Evening Class in Drawing

I've been feeling the need to get back to basics in drawing again , having withdrawal symptoms from no painting holiday this year or indeed any holiday I could throw myself into sketching mode. So I've signed up for an evening class held at a local school and best of all it's only 5 minutes walk away! I arrived early and was enchanted by all the school art equipment , especially these rather stained brushes. Being the first session, it took a while to go through all the paperwork (health and safety , learning plans etc ) before launching into our first excercise - drawing shells. Typically I chose the most difficult but isn't it gorgeous!

First of all we had to draw the outline without looking at the paper( lots of hysterical laughter during this!) then we could peek , then it was adding in the contours(but still not taking the pencil off the paper) and finally with shading etc.

My drawings seemed to get bigger as I observed more and it was interesting in the group review at the end of the session to see the different approaches people had. It's a real mixed group in both ability and ethnicity so it looks like it will lead to some interesting sessions

The tutor continually moved round making suggestions for improvement - in my case sharpening my pencil to create a more obvious edge between inner and outer surfaces.

I've also signed up for an on-line lino printing course with Dijanne. I think my first cuts might be based on shells.....

Breaking Bloggers Block

After working almost solidly for 2 weeks, there hasn't been the opportunity to update the blog and you know how it is, after a gap you always think you have to say something momentous and put off posting until that occurs. I referred to this as 'bloggers block' in the talk I gave yesterday to Thames Valley Contemporary Quilt Group. It's the first time I've given a presentation on blogging and I wasn't quite sure how to pitch it but in the end decided to concentrate on what I get out of it rather than a 'how-to' . Hope I didn't puzzle too many people!

It was such an inspiring meeting, expertly organised by Sandy Snowdon and with the opportunity to spend quality time with like -minded textile people, it's become a fixture in my diary. Linda had brought in a massive bunch (is that right word?) of peacock tail feathers and I couldn't resist bringing some home, getting some funny looks on the train especially making way through loads of football fans at Brentford!Today I've been scanning and photographing them with slightly different results - scanning captures the iridescence more I think. I couldn't resist playing in Photoshop altering the hue. The afternoon of the meeting was spent in a number of exercises cutting and glueing papers into scrapbooks to drive home the design principles so clearly outlined by Judy Fairless. It's great to be reminded of these and particularly in relation to textiles. Having spent some time looking at how designers drew attention to products, I'll never look at adverts in quite the same way again. As one of Sandy's famous 'icebreakers' we were asked to choose which was our preferred colour group for our textile work (as opposed to favourite colour - don't necessarily coincide). I never thought I'd be joining the 'neutrals' group but given the greys of my 'Lunaria' piece and the fabrics I'm currently auditioning for my next project, it was the logical choice. However, shoot me if I start to express a liking for beige.

Garden Makeover

With major project at work handed over and first stage of garden makeover completed (see below) , time to start on my 'breakthrough' piece for Contemporary Quilt.
Last weekend was spent stabilising the hazel hurdle screening, finalising the layout of paving stones and Ian carrying bags of gravel which I slit and raked around. We're very pleased with the final result. Apart from feeling smug that we did it ourselves, it looks even better than we'd hoped. It seems a long way from March when we were laying down newspaper squares on the lawn to mark where the paving might go and using hosepipe to indicate the edge.

The paving stoness and gravel were delivered over the Easter holidays ( each bag and slab carried through the house individually.....)

Then with some hacking back of vegetation , 'whirligig' dryer relocated and metal edging in position, Ian took over turf cutting duties.

Soil raked and compacted, membrane laid then a haitus in activities -not helped by swine flu!

We completed the gravel laying on Sunday afternoon and polished off the last of the Pimms still in our extremely dirty gardening clothes.

Which gave use Bank Holiday Monday for play!

Ian has long wanted to roast green coffee beans and after mixed results with a frying pan in his old flat, we requested a popcorn maker as a wedding present.

Four years on and time had finally come to experiment. We plugged the popcorn maker in the external extension lead and placed it on the patio - just as well as the action spits out the husks everywhere and gets extremely hot. After the 2nd 'crack' the beans were poured out into a frying pan to cool down.

We couldn't wait to grind and brew some in cafetiere for 'brunch'. Very nice too and a big caffeine hit.

