sketchbooks…

As promised, some scans from my two new sketchbooks… first, from my textiles notebook:

Brainstorming my windows theme plus some embroidery and a design...

Photos and notes, again exploring windows.

Yet more photos plus an exploratory piece of fabric - threads and scraps and paper between tissue and organza.

And now for my other new sketchbook – no title as yet, just sketchbook, lol!!!

Benches in Weston Park, Sheffield plus zentangle

Blue zentangle plus photo of bandstand

Close up photo of bandstand window and a green zentangle.

Quick 5 minute sketch of mirror in pub whilst waiting for my friend.

Ryan - the latest teddy in my collection, lol.

And finally, yet another zentangle - I do love playing around with these

Textile sketchbook

Front cover of my new Textiles Sketchbook

Having had several new textile-related books for xmas, I’ve decided to start a textile-only sketchbook. Just over 8″ square the one I’ve chosen is made from Khadi paper. So it should be strong enough to withstand stitching and rough handling. Before I started working in it I decided to make it feel and look like a book for textiles, and have thus covered it using various fabric scraps, some lace and patterned tissue stuck down with a PVA/ water mix. Stitched around the edges, with fancy buttons for the ribbon tie and a couple of embellishments.

The back cover.

As you’ve probably gathered, I’m hoping to explore textile arts in 2012, including embroidery and general stitching, lace-making, collage, quilts, patchwork, wall-hangings and cloths. I’m also determined to finish my ArtHouse Co-op Sketchbook – with only 3 more pages to do, I’m pretty confident that it will be ready to post in plenty of time (deadline is the end of January).

See you in the New Year

Day 11 – a thinking day

In this all items apart from the frames are fixed...

Being tired, and a weekend, and watching the final of the Shanghai Masters snooker means I haven’t done as much today as over the past few days. But my little altered tray has developed a bit and I’ve definitely fulfilled the minimum 30 minutes of the get-your-art-on challenge. Even if it doesn’t look as if I’ve achieved much.

Playing with elements... I've discarded the large raven from yesterday, still to decide on what to include and where.

What I have done is more painting, this time with Viva precious metal cinnamon paint (I adore the colour) and some glueing of elements to the base and lower frame. Much of the time I’ve been arranging, re-arranging and generally thinking on what to add (or not). For now, I’ll leave any more glueing and painting until I’ve made more decisions.

Although I’m used to building up collage and working in layers, this 3D tray, with the laser cut frames that stack on top to give the deep niches, is challenging my normal approaches. Which is good. Makes me think, explore and experiment. Great fun.

Yellow ribbon cloth

Yellow ribbon cloth, tacked and ready to work on.

Having acquired a variety bag of yellow ribbons I decided to weave them into a cloth. Following the technique of no foundation weaving from my friend Jill, I wrapped the ribbons for the warp strips around a large piece of card (I tried a box but found the cardboard easier to work with) then threaded the weft and tacked as I went. My basting is nowhere near as neat as Jill’s stitches, but I’m pleased with the overall design so far.

The finished piece measures roughly 10″ by 22″ and I plan to make it into a wall hanging using stitching and collage – the idea is to ‘play’ and have fun with a large cloth!

Ribbon weaving is something I’ve been wanting to try for a while, as has extending my exploration of cloth making. Both are being fulfilled by this piece.

Detail of the cloth

And it also falls into the category for the latest Summer of Colour challenge – creating something yellow for the current week. Especially as I was thinking of the challenge as I planned the cloth. So, here is my Yellow Creation for this week. Now to consider the ones I missed (green and pink) whilst I was away, lol.

 

A lot to catch up on…

For various reasons, I seem to have neglected my blog – apologies. Partly because I have been enjoying creating and just didn’t want to spend time blogging. So, time for a catch-up post.

Using ‘silk-paper’

Embellished with beads fabric ATCs

Here is what I did with some of the silk paper – a birthday card and some ATCs, the latter for an ‘embellished with beads’ swap via the Mixed Media group.

As yet, the blue piece remains untouched. Part of me wants to leave it as a whole piece; another part of me is thinking of cutting it into squares and perhaps using it for quilting or smaller collages. I’ll see.

On another front, I’ve written and published more episodes for my TAG project blog, and am progressing well with that journey. But I’ll return to that in a later post.

And I’ve signed up for the 2012 Sketchbook Project with Art House Co-op, choosing Monochrome as my theme this time. The book arrived here yesterday so I’m looking forward to starting on that soon. As the books from Europe will be making an appearance in London next year, I’ll actually be able to go and see it on Tour. Yay!

But what I’ve become most excited about is experimenting and working with textiles. Using techniques derived from various books, including Stitch Alchemy and Stitch, Cloth, Paper and Paint, I’ve been adapting and playing with the ideas and methods to produce my own ‘take’ on the processes involved.

