Caroline Dunn http://www.carolinedunn.com textile artist posterous.com Fri, 29 Jul 2011 02:51:58 -0700 tecchie battles http://www.carolinedunn.com/tecchie-battles http://www.carolinedunn.com/tecchie-battles

Talk about steep learning curves!

Anything I scanned from my newish printer/scanner had a pale duck egg blue cast to it. Not entirely unattractive as a background at times, but it did distort the colour somewhat! This was amazingly easily solved (fingers crossed!) by installing some software that came with the printer – I have no idea what it was all about as I confess that I left this to my resident tecchie  on the ‘I know a man who can’ principle!

Spurred on by this, I decided it was time to see if I could produce better photographs of my work to put on the website.  So I went along to a one day workshop on the subject. It was a beautiful day, a beautiful North Yorkshire village, a lovely house, and 3 other women, all excellent company. And the photographer was a delightful guy who didn’t blink an eyelid when I sheepishly asked him if he could tell me how to switch on my digital SLR!

I normally use a little point and press camera but I was given a very nice digital SLR for Christmas – I am ashamed to say, 2 years ago! I am firmly of the opinion that anything ‘tecchie’ – I use the term to include computers and their associated bits, phones, cameras, flash tv systems ... you get my drift, I’m sure .. well, I am certain that they are like children and horses - if they know you are afraid of them, you have lost it before you begin! After 15 minutes reading the camera instruction booklet, I knew it was a lost cause!  So this lovely piece of kit has sat in its very impressive bag for 2 years, doing nothing! But no longer!

I came away from my day with basically 3 approaches to improving the quality of the photography of my work.

1.       Become a photographer – do a 3 year degree, requisition a room at home which I paint grey and install very serious black out curtains. Buy lots of kit. Get serious. And keep notes of camera settings etc. ( I am appalling at keeping technical notes of any kind – another reason why I will never be a proper dyer!)

2.       Compromise – read the instruction book, buy lots of tin foil, a couple of adjustable lamps and acquire at least 2 more hands, preferably 4 more, to hold everything in place ...

3.       Pay a photographer to do it properly!

1 is certainly not going to happen. I appreciate wonderful photography  but there is no way that it ever would become my art form.

2 probably won’t happen much because it might start creeping towards the buying more kit aspect of 1 and for me, that way madness, and possibly insolvency, lie! But I can at least understand the manual a bit better now so I might start reading it when there’s nothing on tv to distract me from working!

3 is great! There is a small problem with it – yes, I can see you’ve worked that out too! This has to be reserved for really special situations because of the cost.

But I have learned that I can improve things considerably by one or two simple steps. I tend to photograph something just as it is and rely on Photoshop or CorelPaint to sort it out. I am always amazed at how much I can improve things with these programs - even with an ‘all in one’ editing button on something like Picassa. But there are obviously limits. So now I can put my digital SLR on M – I think that means manual, not preset, and fiddle with ISO settings and one or two – certainly no more – things (can’t remember what they are but I did make copious notes!) and hopefully get better photos to entrust to the wonders of an editing program. Now all I have to do is practice saying things such as, ‘Perhaps if you tried  an ISO setting of 400  it would help’ with an air of quiet authority, with my impressive camera bag at my side (sadly, cannot afford the paparazzi lens to look really impressive!) and everyone will think I am a photographer! Or maybe not!

The other thing I have to do, of course, is start taking more photos with my newly acquired – if somewhat minimal – knowledge. But that requires a cup of strong coffee first!

So watch this space! I really do intend to get the camera out this morning, start bonding with it,  and make a start! And remember, all you proper photographers out there, it is not kind to mock the photographically afflicted!!

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]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hcGrCzcz3bOye Caroline Dunn caroline8 Caroline Dunn Tue, 05 Jul 2011 07:44:00 -0700 Another local landscape http://www.carolinedunn.com/another-local-landscape http://www.carolinedunn.com/another-local-landscape

Winter_landscape_in_the_dales

I am fortunate enough to live on the edge of Wensleydale where there are so many beautiful and ever changing landscapes. This piece – A  Winter Landscape in the Dales-  was inspired by just that. It is approximately 1m x 1m and made of painted and dyed silk and conservation paper applied a wool and viscose felt backing, finished with machine stitching.

