to create an art piece with a self-portrait and Stencilgirl Stencils. Otherwise, the parameters were wide open to interpretation. We could use any materials that we desired. I have been exploring textile art quite a bit over the last few years, so I opted to work with fabric for my piece.
If you have read my blog before, you probably know that I have been friends with Tina for a while. She is a very talented artist who happens to have her own collection of stencils made by StencilGirl. Because of her relationship with them, she often asks me to use their products in the art collaborations that she hosts. I do happen to have a large collection of their stencils as I am a fan of their products and I also want to support Tina. That being said, I am not otherwise affiliated with StencilGirl and I will not be making any money off of this post. I participate in these challenges because I find them fun.
Ghost of Myself by Christy Strickler; Supplies: Cyanotype fabric sheets by Jacquard, embroidery floss, fabric, glass beads
To create my self-portrait, I took a selfie using a portrait app which allowed me to convert my image into a painting. I printed the image onto transparency film so that I could transfer the image to fabric. Both the image and one of the stencils were transferred to pretreated fabric sheets for cyanotype. I cut the fabric into shapes, pieced them onto linen, and stitched them into place. Small glass beads were used for embellishments. My husband/partner inadvertently gave the piece a name. When he saw the portrait in cyanotype form, he jokingly said there was a ghost on my work table. I thought this fit well with the pale image of myself and with the entire peice. I chose to work with embroidery floss in various shades of blue to compliment the color of the cyanotype.
This was my first time working with cyanotype in mixed media. Prior to this, my only experience using cyanotype was in homeschool science experiments. I have to say that I love using this technique, especially with fabric. I have plans to experiment with it a little more extensively in the future. I have purchased both pretreated fabric sheets and a kit with cyanotype chemicals. The pretreated sheets make work super easy though they can be limited in size. For example, in the piece above, the round stencil was partially cut off as it was much larger than the fabric sheet. I also like that fabric scraps can be saved and used easily within my work. When I cut the large round stenciled image from the fabric, I was able to use the small scraps to cut the triangles. One of the reasons I have gravitated toward textile art in recent years is that it is something I can do while watching tv with my family. Painting isn’t really an easy option when I am in my living room. I also really love the texture that embroidery brings to my mixed media pieces. They take a little more time than painting, but I find they are really worth my effort.
It was an honour to be included in this collaboration. There were so many wonderful pieces created! Be sure to stop by Tina’s blog post to view them all.