May to August Journal Quilts

 After months of  preparing house for sale and then maintaining it  in 'show house'  viewings condition, I'm FINALLY  regaining studio time and space and actually using my sewing machines and 'sew-ezi' table finishing my CQ  Journal Quilts before deadline of end of August. It's been a bit frustrating  tracking down where threads and equipment  are as my studio was set up to look tidy rather than for practical use but it's proving useful in thinking about planning  layout for new studio space in Faversham.
After worrying whether I'd  complete 4 quilts in time , I've actually made 6, all based on the 'mark-making' from my 2 City Lit courses  ( Printmaking and Develop your Drawing) and CQ Summer School  which took place during this period of time.

  Photo of Collagraph of  feather printed on fabric and applied to monoprint of threads

 Photo of A1  drawing in graphite  of pewter pot from multiple viewpoints, heavily machine quilted with variegated threads

 ' Landscape' of layered lines  achieved through fabric collage on wool constructed on CQ Summer School

 Another fabric collage using fabrics with marks ( 1 commercial, 1  discharge  fabric from Dorothy Caldwell masterclass). Quilted with fancy machine embroidery  stitches ( hearts and stars)  with connecting threads left.  Needs more practice but this technique has possibilities in producing a different set of marks to my hand stitching and usual machine quilting.

 My favourite drawings from CQ Summer School of positive and negative circles built up of tiny pencil marks interpreted in black stitches on boiled wool fabric purchased in Shrewsbury. Edge finished with blanket stitch. Mainly sewn on train journeys! This fabric is lovely to sew even though it stretches, I'll be doing more stitching experiments  with it.  

Photos  from CQ  Summer School drawings printed on hand dyed grey cotton : spiral in ink; circle of fine pencil marks ( as above); graphite stick filling  square with tiny white circle left.  Quilted with spiral lines

My next set of 4 ( or more) journal quilts will be based on  my eco dyed/ printed  fabrics

Develop Your Drawing 4 : Changing View Points

This week in drawing class at City Lit we got to play with colour!! 

 Warm up was with graphite sticks following ' skylines' of  shapes of still life  without looking at paper - first with sharp end then blunt, broader marks.

 Then 1st exercise with red, blue and orange pastels : elipses in red, vertical lines  in blue, horizontal  lines in orange. Then for 2nd exercise the still life was moved 90 degrees and  exercise repeated  with blue elipses, orange vertical lines, red horizontal lines.



 For 3rd exercise the  still life was moved a further 90 degrees and  zooming in on detail  with v large orange elipses

 Next the challenge was to work into what you had , joining up areas  with addition of black and white, developing a composition. Started with applying charcoal to to all the white areas to provide a toned background  and rubbing everything back with a rag ( absolutely filthy at the end of the session! )

 Break for coffee and Portuguese tart then more work  adding darker areas, trying to pull the picture together.

Final  version improved by cropping  but ran out of time to increase range of tones with more darks and lights. Composition isn't great- it's  hard  working on such a  large scale  and could have done with more variety of marks. But I had fun!!

 

 

Nothing to show here for the printmaking this week. Apart from taking in some black paper to take some embossed prints of my collagraph plates I was mainly preparing a plate for hard ground etching. Polishing the plate with brasso  reminded  me still need to do the knocker on our newly painted front door! Then it was bevelling edges  with file;  degreasing with ammonia/ whiting mix and applying and removing hard ground wax with a roller ( a knack that obviously needs  considerable practice) Anne-Marie was very patient with me. 

 

Printmaking Week 3 - Collagraph results

Feather Intaglio Ghost print 1

The results of  inking up collagraph plates made a couple of weeks ago did not disappoint ! The  variation in marks using different techniques was amazing 

Feather collagraph plate ( post relief printing) 

This plate  was just a feather  stuck down  with PVA onto  a piece of card ( I did remove the quill part) with multiple layers of shellac to seal it ( the yellow colour). We first put  plates through the press with just a piece of dampened paper to get an embossed image - very subtle so couldn't get a good photo but  intriguing nevertheless. We then inked the plate up with a roller and relief inks  and put it through the press, again with dampened  paper

 Feather Relief  ghost print

Finally we removed most but not all of the ink and then  used etching inks to get intaglio prints - applying and then a lot of work to rub most of it off!  Harder work putting them through the press than drypoint too as the plates are thicker . But so worth it. Below and at the top of the blog are the intaglio 'ghost' prints, total  magic

Feather intaglio ghost of ghost print!

 

The plates themselves are works of art in their own right , particularly when they've  retained some of the ink 

 Mudflats I Collagraph Plate post relief printing

 Mudflats I relief ghost print

Mudflats I intaglio ghost print

 

 

 



Mudflats II collagraph plate post relief printing

                          Mudflats II relief ghost print                 Mudflats II intaglio ghost print

With embossing, relief printing, and intaglio ( not forgetting the plate itself) get 4 different effects from 1 plate. And that's before experiment with combining techniques, different colours and play with chine colle. That's next time!

Printmaking 2, Develop your Drawing 1

 A bit of a frustrating morning trying to track down among my packed up studio contents, where I'd put the notes, sketchbooks and materials from previous weeks  printmaking class. I also spent some time selecting images  that might work well for lino cutting this week.  So I should have been a bit miffed that when I arrived at class,  that the tutor  set me and a couple of others doing collagraphs instead . I was delighted  however  as although I was  prepared to do lino again, I  had specifically expressed an interest in  this technique.  Had a fine time  with torn bits of masking tape, scrim, foil, tissue and lots of PVA ( my fingers were very sticky by the end of it). Photos above  and below are  before applying the shellac, based on a  sketch and  photo I had with me of Fleet  mudflats . They should be nicely dry for the next session in 2 weeks time, can't wait to see the results once inked up.

 

In the afternoon I'd had the first of ' develop your drawing' session,   a popular class because  of its experimental approach , there were 15 of us with a variety of backgrounds and  levels of experience.
This first session was devoted to mark- making mainly with charcoal and ink . My easel was already liberally coated with charcoal dust ( and I'd come prepared dressed in black t shirt and jeans)  so I got stuck in with gusto. We folded a large sheet  of paper into 16 and did  studies of  a variety of items, concentrating on trying to express their texture while making each study  as different as possible in terms of marks. We stopped regularly  to turn the easels round and look at each others work. Amazing variety  but also could soon see the development of peoples specific 'handwriting' and vocabulary. There were several sculptors  and  their style was quite distinctive in building up of form. The feeling of landscape was  picked up  from my work, perhaps because most of the objects I chose were organic

ceramic  pitted jar -  rubbed charcoal with eraser

bone - charcoal

wooden spoon  - charcoal, white chalk and eraser

wooden spoon - pencil

resin block - charcoal

Wood - ink

Wood - ink, white chalk