Sketchbook - Early Progress

In a previous post called The Importance of a Sketchbook I kicked off my fledgling effort. The main question for me is how does the sketchbook help in the artistic process.

Here is one example of an answer.

Pictures of birds in flight in formation generating words like 'order', 'tempo', 'beat'.

Initial drawings include quick, impressionistic scribbles with my favourite graphite pencils.

The scribbles got translated to block prints made from foam and printed onto a scrap of fabric using screen-printing inks.

The value of the thinking time the sketchbook work gave me meant that I came up with those pencil scribbles to translate what I was seeing. I think these will work really well in stitch by the way. For this exercise though the end result were some block prints. I had to translate spidery scribbles into an outline for printing blocks to work. I'm really pleased with the result.

I'm also learning to use resources around me for inspiration: the world; the internet...

None of this would have happened left to my own devices!! Thanks to the course I'm doing tutored by Louise Baldwin.

Artists' sketchbooks

Always on the hunt for how others handle their sketchbooks, I found Shelley Rhodes' really interesting to flick through.

I also found Cathy Cullis' Sketchbook Sundays really helpful and will follow them eagerly.

Recommendations

Any recommendations of places to see sketchbook work will be much appreciated.

Screen Printing

More progress from my class: my very first screen printing.

I'd always thought of this as a rather mystical, unobtainable technique that I would never experience. Only really expert artists made screen prints! And all those people who were doing Art while I had to do Latin at school.

This is what happened:

The prep work for the stencil and the cutouts from the stencil.

The stencil based on my bird theme.

My flight of birds across a piece of tie dye I'd made. I like this a lot.

Detail of the piece above showing the patterened texture of the fabric.

The flight across some patterned textile.

And again, trying to join more than one repeat of the stencil.

Overlaying the stencil with the cutouts.

Some serendipidous mixing up of colours having picked up left over pots from other classmates. One of my birds went AWOL (it stuck to the fabric on the previous pull and I didn't notice).

The back of the above piece has much neater and cleaner white spaces.

I'm not sure the sheer joy of indulging this technique comes across but I was like a kid in a sweet shop.

==========
This post is part of a series: see Part I -- see Part II -- see Part III -- this is Part IV
==========

Block Printing

The next stage of my class, after all the colour and texture work, was to make block prints from the theme we've been exploring: birds.

I really enjoyed making the interpretations from the pictures I'd collected. It made me feel like an artist!

Bird theme as inspiration - from my sketchbook.

Detail of the bird drawings - they look rather stitch-like. I love them!

More from my sketchbook

The block prints made from foam with the results.

Detail of the block prints

The results from my sketchbook.

Even if we didn't have that long to make work in class I thought block printing was great fun. I loved the painterly effect - I simply painted the ink on instead of pressing the ink from a plate - and essentially block printing gives you freedom to mark anywhere on your background. You can choose to be regular or random. There's something pleasingly quirky about it. I'm definitely going to be doing more of this. I may even dig out my lino.

Can anyone recommend artists who work with block printing that I ought to know about?

==========
This post is part of a series: see Part I -- this is Part II -- see Part III
==========

Review - A Stitch in Time: A Day of Embroidery at the British Library - 6 June 2015

I went to a great day-long event at the British Library themed around the new art work by Cornelia Parker: Magna Carta (An Embroidery).

"Fabricated by many hands, from prisoners and lawyers to artists and barons, Magna Carta (An Embroidery) replicates in stitch the entire Wikipedia article on the Great Charter as it appeared on the document’s 799th anniversary in 2014" (www.bl.uk/events/cornelia-parker-magna-carta-an-embroidery)

The piece itself was really impressive but more of that later. First to the event on the 6th of June 2015 called A Stitch in Time: A Day of Embroidery.

Karen Nicol

I have to jump to my immediate excitement at having met Karen Nicol who had a stand and was showing her famous sample 'sketchbook'. It is literally a set of A2-sized fabric 'pages' onto which she loosely pins a movable feast of her latest samples.

Karen Nicol's 'sketchbook'

She explains this all very well in this Embroiderer's Guild video. Also in this justhandson.tv video. I got to see her resin raindrops in 'the flesh'.