Initial experiments with fabric and paper and stitch

These were my first small pieces. Using vilene as a backing, I then added various fragments and scraps of fabric plus thread with a mix of PVA and water. Once dry, I stitched on them by hand (I don’t own a sewing machine) then added colour with acrylic inks and metallic rub-ons. Seeing the three pieces together I decided that they combined well and so I fused them onto a piece of purple material. I worked on the colours a bit first, then stitched and added various other embellishments until I liked the outcome. It still needs backing to cover the stitching and to add enough stiffness to allow me to hang it up somewhere.

the final hanging

a close-up to show details - I love the way some of the inks 'sink' beneath the lace, others remain on top

Encouraged by the result, I’ve been making more ‘mixed fabric’ and ‘fabric paper’ pieces, using different materials but retaining roughly the same basic method. To add some serendipity, I made some cards using lists of colour, techniques, themes and materials from my stash. I then chose cards from each group randomly. The two pieces below are a result of this ‘playing’.

'Abstraction' - I may mount this on a backing material of some description, but as yet haven't decided.

'Bird in the branches'. Mounted on hessian. Still needs to be hung on dowel.

I’m now considering how to use the techniques within an urban theme. Plus I’m even thinking of making a large cloth using quilting or similar methods, although that may be far too ambitious for me. What I do know is that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my ‘experiments’ and the methods I’ve learned have added an extra dimension to my art. Has been great fun, too!!!

Writing-as-art

Drawing done with Inktense pencils.

Having just published a new episode on my Zentara’s Journey blog, I thought I’d write a little here on the photo that is with it. The stone egg is one that I’ve had a while, but seemed very appropriate to be given by a being whose main aim is fertility and the nurturing of life. The small drawing was done using Inktense pencils, with a pen to outline the main flowers.

The visual art is there to enhance the story. There has been a distinction on the group of fellow travellers between art and writing, one that I’m also guilty of making. I’ve always separated writing from visual art as if the two are completely different beasts. And yet I have always been drawn to both forms of creativity, with one often dominating my creative life for months, even years. I tend to switch from one form to another so that one excludes my doing the other.

During this project, however, I have managed to write and paint/ collage/ draw. It feels good and right to do both and is something that I’ve strived for, for a long time. Discussing the art versus writing, my friend pointed out to me that writing IS art. Her comment made me sit back and seriously rethink my attitudes.

The course I attended many years back was Creative Writing, the emphasis being on writing as an art in itself. It is not as different from the visual arts as I’ve been leading myself to believe. Writing is a way of forming scenes and descriptions with words as opposed to with paint or pencil or other solid objects. It is a creative process that involves imagination and often emotion, just as when painting.  The two should be conceived more as different methods or techniques of making art rather than as separate and conflicting creative activities.

That is, at least, my own conclusion. The Travelling Artist’s Guild project is about making a personal journey, using a character and an imaginary world as vehicles. I feel that I’ve already progressed a long way since starting off back in October last year. Recognising writing-as-art and being able to creatively use word as well as visual art at the same time is a huge step for me in achieving balance between the two. One that I hope will lead me forward as my journey continues.

Balance

In the end, I have decided to go with BALANCE as my word for 2011. My previous words have been ‘nourish’, ‘develop’ and ‘explore’ – see here for where the idea came from. Explore became my word back in December or November 2009  and has kept me interested ever since. There are still so many things to explore in my life and art, but I feel it IS now time to move on, at least a little…

Although I confess that I’m still not over-enthusiastic about balance as my word. However, I know that I need to stop sitting around resting and playing and thinking and procrastinating most of the time. Instead I need to actually DO the art, the housework, the exercise, watch my weight, go for a walk etc. I suspect my reluctance to do more is the reason why I’m not enthusing over my new word, lol.

Anyway, here is the entry in my journal about balance, where I’ve basically grouped items together with hyphens between them, indicating what needs to be more balanced:

Not comprehensive, I know, nor exactly overly clear although I know what I mean, lol. How long balance will stay as my word remains doubtful but, of course, I can change it again whenever I want And probably will!!!

End of year rambling…

My last piece of art for 2010 is a small collage on canvas. “At Home” is a mix of collage, acrylic inks and Inktense pencils based on an imagined urban house where a woman sits at an upstairs window, waiting, perhaps, for her lover/ son/ friend or just staring out at the unchanging street, thinking about something important or something completely irrelevant. I leave those decisions to the viewer.

What this piece does is to combine a number of techniques and ideas that I have explored throughout 2010. I still have much to learn, much to explore, much to develop. ‘Explore’ was an extremely good word for my creativity over the past year or so, and will be hard to follow. However, it’s probably time to change to another word and with 2011 in sight, I am considering ‘balance’ as my word.

I need to balance my time: to do more creative things and less playing games on the PC; to do more exercise when I can and less sitting around; to become more involved with life around me and less hiding away at home. At least, that has been my thinking over the last few days.