Richard Long-Heaven and Earth

In between the Chunghie Lee masterclass and my main visit to FoQ, I had a day off to recover(!) which I jam- packed with shopping, coffee with Sue and a visit to Tate Britain ( an easy trip by train from Brentford to Vauxhall). The object of my visit was the Richard Long exhibition.

It stirred me in many ways and will I think leave a lasting impression. It's first effect was to colour my view of the Festival of Quilts - many pieces seemed so fussy in comparison until I acclimatised. Like Olga, I had seen his work in galleries and exhibitions before, and liked it but its hadn't made much impact on me. This time, being surrounded by it, in a large spacious setting with detailed explanations was quite a different experience, sometimes unexpected. The photographs, drawings , sculptures and textworks were interesting and often beautiful in themselves in addition to representing in varied ways the act of walking. But as I was going round I realised I was thinking as much about my own interaction with landscape and interpretation of it, relating his work to my own experiences. In Room 3, mainly wonderfully grainy photos of walks and 'interventions' in the landscape, he talked of ' making a circle of stones, just placing a stone at every mile, or carrying a stone from one place to another' . This made me think of the World Beach Project and the fun Ian and I had last year in Greece, making us look at a familiar landscape in a different way.

Room 4 contained large 'indoor' sculptures of stones-
"I like the fact that every stone is different, one from another, in the same way all fingerprints, or snowflakes (or places) are unique, so no two circles can be alike. In the landscape works, the stones are of the place and remain there. With an indoor sculpture there is a different working rationale. The work is usually first made to fit its first venue in terms of scale, but it is not site-specific; the work is autonomous in that it can be re-made in another space and place. When this happens, there is a specific written procedure to follow. The selection of the stones is usually random; also individual stones will be in different places within the work each time. Nevertheless, it is the 'same' work whenever it is re-made."

My favouites here were the Norfolk Flint Circle which made me think of the flint pebbles at Bexhill (above) and 'Slate Line' which put in me mind of the limestone pavement at Malham (below). These had very different properties - white and knobbly versus sleek grey shards but both had interesting things going on in the negative shapes between the pieces. The idea for 'Transference' in room 5 was "first making a walk on Dartmoor recording various things. Then later on a completely different walk in Japan, I deliberately looked out for and could find certain things that were the same as on Dartmoor. It is about a symmetry of places, or events, on different sides of the world, and universal phenomena"

That it something I could relate to. I've been to many nature reserves in UK and Europe as part of my job but when I visited this 'swamp' reserve on Mt Chokai in Japan, it felt both familiar and alien. I could recognise that some plants were orchids but frustratingly couldn't name them ( the guide book had no latin names - so much for it being the universal taxonomic language) Food and meals feature in his 'transference'. I'd taken my normal walking snack of Duchy Original cheese nibbles with me to Japan , but I never anticipated eating them with chopsticks during a picnic in a carpark!

Since moving to Brentford, I've been much more aware of the tidal nature of the river Thames - from mud to high water in just a few hours. Tides were the focus of room 6 where I spent most time, mesmerised by the huge painting 'White Water Line' . "......White Water Line demonstrates different types of energy. It uses china clay from the big clay pits near St Austell in Cornwall. This work represents the force of my hand speed, and the forces of water, chance and gravity. I make the top line of the image and nature makes the rest, revealing the cosmic variety of the microscale."

I loved seeing the mark of the maker in this and the other'mud' paintings.

The 'dribbles' reminded me of Osterley Weir which was a focus of our canalside walks at Xmas and New Year

I did several journal quilts and paintings exploring this subject earlier in the year and even pieced a quilt top which I put aside to work on my FoQ entry. Time to return to working on this piece I think. Not sure I'll use mud though!

Pojagi -Chunghie Lee Masterclass

I have for many years been interested in Korean patchwork where the seams in transparent cloth are an integral part of abstract designs. I made this door curtain for my previous flat, printing images of gum leaves onto silk organza using the computer and trapping silk leaves between 2 layers. I used French seams on the machine to join the pieces (not knowing how it was done 'properly' - it turns out this is one of the methods used) When I was in Japan with Susan Briscoe in 2006, I bought Pojagi books (in Japanese but very clear diagrams) , a couple of kits and old kimonos in lightweight gauzy fabric which looked like they'd be a suitable substitute for the hemps that are used.