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]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hcGrCzcz3bOye Caroline Dunn caroline8 Caroline Dunn Mon, 27 Jun 2011 03:42:00 -0700 Untitled http://www.carolinedunn.com/58743956 http://www.carolinedunn.com/58743956

All the pieces shown here (and as always I find photographs of textiles deeply disappointing!) are large to medium scale pieces, made with mixed media techniques. I work in a layering fashion, starting by choosing my base fabric – usually silk, occasionally linen or cotton, never a manmade fibre though. I generally back everything with a lightweight wool and viscose felt. I then apply painted and microwave dyed silk. This is then printed if required, finally machine stitched and sometimes finished with a little hand stitching.

 

The way I work feels totally natural and intuitive to me. Constructing this blog most definitely does not! I cannot get my head round its being ‘back to front’; the technology still causes me a degree of hassle verging on grief – and everything takes so much time! So please accept my apologies for whatever is wrong with it. I am hoping that familiarity will breed content – at the moment it’s more a case of lack of familiarity breeding contempt! And this is the easiest blog, technically, that I have yet tried, so you can see what that says about me!  

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]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hcGrCzcz3bOye Caroline Dunn caroline8 Caroline Dunn Mon, 27 Jun 2011 02:28:00 -0700 Images from Flights of Fancy http://www.carolinedunn.com/images-from-flights-of-fancy http://www.carolinedunn.com/images-from-flights-of-fancy

Far Horizons

Far_horizons Curlew_-_detail_15x15_cm Img_3364
See the full gallery on Posterous

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]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hcGrCzcz3bOye Caroline Dunn caroline8 Caroline Dunn Mon, 27 Jun 2011 02:24:00 -0700 Flights of Fancy http://www.carolinedunn.com/flights-of-fancy http://www.carolinedunn.com/flights-of-fancy

Pages_from_an_alternative_bird

The images above are taken from the body of work I did for my MA at Carlisle University three years ago. I chose to make an alternative bird book because although I use conventional bird books to get hard facts about birds I am more intrigued by the stories these birds might tell. So I constructed my own book – and then, based on the idea of taking a leaf out of my own book, I made some large wall hangings to go with it. I called the project Flights of Fancy – a title which resonates on various levels.

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]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hcGrCzcz3bOye Caroline Dunn caroline8 Caroline Dunn Sat, 25 Jun 2011 08:43:00 -0700 Diving gannets http://www.carolinedunn.com/diving-gannets http://www.carolinedunn.com/diving-gannets

Diving_gannets

I don’t always do crows! Birds of all kinds feature in my work. These were inspired by gannets diving off the Farne Islands in Northumberland, one  of my favourite places.

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]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hcGrCzcz3bOye Caroline Dunn caroline8 Caroline Dunn Sat, 25 Jun 2011 08:35:00 -0700 More crows http://www.carolinedunn.com/more-crows http://www.carolinedunn.com/more-crows

Crows_in_a_summer_landscape

  More crows - or possibly rooks!

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]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hcGrCzcz3bOye Caroline Dunn caroline8 Caroline Dunn Sat, 25 Jun 2011 01:07:00 -0700 A Walk Around the Block http://www.carolinedunn.com/a-walk-around-the-block http://www.carolinedunn.com/a-walk-around-the-block

A_walk_around_the_block

Many things inform my work, but one of the most important to me is the landscape and the birds that inhabit it. This large hanging was inspired by a walk around ‘my’ block at home which takes me through the fields around my village. This particular walk took place on an early September evening. The corn had been cut and the fields were full of patterns – and everywhere there were rooks and crows. I am never sure which is which – I know the saying claims that a rook on its own is a crow and crow in a crowd is a rook – in which case I suppose these birds are rooks rather than crows! Whichever they are, I find them fascinating and could – and do – spend hours watching them.

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]]> http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hcGrCzcz3bOye Caroline Dunn caroline8 Caroline Dunn