This began as an exercise in taking the sketchbook exploration (last page of sketchbook section) further – loosening up! I used a flat acrylic brush, loaded it with a watery mix of blue/black acrylic and danced across the surface of an A2 heavy cartridge paper, twisting and turning the brush. When dry I took a soft, round watercolour brush and repeated the dance.
Then I made a repeat pattern which is always surprising. In this case I want to loosen it up, give it more air. But before doing that I decided to see what I could do with Photoshop tools and came up with the image on the right that seems to be more 3-dimensional. When my textile class (I’m learning) restarts in the autumn I’m going to try devoré – a process whereby the chemical paste silkscreened onto the appropriate fabric will ‘eat away’ what you see here as the top blue layer.
