Its been a long time coming

It would be fair to say that I have struggled for inspiration in the last month. It would also be fair to say that when the one person in your life to whom you look for guidance is no longer around, things slow down. I have realised that sewing is a major antidote to stress. There is nothing quite like sitting and sewing to make you feel calm. I have added four pictures. The first is a drawing of my paintbrushes in their pot. I chose what I thought was a normal HB pencil, and half way through realised it was a purple colour pencil. I actually liked working in this pencil, and the end result was unusual. In the pictures it just looks like normal pencil, but it looks and feels very different in reality. The next picture is my interpretation of my sunset sketches/pictures in stitch. This is done almost entirely in straight stitch, but in lots of colours. It was inspired by my black and white stitching (first picture at the top, third down on the left) and by my review of works by Van Gogh, specifially 'Starry Nights'. I have always liked this painting, and the energy conveyed in his thickly worked, circular brushstrokes felt like something I could convey in stitches. That, combined with time on my hands and lots of lovely coloured threads (for christmas), led to my thinking about doing something simple (in terms of drawing) and yet hopefully complete in terms of a sewn piece. The next picture is what will hopefully be my admission for the first part of the course, an interpretation of my starfish sketch. I finished this in a cancer hospice at my mum's bedside. The memory of that will always be with me, in a good way, and I achieved what I hoped to achieve: Something simple, plain, using a few textural stitches that painted the picture as I wanted. I found, oddly, that chain stitch was probably the most effective stitch, but somehow that did not seem enough. I looked up stitches that would give me what I needed, and I found a version of interlaced herringbone which formed the main area of the piece, providing a good textural representation of the starfish, but not necessarily giving me the volume I wanted. Anyway, for many reasons, I quite like this starfish, and I will finish it as a picture later, for fear of ruining what is already there. The last picture is more properly the beginning of this exercise. It represents mark making on fabric, and shows the impact of the more basic stitches. The first (left hand hand square) shows a straight stitch graduation from far apart lines to close together. Clearly this shows a simple tonal effect from dark to light. The next square was rather lazy, and because I just used extremely long stitches for speed, the stitches sagged somewhat, but in so doing, gave the piece a charm of its own. I understood the point of the exercise, however! The other squares were experiments. The 'Van Gogh' inspired straight stitch piece led to the 'sunset picture', as described above. Other than that I was just generally playing with threads to see what I could achieve. Anyway, I am now putting together my stuff to send off my first assignment, so will be on to the second section on colour very soon. Happy New Year to everyone.

Inspiration at last

I live in an area with lots and lots of trees, so if I wanted to draw lots of trees that would be fine.  So, with not a lot to photograph other than trees, leaves and bark, I have resorted to a few magazine clippings I have collected, and at last I have managed a ‘proper’ sketch of a starfish and some shells, which has enough detail in it to perhaps transfer into a textile piece. I have also made some headway with the textiles elements now, with five items completed. So far I have had problems with getting some decent strong cotton to hand embroider. The stuff I do have is too flimsy and won’t stretch flat to work on, so I will see what I can get at the weekend. In the meantime, I have worked on some padded cotton and felt, as it holds its shape nicely to work on. As ever, my desire to run ahead and create a whole piece is hard to surpress, but I am trying to keep it under control and get on with making marks and recreating texture in stitch.

Day 15 in the haberdashery house…

Ok, so have decided to ditch working in pencil for a bit, as I seem to work better in coloured pencils and other media. Got my first bit of inspiration from something other than a magazine or a work of art, so decided to play with it a while:

1.      Quick sketch of a sunset – done in oil pastels, with silhouetted trees (just like the real thing). Very quick sketch, and the oils range I have wasn’t quite enough to really capture the vibrant colours (best sunset I’ve seen since we moved here a year ago). So I thought I would try something else with this scene…

2.      Same sunset, but with Tissue paper and black card. I saw bundles of the stuff for 79p a packet (10 large sheets per packet), so I got some, then hey presto, the sunset beckoned. It was fun randomly playing around with the effect of overlaying the translucent colours, and lends itself so obviously to layering organza, so there is a possibility this could be translated into a project piece…

3.      Just for fun, I found some glaze and decided to go with the opposite effect. I drew the outline of the scene with the glaze, waited a couple of days for it to set, then did a watercolour wash over the top. Once dry, I cleared the excess paint off the glaze, and the effect was quite nice. I imagine it is not far off a wax resist print effect, so again, could provide inspiration for a transfer to fabric.