I'd heard from Australian quilters who'd been involved in workshops and collaborative projects with Chunghie Lee what an inspiration she was and certainly the pieces I'd seen in the V&A
sparked my interest further. I joined the Surface Design Association as I knew she'd taught at their conferences and hoped to get to one someday. So I was delighted to see that she was coming with an exhibition to the Festival of Quilts - and that she would be teaching a masterclass. I signed up as soon as booking opened - it involved a long day trip by train but worth it.

For the class, Chunghie had brought along a selection of old and new pojagi (po-jah-ki) wrapping cloths and our first task was to learn how to wrap items and tie them properly -ingenious and so practical as well as beautiful. I coveted the older ones of handwoven hemp in cream and indigo.

She had samples of all the different seam techniques ( including the equivalent of fell seams). The most interesting and what gave the thinnest, stiffest 'line'were the triple stitched 'kekki' seams.

The different methods were systematically taught and we settled down to the quiet rhythm of stitching - a silent hour resulting in a real connection with cloth.

Years ago I used to to be able to stitch finely but with concentrating on large dramatic stitches in my quilts, I've lost the knack. My stitching did improve over the day , especially after I'd shown Chunghie my best efforts and asked whether it was small enough-'Not really' she replied.

At workshops I'm always the one that spreads out and invades other peoples space no matter how much I aim to control it.

Chunghie was realistic is saying that although it was a masterclass, she didn't expect masterpieces . It will take some time to practice and perfect the techniques but I have several ideas of what I'd like to produce - I'm particularly interested in a variations in blacks and dark colours, maybe in degrees of opacity. Having bought a copy of the 'Pojagi and Beyond' I'm starting to think of how I could achieve 3d sculptural pieces.

I also went to her lecture - besides a brief history, the main emphasis was on students work( a taster can be seen on this video clip from Rhode Island School of Design). Most of the students did not have textile backgrounds and they brought an invigorating approach to the pieces produced .The collaborative project with the Silk Road Ensemble looked particularly interesting - I'll think of the huge indigo banners when I next listen to the CD. Also in the talk Chunghie showed some of her own work in varied exhibitions and installations. It was fascinating to see the same pieces that were in her gallery at FoQ hung in different locations and formats.
The combination of homage to traditional techniques and the 'unknown women' who made them , with a rigorous art school aesthetic makes a very powerful statement. More please!!

Festival of Quilts 2009

A week has now gone by since Festival of Quilts - time to assess what stuck in my mind. First of all - Little Gems . What a triumph, earning just short of £10K for the Guild. You could hardly get to see the miniatures for the queues. I contributed 4 quilts - spare journal quilts from when I got carried away and did 2 or 3 per month. I was thrilled to receive a card from the lady who won the one above ( assembled from leftovers for 'silver threads among the gold' -for Guild 25th anniversary). She saw Klimt's influence in it and now she's said it, I can see it too!

I had a new camera and I haven't yet got used to its autofocus so pictures of quilts aren't that great ( plus always a bit concerned about copyright). I did ask permission from Liesbeth Williams who had a display of her coursework and sketchbooks in the 'Further Education' section. I love her sense of place, concentrating on the Anglesey landscape around her and I enjoyed our discussions.
Looking through my photos ,my favourites among the competition quilts were not the blockbuster winners or even those by 'names' but those I'd wished I'd made myself: 'Windows' by Janine Ayres, 'Roadwork 1 ' by Sue Dawson, 'The sentinels' by Jane Allen,'Container Port' by Mike Wallace.

The work I admired most in the galleries were those of Chunghie Lee (more about that in another post); Janice Gunner(wonderful indigo); Christina Ellcock and Sarah Wesby ( I would have been tempted to buy one piece if it hadn't already sold - bought the catalogue instead). Minding the SAQA stand last thing on Saturday was a real treat, surrounded by some great works, my eye continually drawn to the simplicity of 'Squam Lake-Early Autumn' by Denise Linet.

I set myself a shopping budget and nearly stuck to it: art materials from Art Van Go , an irresistible sea green silk from Susan Briscoe, equally irresistible hand dyed fabrics from The African Fabric Shop and silk organzas and threads from Mulberry Silks. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with the 'silk spaghetti' from Thredfairy but it came in such lovely colours.....

