Black Saturday for NZ...

It goes without too much saying that we are all reeling from the devastating earthquake which struck in the early hours of Saturday morning in the Canterbury region of New Zealand. And then later in the same day a plane crash which killed nine people. The earthquake was the same magnitude as that in Haiti. Fortunately, its timing, our building regulations and low density housing avoided such a tragedy, and no one has been killed. There will be tremendous on-going recovery for the months ahead. Fortunately my region did not suffer.

Along with listening and watching events unfold, I have quietly made a start on my latest piece. I decided to start with a stack of the house shapes. These were drawn to scale on some freezer paper taped together to get the size I wanted.

It took some effort to get everything drawn correctly, after which I quickly painted the shapes so that I could get an overall visual on whether they looked correct.

I cut out the lines and ironed the remainder on to the prepared fabric. Then painted the lines with a textile paint/pigment. This image is taken side on as it is flat on my printing table and I am not able to get a full angle front image (unless I suspend myself from the ceiling!).

After removing the freezer paper I decided that the colours I had mixed were too strong so....

... instead of ironing to set the paint, I gave the lines a scrub and a wash. This removed some of the intensity of the colour.