Surface, Structure, Stitch at City Lit: Week 5

 This week the focus of Surface, Structure, Stitch  at City Lit was on machine covered cords  " A line in space" .  For homework I'd looked  through my copy of  Stitch and Structure    by Jean Draper (  and also Janet Edmonds Three Dimensional Embroidery )   but had misread the instructions  on bringing  an image with strong mood , texture and colour.

  I'd remembered the 'colour' bit   and on a lovely sunny day  had drawn some of my shell collections   -  as  my daily drawings ( love the serendipity of  the combined drawings when backlit)  

  And on a sheet of watercolour paper  divided as we'd done for black and white studies in week 1.  I used neocolour crayons and W&N Watercolour Markers which I've had for ages ( and was reminded why  I still don't like them , back in the drawer they go! )

  I'd cut my thumb badly with a breadknife, tacking pebbles on my trainstitching piece on the way to class  was trickier than you'd expect!

What  we were doing with the images   we had ( or hadn't!)  brought in  was to describe in  words some of the qualities  of our image  then interpret the words in  drawn/collaged  lines . These examples Louise shared were based on a photo of a  cactus with red flowers, 

 These drawn  lines were then  translated into  stitched cords of fabric or thread wrapped string  

  I  did have some photos of shells with me  but  to more accurately  describe their qualities  used some of the  items  available in the class. 

 I was struggling to capture the true colours using the art materials  available so Louise suggested I construct ' moodsticks' ,  covering a stick/piece of card with scraps of fabric and winding threads  around them  from the exciting range of fibres available.  Similar  to  swatches prepared for weaving  but freer , with overlapping threads and colours giving more texture and optical colour mixing. This could get addictive!

 Then  an attempt  to make some machine wrapped cords : laying a string under free embroidery foot with feed dogs down  and using a wide zig zag   stitch and  pulling it  through. My poorly thumb hampered me somewhat as I couldn't hold it taut enough so  didn't have enough control.  

 Still , enough  to see the potential, discussing with Louise how they   could be coiled  or joined  together  to make circles  or stitched into a network .  I spent  the rest of the session gathering  bits to bring home  and try out on my own machine.
Enough  writing for now, time to go and play ! I could be some time...

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: November

 Daily drawings  from November, my favourite  is  from 28th,   2 takeaway little  sourdough cinnamon swirl buns from the 'Hot Tin' , delicious with coffee  ( I must confess I'd already had one in the morning  when meeting up with friends there ) 

 This months selection is a  mixture of observational  drawings/watercolour paintings ;   copies of drawings from ' Drawing Tuesday' expeditions; inspirational photos ( my own)  and scraps of fabrics  and stitching 

Large Scale Sketchbook Week 6: Watercolours ,Frottage and Cutouts

My homework from week 5 of Large Scale Sketchbook  was   to  add tonal  values in ink to the original drawings I'd done on  at the Cast Courts   as I'd liked the contrast of the rough dark backs  with the finer, lighter  details of the fronts of the busts. When it came to it , I couldn't bear  to 'spoil' the original drawings so  I used marker pen on a photocopy ( above ) and then made tracings  of photo/drawings and traced those into my sketchbook and  used 'Payne's Grey' watercolour rather than ink (below).     

  While I was waiting for Tony to photocopy  these tonal paintings in different sizes, I had a go at some 'frottage' with graphite around the cut edges from previous  weeks work and then played around with overlaying them over different page spreads.

When I got my photocopies back , I was delighted to find he'd done some combining the tracings with the tonal sketches  with unexpected results  which I stuck in the book, cut out sections and added  further watercolour washes.  

 I then started extending some of the lines  and shapes onto other pages.

 After trying out different places to put my 'frottage' , liking the sparsity  of some earlier pages , I combined it with cut out shapes from photocopies

Getting into cutting out, I  layered a photocopy with a sheet of black paper and a sheet of graph paper and cut through 3 at once then reassembled them.  Having picked out  some of the black shapes, I taped down with masking tape the random collection on the opposite side .

I posted this on Facebook   as it was my favourite  page spread only to have a comment that the left hand page looks like Donald Trump!! That's all I can see now ( it wasn't obvious when viewed as an A2 page)  and it brings poignancy  to the right hand side , a  shattered figure bowed down with horror and shame??

My talk with Tony  was right at the end of the session so we were looking through 2 weeks work. As there are so many cutouts and change of perspective  when you turn a page , he thought it would work well as an animation  (perhaps something to consider filming when I finally bring the book   home ). We also discussed  starting to introduce more detail and variety of mark and change of materials .So far  I've been responding and reacting to the scale of the sketchbook with big bold  marks.  Right at the end of the session we had a  quick look at other peoples (very varied) sketchbooks, a couple of people had contrasted areas of very dark charcoal  with delicate fine lined drawings which I really liked.  The  pages above  from last week show some of these  characteristics   so that's what I'm going to concentrate on  in this week session: more drawing , less cutting. 

Drawing Tuesday: New River Walk, Islington

 Last Tuesday's drawing session was at Janet K's in Islington. While most sketched some of the wonderful objects she has in her house,  with  yet another new sketchbook to start ( my ' small square chunky book' of watercolours and small treasures is full), I headed off to the 'New River Walk' in search of inspiration armed with my 'bijou' paintbox and size 12 travel  paintbrush.

 Some interesting architecture  and seriously distracted  by the adorable moorhen chicks (  black balls of fluff with enormous feet) , with less than an hour I  found a bench and drew whatever was in front of me. 

I started off with the negative shapes of the tree then ' branched out'  into  a watercolour  sketch .   There were several people  that  stopped to look  and  some members of a walking group  huddled round blocking my view! I'd like to say that's why it isn't a brilliant painting  but I'm out of practice. 

What is it about painting in a public space that invites comments  from passers by ? 

I've got  used to it over time  and don't mind  too much  but  it  can be intimidating if you're new to working  'plein air'  .  On this occasion  it was the usual : ' you're so clever'  ' my aunt /brother paints' , 'I couldn't do that' etc. They're usually complimentary and admire the fact that you're doing it all rather than critiquing  the art you're producing ( I was once unnerved by someone silently watching for 10 minutes or so then saying ' That's a neat little paintbox' )

 On holidays abroad  eg Tunisia Ian has found me surrounded by silent locals  or in Greece, cats. 

My favourite quotes from walkers on the Pennine way  whilst  painting in Malham :' Why don't you take photos , it would be  easier' to 'I'd like to take up painting , it must be so relaxing' . I meanwhile was trying to brace myself on a slope with my easel threatening to take off at any moment! 

I'd picked up this large piece of bark but although tempted to bring it back, I'm not sure what the train commuters would make of it  so settled for a continuous line drawing in pen with 'frottage'  using brass rubbing crayons.

And whilst in 'frottage'  mode, I made rubbings from the litter bin  with crayons on colour catchers and handmade papers and graphite on tracing paper

Janet supplied a wonderful lunch and  it was great to catch up with most of  the Tuesday sketching group  with  interesting, wide-ranging conversations. ' Homework' was to draw from a painting/print. Alas I haven't done it yet  but I will, I know from the 2 courses I did at the National Gallery  that  you learn so much  about composition from  using drawing to really look and analyse, even if the subject matter is not to your taste.  One of my examples was  published in this book  but my more recent experiences have been looking at colour too. Definately a very useful exercise.