Experimenting with Notan Designs

I am sitting in my studio today. It's very windy, showery and the sun is shining. I have my music on and I am playing again. I can see DH at his Mac (he's playing with new software). I deserve a days play since yesterday I got all the housework done - even the ironing - my treat is to be able to play - guilt free! It's cosy and fun to work in here.

I have been experimenting with positive and negative shapes. The Notan designs lend themselves to this technique beautifully. I cut up some squares of cartridge paper and much like you make paper snowflakes or paper dolls I cut out shapes from each side of the square.

I tried this a week or two ago and my first attempts were not very great. They still aren't but I think I am improving don't you? Instead of writing daily pages (as per The Artists Way) I am doing a different selection of designs - well not every day you understand but I try to most days - even when I am waiting for the potatoes to boil I can cut or draw something.

This is my second attempt this morning and it's not too bad. I put a piece or three of black tissue on the log cabin wall and pinned the shapes to it. I am mulling over how I can reproduce this in fabric. I did a design "entwined hearts" using bondaweb and it worked a treat. However, with the Notan I have to turn one piece over - I could use self coloured fabric but it will be too flimsy. I am thinking I might need to put two pieces of fabric together.

This design has bottle green tissue paper behind it. I used 505 spray to keep the little pieces on the tissue paper. It's a bit tricky but you don't have all the pins.

I was playing around in PSP with letters a few weeks ago and was looking for something a little different. I have a few Fonts on my PC but everyone uses these. DH has some different Fonts on his Mac and he printed me off a few to try. It was whilst I was looking at themthis morning that I found this flower. I can't tell what the Font name is as he only wrote down the names of the Fonts he thought I would use (remember I was looking for letters) just like the thing for me to use something different. Different day - different idea!

I cut the first two designs with scissors but this was was far too intricate for that. The squares I was using were 5" and 6" so you can appreciate the intricacy of this. Instead I used a scalpel. I like this design and I think it might make a nice Journal Quilt don't you? I just have to get it onto fabric - and make it a little bigger. On the other hand I may do more and see what gtranspires.