I am now turning my attention back to the pieces I have committed to for the “Golden Textures” exhibition in Maryborough, Victoria, Australia, next february.  My proposal for this included sketches (actually manipulated computer images) of sand ripples, and a collage of some of the works I’d done using leather and stitch/quilting:

I thought I’d apply gold leather to some very dark fabric for drama, and do lots of machine stitch before quilting.  So I began – and below is one of the 4 pieces with leather applied according to one of the sand ripple patterns I’d photographed, including the relevant sketch in the lower right corner:

But at this stage, I took them down for  a few weeks to focus on something more urgent, and when I put them up again last week, I’d lost the head of steam I had- but something told me this was not the best approach after all, and that I should reconsider the leather, also that I should reconsider the background, too.  Previous sample making had caused me to dismiss gold lame (as too brassy) and metallic gold wax, sheer gold organza and gold tulle/mesh all of which were not bold enough on dark fabric.

I then thought of some nice cream canvas I have, and although I’d decided to not even try to get the ‘beach sand colours’,  I now thought perhaps I should try that with gold wax stencilled, then embellished with metallic machine stitch in thread close to the same colour, really, although it doesn’t seem so here.   I realise I’m mentally tossing up between ‘drama’ and organic shapes that really suggest ‘beach’.  And I quite like this effect:

My next move will shock some – because I then cut out every one of the applied leather shapes.  They had been bonded on and for good measure had some securing stitches  from the back of the dark fabric – there was no ‘removing’ them!   This piece of fabric with holes in it then became the stencil for gold wax rubbed onto the cream, and that’s OK – but is missing something I think:

Now I have some gold spray paint and using the same holey cut-outs I will see what gold sprayed on to both cream and black looks like:

On the top row are the overall and a closeup of the gold on cream – love it!  and the lower right the stencil  still over the cream – in process.  The lower left is actually on black – yes, that black chintz again!!! and I love it, too.  Tomorrow, when they have dried I’ll see how my gold thread stash lines up with the colour, and determine which way from here.  Definitely one thing I can do now is cut out the leather bits on the other two dark grey bits of fabric, and then the sun will be over the yard arm somewhere.