Second Quarter Challenge – Barbarous Elly

Second Quarter Challenge – Barbarous Elly

The artist chosen by Ann for the 2nd Quarter Challenge as you all know by now is Stewart Stephenson. I had not discovered this artist before and he certainly has a wide array of styles although most are pretty abstract. It took me a while to find a piece that inspired me as I wanted to try some different screen printing techniques on felt in creating my challenge piece. Then “Barbarous Elly” caught my eye. I’m not sure about the name but I immediately thought of a way to recreate this piece with screen printing. Plus it had circles in it and since I just finished up a lot of circles work with my recent online class, it was appealing.

Barbarous Elly by Stewart Stephenson

My original thought was to make a couple of book covers from the finished piece of felt. I’m not sure about that at this point though.

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I laid out red-orange wool in a subtle gradation. I added blue silk noil to the surface.

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This is the piece after felting. Can you see the gradation of color from left to right? Lighter orange to darker red-orange. I didn’t want a big change, just a slight one.

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This is a little better color representation of the silk. It’s blue tending toward purple.

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Then I silk screened a very dark blue-green dye on to the felt.

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And here’s the finished piece. The dye changed the color of the silk noil so it stands out very nicely adding the blue-green color I wanted.

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Here’s a closer view. I really like the result and like Zed and her challenge piece, I’m not sure I can cut it up. It may have to be a wall hanging. I have considered if I should add more to this piece, like stitching or even beading, but for now, I’m leaving it as is. It’s not quite as dramatic as the original painting but it will do. So now to come up with a name, what do you think?

23 thoughts on “Second Quarter Challenge – Barbarous Elly

  1. Well, whoever Elly is, I wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alley!

    Your finished piece isn’t barbarous – it’s pretty, soft and serene and reminds me of the calming effect of a lava lamp.

  2. Like the technique u used. My first thought was “floating” but like the above comments also. There are some flowers (japanes name but can/t remember it right now) I think it would work also.
    Another Ruth

  3. That turned out great, Ruth! The silk noil really stands out, I really like that 🙂

  4. The colors are beautiful. It reminds me of photographs of something illuminated under a microscope. I don’t think I’d cut it up either.

  5. I love the silk noil effect too, really lifts the colours in the piece. The shapes remind me of budding yeast under the microscope as Marilyn says so I would call it “Budding”. A name that is open to interpretation by the viewer too…

  6. Can’t think of a name, but the piece is beautiful. Reminds me of Japanese lanterns reflected in water. Stunning colour combination.

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