Pohutukawa Taonga: Gracing the New Zealand coast, pohutukawa flowers and their spectacular blossom are a national taonga (treasure). The stamped Maori words, reminiscent of sheep bale stencils, denote other treasures of my kiwi upbringing: love, family, food, respect, belonging and well-being. (Monoprints, shibori, stamping, beading and hand stitching.)
This piece was different for me both technically and in terms of process. I tend to work more improvisationally at the design wall rather than planning the design ahead of time. Also, my preferred MO is freeform piecing so a wholecloth with a shibori panel presented new challenges - there's no "undo" button when you are monoprinting!
As you can see from my work in progress post, I originally monoprinted on white cloth (twice!) but painting to colour in the background didn't seem viable so I did a third monoprint on some of Lisa's turquoise dyed cloth. Then the bubblewrap printed sea looked all wrong so I did a shibori strip using a bucket as my "pole".
I may still use my preliminary monoprint pieces. Here's a smaller piece that I have donated to the annual SAQA Benefit Auction.
While I'm at it, I'd like to put in a plug for an exhibition that I'm curating - Beneath the Southern Sky. Entries close on 25 January 2012 so you have plenty of time to work on your piece after you've completed your TT contribution:
Wonderful Brenda. Your monoprinting experimentation gives a vibrant result!Improvising can be challenging but it's the undo button of the design wall that makes it so difficult to get to the final decision and act.
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