But, and this is a big but, balance as my word doesn’t feel right. Explore and develop did. So I suspect that it may be a few days yet before I decide if balance is to be my word and, if not, choose another.

2010 was a mixed year for me.

We had a lovely new kitchen fitted although, as yet, it isn’t decorated (decorator should be coming next week). Moving my craft area to my upstairs study has been extremely useful even if it isn’t perfect but it has probably helped me produce some reasonable art, and I actually finished the ‘Face in the crowd’ sketchbook project ahead of time – yay!!!

However, my overall health wasn’t good for much of the year. I learned, back in October, that I have diabetes type 2 and that probably explains some of the poor health. It’s taken a while to get used to going without my sugar dose – eg. we had a good xmas holidays but there was no traditional xmas cake with all the marzipan and icing, and it’s hard at times to not look longingly at certain, now virtually forbidden, foodstuffs. But I have been slowly losing some weight (slightly dented progress over the last few days, admittedly!) and getting used to the new food regime as well as beginning to feel better than I have done for months.

Back in August, our holiday was disappointing for various reasons but we did have a wonderful wedding anniversary whilst away. My husband has been stressed, and the possibility that he may, like thousands of others, lose his job in 2011 isn’t helping either of us. With all the proposed cuts and changes this government are pushing through, I feel rather depressed about the way things are going and can only hope that fears about the future don’t come to fruition.

On the plus side, I am enjoying the journey via the Travelling Artists’ Guild: my progress on it has slowed over the last 2 or 3 weeks as xmas preparations and holidays, as well as finishing the sketchbook, interrupted the flow. However I haven’t stopped thinking about TAG and hope to return to that project very soon. Likewise, the one-to-one with my friend Jill, the Visual Dialogue, has endured if albeit in fits and starts: we both plan to resume our books again within the next couple of weeks or so.

And I have had some wonderful times with family and friends throughout the year, as well as with my fantastic husband.

That, then, is a very brief resumé of my 2010. Not wonderful but then, in these times, not awful either. Hopefully my health, now that I’m managing the diabetes, will improve. And I’m pretty sure that I’ll continue to create in 2011 with fairly frequent postings about my progress for you here.

In the meantime, I want to wish you all a very happy 2011, and hope to see you again very soon

The final pages…

My sketchbook for the ArtHouseCo-op project is almost complete – all I need to do is (perhaps) add something to the inside back cover – although I may leave it blank.

Here are the final spreads:

The Blue Notes, Bristol. Hopefully I've captured something of the essence of the Old Duke in Bristol with the Blue Notes band, hazy atmosphere and drawing of one man in the crowd of rapt listeners.

Be Wild. A quote by Sark inspired this mixed media collage. For a change I used magazine images, rather than my own photos.

My husband One from our honeymoon, the other from a recent holiday. Mixed media, including tissue paper and inks.

And finally, a self portrait. Not entirely accurate (why is it so hard to draw oneself?) but I rather like it - I chose the background colours to express my colour preferences as well as my somewhat occasional fiery nature, lol!!! Dry media, including Inktense pencils.

Some changes to the back and front outer cover. I couldn't resist that puppy's face, lol!!! And somehow, the snippet of text from an old book seemed apt.

This project has been a wonderful personal journey. I’ve explored techniques and skills: although I’m not particularly happy with some of the pages, overall I’m satisfied and delighted that I actually completed the project, something I was unsure I’d manage. Now, all that remains, once I’ve done that final addition to the inside back cover, is to parcel it up and send it back to Brooklyn!!!

The dying lands

Another painting for the TAG project. Between the High Road and the Forest are farm and meadow, land that used to be a part of extensive woodlands. For Zentara there is a growing sense of death and decay, of a betrayal to the land. And a greyness both within her and about the landscape.

The painting isn’t as grey as I had intended but I still feel that it captures a certin loneliness. An isolation that Zentara feels. “ Toward the Forest” includes an encounter with people who voice their prejudices toward her, a nomad and a bastard (for which term I make no apology – this is an imaginary tale set in a medieval-style world).

Zentara is fictional. She is NOT me. Her tale is NOT mine. Her journey is very, very different to my own. But story-telling is a powerful medium and sometimes, borders between fiction and reality overlap.

As I’ve spun the tales and created the lands in which Zentara moves I’ve been aware of certain concepts and ideas slipping between the worlds. There is no moral here, no conscious decision at work, no point to make, no ideological motivation. And yet humanity has elements within it that slip into the worlds of Imagi-nation. Indeed, it is the flaws, the essence and nature of who we are that demand our imaginary characters to reflect the same problems and issues within their worlds. Albeit in different ways and along varying paths.

There are, perhaps, some similarities between me and Zentara. Perhaps through her I’m learning more about my true nature and strength of feelings. If so, then that is part of my journey, the essence of the project as I see it – an inner exploration as well as a creative one. But what part of me is in Zentara and what is not – well, that is for me to know, and for you to guess

Painting done using graphitint pencils and acrylic inks.