crafted in cyprus

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[craftedincyprus]

The blue outcome! I love it

[craftedincyprus]

Then I painted over the top with gesso (it’s white and I wanted the colour of the fabric to show through so I just put gesso on the parts where I wanted colour (in this case blue - as the design is the potamos / river)

[craftedincyprus]

I then decided to paint one of the portraits I’d drawn previously onto the big piece of canvas fabric to experiment with a much larger scale (around 1 metre x 1 metre)!

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Then started to think about how this could apply to my work! I love the hanging fabric, but am still unsure how this can combine with my illustrations and the Lefkaritiko

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Visited the museum of folk art in Limassol to see how they display fabrics / hang them

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Then I sewed a little more and chose one of the endemic flowers of Cyprus - the Akamas Tulip - to add to the design. I chose to paint it to see what it was like to paint on the Lefkara Lace linen (Irish Linen) and I looked at the work of Laila Tara H to help as she often paints beautiful nature as well as characters.

I really like the combination of lots of different elements ! And slowly adding in colours too. I wonder if I could add different colours behind the portraits? Or maybe dye the big piece of fabric if there will be a big piece in the background?

The Akamas Tulip

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I started trying out different compositions with my sewing and drawings! I really like the effect of using the Lefkaritiko to frame the characters and the small pops of colour as well. One thing I’ve been missing is using lots of colour!!

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Folk Art, Flowers & Lefkaritika

From my research into Cypriot folk art, and seeing that often portraits are surrounded by flowers and garlands, I had a thought today that it might be a good idea to look at flowers and plants that are endemic to Cyprus, and incorporate them into my work somehow.

I think I will try to paint onto the linen / fabric I use with paints or with Posca paint pens and see what works the best.

The past few days I’ve been trying to source some more Irish linen to work on but it’s super difficult to find here in Cyprus, and is super expensive too, especially because of Brexit ffs

But I’m going to keep looking and if I can’t find any then I can possibly use a mixture of different materials for the painting and then the little bits of Irish linen I have left can be for sewing Lefkaritiko designs. I like the idea of using a few different fabrics anyway as I think it will add more depth to the work !

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Today I tried out a new frame design inspired by a folk art frame I saw in the book - I made it in the shape of the scalloped design!

I also added a little petal / leaf at the side, (maybe I will add more and paint a few on as well? And then will put an image / portrait in the middle as a little experiment to see how it looks !

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Making some links with a photo from the Turkish Cypriot photography book and the folk art book:

The oval shape surrounded by flowers in the photograph, almost like a mirror, looks like the design on the bottom left with the garlands - and the roses in between the top two female figures - it all goes together somehow?!

I think this helps me to link my drawings of the faces of women within the Lefkaritika designs in another way - that relates to folk art 🎨

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Today I researched a bit about traditional folk art in Cyprus - I read that lots of pieces include portraits and plant themes (which reminded me of Lefkaritiko designs) 😄

There would be paintings on glass with designs of flowers and branches in symmetrical formations

Embroidered frames were also made with silk which gave me the idea to maybe concentrate on making frames with the fabric, and having paintings / drawings inside the frames, but on a different material?

This book, as well as the book about Turkish Cypriot photography has been really interesting when trying to visualise what I want to make

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I also went to buy some more Irish linen to do more Lefkaritiko, but after I asked at some fabric stores I found out it’s actually really difficult to source in Cyprus ! So instead I bought a couple of different canvas materials and will try to work with them, and maybe paint some of my drawings onto them quite big to see how it looks on a la

I also went to buy some more Irish linen to do more Lefkaritiko, but after I asked at some fabric stores I found out it’s actually really difficult to source in Cyprus, especially after Brexit 👎 so I bought some canvas material instead and will experiment with embroidering on that, and maybe painting on it as well to see the work on a larger scale !

I like the layering of the fabric, paper bags and drawings on the wall, it gives the pieces more depth rather than just being flat I think 😄 it’s nice to have a mixture of things going on for sure

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I tried a few different stitches at first, but this one worked the best as it hugs the edge of the linen rather than cuts into it so the linen doesn’t fray too much!

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Then I tried punching holes into paper to recreate the designs:

I actually quite liked this effect ! I put blue Tac underneath to help punch the holes, then I tried sewing into the paper ! It worked quite well except as you can see in the last image, the paper tore so the stitches were edging up the page.

I think it would be good to try working on larger pieces of linen cut into bigger shapes ! And maybe even painting on it too.

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I tried some more experiments, cutting out other shapes and sewing around them, but it was quite hard as I cut the linen first and so the threads were coming loose quite a lot:

The cutting worked okay but sewing was difficult:

I tried a few ways, and this one ^ seemed to work the best as the stitch encloses the edge rather than pulls on it like the other ones did!

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I tried out sewing drawn thread (traditionally used to finish the hem of the stitch) into a curved design - different to the traditional geometric - but I didn’t feel right about the red thread?!

I then changed to a more traditional white thread which felt better - I think because I’d already gone away from tradition with the curved shape, it felt better to balance it out with a traditional colour !

Then I sewed another hem stitch in pink, with the other hem stitch around the outside of it but on the inside of the linen! Then I cut it out. Maybe a drawing could go in the space / hole?!