She also had many of her Lace series on show and it was priceless to be able to see them close up and touch and feel and look at the back. Above all she was very generous with her time, explaining some of her techniques and she literally talked me through every single page of her samples.

I really admire how she pushes the boundaries of surface creation. She said she sees things and wonders how she could replicate them in materials and then just experiments. Namely the resin raindrops (see videos above) and plastic bags cut into glistening fringes, the stuff magpies like me flock to. The other thing I really noticed is how often she pushes scale to extremes, for instance fly stitch and French knots with thick ribbon.

Her pieces are playful and humorous and make you wonder what goes on in her mind and how much fun she must have. Each one is also a lesson in textiles imagineering.

Jacky Puzey

I also spent a long while chatting with Jacky Puzey who demoed the digital embroidery programme she uses. Her work is really striking and her current theme is centred on tattoos.

Raven included real feathers and the scale of it (about 4' high) makes it a remarkable piece. I loved the textures and colour in her Shade suits too.

Raven by Jacky Puzey

Cushion cover with tattoo theme by Jacky Puzey

She is also a great example of being a good businesswoman as well as an artist. She detected a gap in the need for digital embroidery processes, especially for students leaving college and not yet set up with the expensive equipment.

Several other textile artists had stands including Adriana Tavares, a rug designer, and Jess de Wahls whose pieces I find disturbing (not being a fan of dolls, which they resemble) but she is an interesting artist.

Workshops

There was a wide variety of free and inexpensive workshops. You could be part of the over 7,000 people from all over the world who have contributed to the World’s Longest Embroidery.

The World’s Longest Embroidery - the Guinness World Record-breaking embroidery from The Embroiderers’ Guild

The World’s Longest Embroidery shown hanging in loops from the ceiling above the day's goings-on

In the Stitch a Word workshop run by the Embroiderers' Guild you learnt basic stitches to replicate words from the Magna Carta.

My satin stitch had an independent mind of its own

A tip for perfect Satin stitch is to run a Split stitch all along the border/edges of the intended piece (a bit tricky on the one above as it was so small) then do your Satin stitch around this stitched border, angling your needle around the thread. I will try that out on a piece I'm working on and show you results.

I also took Blackwork and Goldwork tutorials run by the Royal School of Needlework and by Hand & Lock respectively.

Blackwork: the exemplar on the left, the reality on the right. I have discovered that I don't mind counting at all, it's quite therapeutic

I was introduced to the renowned method of unstranding your thread and rejoining the strands. And no licking the ends to get them through the eye of the needle!

My Goldwork effort: I angled my gold in the wrong direction and the borders were a bit scrappy but all in all I'm not unhappy with it

Magna Carta

Back to Cornelia Parker. The embroidered wiki page about the Magna Carta was impressive in scale and I loved being able to see some of the back via mirrors set up underneath it.

Cornelia Parker: Magna Carta (An Embroidery)

Detail of Cornelia Parker: Magna Carta (An Embroidery) showing, top, an 'image' stitched by Anthea Godfrey of the Embroiderers’ Guild.

One of the 'images' was stitched by Anthea Godfrey of the Embroiderers’ Guild. She said it took her 450 hours using techniques from the C16th. The image above (as well as the one taken for the Guardian article, top of the page) doesn't begin to do it the least justice; it was glistening with gold.

The exhibition is on until the 24th of July 2015.

A Fun and Productive Visual Exercise

This is exercise 13 from Finding Your Own Visual Language - a practical guide to design & composition by Jane Dunnewold, Claire Benn & Leslie Morgan.

The goal is to "explore value, colour and textural arrangements within a composition, using a random selection of elements within a structured collage format."

This is how it works:

Step 1: make a selection of  same sized coloured or patterned paper - I've used these Japanese papers I had but in the end there was probably too much white on them; best to use something where the colour goes right across. Ideally, also, use more than 4 as you'll have more mixing choice later.

Step 2: cut a shape out from the whole stack - I've used a template. 

Step 3: exchange the cut out shapes - I wanted to do this randomly but found I couldn't!

Step 4: tape everything together.

Step 5: now cut a line - straight or curved - right across the whole stack.

Step 6: join the halves up randomly

Keep going cutting shapes and lines from the stack until you want to stop.