Inspiration can come from such unlikely sources. My room in the Hilton overlooked a flat roof colonised by moss - it could be a landscape or river delta from 'Earth from the air' .

It seems appropriate as I will be focusing more on bryophytes as part of my job, with a couple of weekends in September devoted to scientific meeting and field courses to refresh my identification skills.

And the contrails in the sky seen from the motorway on the way home were fantastic.

Lunaria (Pearlessence)

Now I've collected my quilt from the Festival of Quilts, I'll describe part of the process of making it. The theme was Pearl Essence and I based it on honesty seed pods collected from the garden. I'd already explored possibilities of using pearlescent paint for this subject in journal quilts last year and for this piece I used Photoshop to try out different scenarios of layers and level of opacity. My rather ambitious idea was to have very large floating seed cases as a top layer with 2 layers beneath to give detailed texture -it didn't quite work out like that and in the end this quilt is a compromise but I enjoyed the huge amount of problem solving along the way and reasonably pleased with the results.

'Lunaria' Finished quilt

Stage 1

The basal layer of the quilt is composed of a large pieced section of greys I made several years ago while demonstrating 'chop and swap' block construction.The section above this is an image of honesty printed on on 4 sheets of treated cotton in 2x 2 'poster' printing mode, then sown together. The wonderfully appropriate batiks are commercial ones . The main vase is a Japanese textured fabric applied then the fabric behind cut out. The quilt was then layered with wadding and backing and quilted with Madeira FS metallic thread ('tigerseye') including extending the branches and stems into the vase area. Then using liquitex iridescent medium and cream acrylic paint I painted all the individual honesty seed heads. I decided 2 more vases were needed -these were painted with Golden micaceous iron oxide to give the effect of pewter. Lots of hand seeding with 'mystique' cotton perle thread (from Out of Africa) was added.

People always want to know 'how long did it take'. Well I got to this stage in May having started in January. Then I was stuck. I could have entered it as it was but it was too safe and conventional - I wanted to push it further but how?

Layer 2 Trial

I'd printed out an image of honesty on 16 sheets of treated organza using 4 x 4 poster printing mode. At this scale the image is a bit pixelly but as ink bleeds on organza anyway this did not worry me too much. I tried it out by pinning some of the sheets and also using various Photoshop manipulations and came to the conclusion that I could use either this second organza layer or a third paint layer but not both. As the theme was pearlessence (and I'd already sent it the quilt description!) I went for the 3rd layer .
The idea of launching directly into a painted top layer with no chance of alteration was too scary even for me so compromised on cutting out seed pod shapes in organza and moving them around. I tried a variety of sizes and Photoshop image manipulations but they looked too blobby!

Back to the drawing board

In the end I went back to the old fashioned method with tracing paper- printing out a photo
of stage 1 and with the vase of honesty in front of me drawing the shapes mainly using the existing stems on the quilts to connect them. There's nothing like direct observation especially as it had been several months since I'd first sketched them. Using this as the basis I cut out seed head shapes in organza and stitched these on by machine( 3 rows then cutting back the excess)
I then painted most of these with pearlescent and Golden interference (fine) paints. And with deadlines looming, squared it up and put the facing binding on.
By the time I was packing it up to post (and making a bag to put it in ) I was feeling pretty ropey - the start of Swine Flu

Proud Creator

It's always an interesting process scaling up. It ended up being more pictorial and less abstract than I'd originally intended , the biggest compromise being the size of those top seed cases - I would really have preferred them much larger but without a mid layer there would have been no connection to what was beneath. I intend to use that abandoned mid layer (it was a lot of work! ) as the basis of another piece - and paint those large ovals on top.

Despite neglecting to put a flap over the label it was judged. Mostly a mixture of good and satisfactory with excellent for surface design and originality from 2 out of 3 of the judges.
and mainly positive comments. What hacked me off a bit was that it was marked as only satisfactory in fulfilling the theme.What did they want - obvious pearls?? Given the winner that is exactly what they were looking for ..... For a variety of reasons I'm not sure I'll be entering the Quilters Guild Challenge again.