A Book of Marks from Daily Drawing

It's 'Drawing Tuesday'  but I'm not  at Museum of London Docklands  but at home still recovering  from a horrible cold and glad I'm not going out  in the wild weather. I've been enjoying the daily prompts for the 30daysketchbook challenge (more in another post)  but  also sewing together a record of my  daily drawing.  

 I've started  another  'dropcloth'  ( A1 sheet of paper) which I place underneath my sketchbook  when I draw. Over the year it accumulates  paint splashes, colour trials, doodles, notes. 

  When on the Dorothy  Caldwell  course in Puglia,  we made small books using our ' dropcloth'  to practice making  signatures and sewing them together, needle weaving with embroidery floss. The paper we had then was half the size ( 32 pages, 18 signatures) . I wasn't sure  how 64  pages, 32 signatures would work   but I'm pleased with the effect even if I did lose count  during stitching in a few places!

A Year of Daily Drawing

My favourite  spreads  from  each month  of a year of daily drawing  starting in January  with the #30daysketchbookchallenge. Plants recorded  from the garden; textile experiments , pieces of cloth and cakes were regular  subjects  and I've used a variety of techniques from drawing with pen; watercolours; collage;  stitch and photos of larger drawings and paintings.  My drawing has definately improved over the year , that's not to say that  everything was a wonderful piece of art , far from it, but each day was a fresh start.  

 I used Seawhite Eco A6  sketchbooks which contain 150g recycled cartridge paper , thick enough to withstand a light watercolour wash. I've  bought 12 more  to do the same next year

The last drawing of 2019 , looking forward to a new year, new decade and a new challenge, startting with the prompts of #30daysketchbook20

Daily Drawing: December

The last  daily drawing sketchbook  of 2019: Washing machine filter  with colour catchers (!) African textiles and jewellry; maps of impossible journeys; pots ; prints; coins: shells; seaweed; journal quilts; Xmas decorations and food; Iron Wharf abstracts .

Back to prompts in January  with #30daysketchbookchallenge, excited but rather daunted after doing my own thing for 11 months.  

Drawing with the Gift of Time

  Most of December was spent looking after  Ian  following surgery . He's back at work now  and  with surprisingly little in my diary for the next few weeks  I have the gift of time to  think  what I want to do this  year and get back into the habit of drawing. And at some point I will try and catch up with the backlog of blog posts....

 I can't get to 'Drawing Tuesday'  until next week but as Margaret has written  on her blog, we had a lovely session before Xmas at Janet K's -  as we weren't in a museum with the strict rules on 'dry' drawing materials, I took my watercolours and used them to capture Carol's childhood treasures.

I  wanted to  return to the discipline of daily art  - ' Wind Me In the Sea' started as that  in 2017 as a sort of daily stitching  and in 2013 I kept up working with colour catchers for several months.  I'll have several sewing projects  planned  in preparation for an exhibition in September   so  bought 12  A6  paperback sketchbooks  with the intention of  filling one a month.

Day 1: Something small 

So I started   recording my sewing kit  and then  a shell from my collection of small treasures  then discovered  #30daysketchbookchallenge19   and found that the first 2 prompts had co-incidentally  been 'something small' and 'Shells' and have  now signed up.   I'm enjoying what  other people are posting  on the groups Facebook page and the encouragement offered ( like getting into the habit is more important than necessarily producing a wonderful  drawing ) .  So here are my efforts so far. 

Day 2: Shells 

Day3 : A bag 

Day 4: cubes 

Day 5 : Five 

Day 6: A kitchen utensil

Day 7 : birds 

Day 8: Footwear

Day 9: Under The Sea