I ended up with this which actually joined two of the 'pieces' together as one.

There are of course lots of variations and the exercise goes on to explore what you can do with the pieces you end up with.

Here are some more:

Each one of these is A6 sized. 

This is something I tried in Paint out of curiosity - the line is a little wobbly but it captures the gist.

Some of these came out well. The bottom two were the ones I liked least as they were progressing but there's something 30s-ish about them that I don't mind now. Persevere!

Now that I look at the one above having made a montage of thumbnails I am really liking the way the top three rows work together at that scale. And I especially like the second row right hand piece.

I didn't like the end result of this one at all but it ended up in my sketchbook and then I started to doodle with some pastels around it and ended up with all this.

As an aside, I have been to see the Sonia Delaunay exhibition (read a Guardian review) and it has definitely influenced an interest in repeating pattern along the lines of wallpaper (above and below).

This colour scheme is inspired by some wallpaper I saw at work - this photo doesn't do it justice - which had a mix of colours I would never have put together: vibrant electric blue with red and terracotta.

I got a lot out of doing this exercise just in terms of using one of the pieces to suggest something different. But I'm sure there's lots more potential to unlock, just that I'm not able to see how to yet.

But I will learn.

Do you have any exercises you do that get you going?

The Importance of a Sketchbook

I'm not an artist and didn't know about the importance of the 'sketchbook'. There are even courses on sketchbook-keeping. I know I have to practice my life drawing or drawing in general and also keep a collection of samples that show my thinking and progress.

The problem is that I want to reuse everything, so a sample in a sketchbook feels like a waste! But I'm sure I'll get used to it. So far my sketchbook contains trials and tribulations from my CityLit textiles course.

A definition

It's helped me to define the purpose of the sketchbook as: to record, review and revisit ideas and work towards the mastery of art and design techniques.

I'm also understanding that primary observation (drawing from real life) is really important. I have yet to understand why.

My sketchbook so far

Here's how I'm doing.

That sample I made that I didn't like turned out well

Mixing and matching my samples in strips - not sure I like this; there's no real thinking behind it

Wing outstretched

Curious and beautiful shapes that appear in nature

What to do with murmurations of starlings

Quite liked this funny little bird made of wire

Eggs, and why not

I love how messy I'm allowing myself to be. That's quite a big thing for me. Nothing has to fit within boundaries. And I've stuck things down with staples, badly-applied sellotape with creases and fingerprints and clumps of glue. Better to get something done than to wait to do it perfectly and miss your moment.

Artists' takes on the sketchbook

It got me to wondering what do some of my favourite textile artists do. Here are some quotes from textileartist.org

Jane Neal

I spend a long time, sometimes years, researching and developing an area of interest by using books, images and visiting exhibitions to feed my ideas. I keep a sketchbook, often like a journal, in which I record all my thoughts and ideas, notes from books I have read, and preliminary trials and experiments. In this, I also draw ideas I have for a piece of work, and stick in images that link to my thinking or inspire me.

Aisling Smyth

I then collect loads of modern imagery and create a visual bank of inspiration. From this research I start to sketch a version of the end goal. 

Yes. I use my sketchbook as an archive of all my embroideries that went wrong.
Every week, I chop up my samples and sort into two piles: glitchy and finished.
The glitchy ones get stuck into my book and annotated as to why they went wrong.
The last and probably the most frequently occurring feature in my sketchbook is a list of aims. These could be daily, weekly or monthly. I can’t really settle until I make a list and it has almost become an exercise of habit rather than a practical organisational tool. The lists may not always be ticked off, but their existence keeps me sane, so why not?

Ana Teresa Barboza

My work starts from the notes I write in my notebook and from the things I read or see everyday in my life. I am ready to work when I have a clear idea of what I want to do and how I can achieve it. I do little proofs because embroidery work takes a long time to develop.

Alice Kettle

Q: Do you use a sketchbook?
A: Sometimes.

Another good source of sketchbook inspiration is a simple Google image search.

On a practical note, I've bought this great Artway Enviro wirebound A4 sketchbook in landscape and I love it!

And she's off

The record of my development starts here and I look forward to seeing the progress (I hope) over time.

Did you learn any lessons from sketchbook-keeping? I'd love to know.