ANGEL (WAP #19; Istanbul)

 This week I approached my art project with anticipation.

I knew what I wanted to use as my inspiration & I also had an idea of what I wanted to try doing & how.

One of the most beautiful features of Hagia Sophia, in my opinion, is the Angel. High up on one of the walls, huge wings taper down towards the earth.  Magnificent as they are, it is the face surrounded by a golden halo that consistently takes my breathe away.  It was therefore this section of the stunning mosaic that I wanted to focus on.

 I began by cropping a photo to a pleasing composition & then printing it out to A4 size.  Given that our trip to Istanbul was in 2011 & about 4 cameras ago, the photo quality of these snaps are not particularly good!  Therefore the image came out  blurry & rather ephemeral.

I liked it!  My initial thought of drawing the face was supplanted by the possibility of transferring it from photo to fabric in someway.  I'd give more thought to that once I had made headway with the background.

 My plan was to create a patterned halo in golds, using some of those decorating Hagia Sofia as my design source.

This meant it was time for visual note taking!
My workroom is an extension of my home.  As I'd just put a load a laundry in the machine, I decided to only allow myself as much time to 'note take' as it took to do a  laundry cycle! So for 45 minutes I scanned my photos & book, closely inspecting the patterns & jotting them down with my copic pens.  These would direct my design making.

 After creating a design in pencil, standing back from it, tweeking it a bit & then applying black marker, I finally had  a clear idea of how my background was going to be achieved.
It was therefore, time to rummage through the fabrics.

Although it seems to be only a small selection, I was going to use some of these in more than one 'sandwich' of layers, so in parts there would actually be 7 layers of fabric on top of the backing, not 4!  This was going to take some serious concentration!
The phone was turned to silent!

Before proceeding, I had to also make a decision about my Angel's face.  How was I going to apply it?

I chose to use iron on transfer paper.  This is not a tool that I have had a lot of practice with, but one of the things I DO remember, is that the image comes out inverted.  Therefore I needed to take that into consideration.

So I flipped my background design over & stuck it down to the lightbox and voila...the whole design was inverted & could be copied from the back !  Just as well I use a black marker that tends to show through the paper!!

 The fabric was cut, the ironing was done & it was time for the layering up of the base to begin.  The first lot of machine sewn design went ahead without a hitch, before I layered up the next lot of fabrics for the next section of the design.

There were 3 separate sewing sessions completed before I could finally cut back.

Because I wanted to make space for my Angel head, I chose to cut back the top layer of the base section first.  So far so good.
I decided to transfer the face image onto this next layer of fabric, before cutting it back, partly because I was concerned about space & I was curious about whether it would work.

So that's what I did.

 

 The results were not ideal.
However, I wasn't disappointed.
Experimenting is how we learn & it is in this process that we make unexpected discoveries.

The transfer paper had not been a full A4 size! (Grrrr) Therefore, when it was printed, I needed to make a decision about whether I wanted the head to fit neatly into the hollow (ideal) OR whether I wanted the bottom line to align with the base of the design.  I chose alignment, which did mean that part of her face would overlap with the lacy patterning.

Another thing I learnt, was that the colour of the fabric one is applying the transfer to, impacts on the colour tones of the image.  If I'd transferred the face onto the lighter colour fabric that became the outline, the face wouldn't have come out so dark.  If I'd transferred it onto a completely separate piece of fabric and then appliqued it in place once all the cutting back of the background was completed,   I could have manipulated the positioning  &  more effectively covered up the overlapping lacework.

However...wisdom comes in hindsight!  This is the value of doing samples, to find the potential glitches & then problem solve.

To be honest, I actually liked the darker image & although not ideal for this piece, I did like the effect of applying a transfer over a cutback design.  In fact, I kind of wished I'd created a complete cutback pattern for the interior of the halo, as it could have been quite an interesting outcome for the complete face to be on pattern.

Something to try another time, when I have purchased more transfer paper!!!

For now, there was more cutting back to do.

 Once the cutting back was complete, I had a problem to solve.  How was I going to make that gap of background fabric where the head SHOULD have fitted nicely, less obvious!

I thought about the source & then I thought about my resources!

The original is a mosaic.
The transfer had been cut out from the (almost)A4 sized detail, which meant, there was still a whole halo of transfer paper left.
What if I cut it into tesserae & ironed it onto the background?
There was nothing to lose by trying, so that's what I did.

This is the final result & I am very pleased with it.
I must acknowledge that it is a complete fluke that the tesserae came out so dark & consequently balanced the darker tones in the ring.
All in all a fun & exciting experiment, even if not entirely what I had originally envisaged.
Goodness knows what I'll get up to next week!  See you then.