Collecting

I have now collected some materials for the course. I have a selection of muslin, linen, cotton, velvet, poly cotton, net, and a very interesting rubber non-slip material that looks very much like counted embroidery canvas. I find that I have to have the materials generally in order to find inspiration, so am looking forward to working with them. I also have some silk and voile. I have some fabric paints, drawing inks and acrylic inks. I have tried them out on paper, but yet to see what they do on fabric. The cotton is going to be very handy, as I have enough to try out all sorts of dyeing techniques. I have researched the careers and works of Vanessa Bell, Paul Klee, Picasso and Van Gogh as well. Bell, I find intriguing, although I only actually like one of her works, Klee I have always liked, Van Gogh I have never understood (and am unlikely to, Starry nights and Kinetics aside), but Picasso is a revelation. Before I add this work to the blog, I need to work out how to acknowledge the Bridgeman Education website, before I breach every copyright law in the world.

I have created a couple of paintings purely in trying out my new acrylic inks (pearlescent, and lovely to work with), and my drawing inks (equally lovely on watercolour paper). There is something about each new material that inspires a new idea. I have tried to keep up my sketchbook, but so far, husband and cat pictures are very uninspiring. Husband looks like a 60 year old Van Gogh (he is only 30), and cat looks decidedly unfinished. I seem to do better on loose sheets of paper.

Mark making

I have embraced the first exercise in mark making. Picking words to depict as pencil marks is interesting. How I reacted to the words was interesting: 'Soft' and 'hard' seemed easy ones until I tried them. In the end, I reacted with the most interest to 'delicate' and 'sensuous'. The latter ended with two completely different representations, one using the end of a round stick of compressed charcoal which almost seems to melt into the paper as I roll it around randomly, and the other a  weave of rounded lines. Both completely different, but still made me react in the same way: I wanted to reach into the paper and touch them. So now I am thinking about how that would translate into fibre, and I haven't even got to the mixed media element of the mark making. Oddly, 'Sharp', I found really difficult. In theory this sounds obvious, but trying to take that onto the page was not. I shall have another go at that. I am going to have a go at some other words: rigid, fluid, agitated, opaque, translucent, shimmering, vibrant. I have also started looking at other artists. Franz Marc was a revelation. I had never heard of him and instantly connected with his work. I think I shall have a detailed look at him. I set up a slide show within the Bridgeman Education website, and realised afterwards that the majority of the pictures use really bright, mainly primary colours. I also chose some very 'organised' work, with lots of angles and straight lines, but generally it was all abstract. Generally, when I visit galleries, I like sculpture and all manner of art, so I  think perhaps I have my textile thinking cap on, and I am thinking what is practical in terms of textiles that I could replicate. Anyway, I am gradually building up my stock of supplies now, but am rather lacking on the fabrics (lots of fur fabric from my foray into bear making, but that's about it!). Time to cut up some single bed sheets and see what else I can forrage....

Inspiration

This is not self indulgence, this is my learning log (so apologies). I have yet to receive my course text and workbooks, so I thought it useful to log my inspirations and thoughts before I am set on course. My main inspiration is water...rivers, the sea, rain. I like the noise of the sea in winter, and the calm lapping of summer. I like the smoothness of sand, and then the undulating sand of a tide just past. I like the readiness of sand to record footsteps and marks of animals passing through, small and large, mammal or bird. I like the bark of trees, smooth petals of spring and leather like autumn leaves. I like texture most of all, anything that cries out to be touched. I aim to use smooth angora wool, leather, feathers, felt, cotton, organza. And with the texture comes colour...a rainbow of hues. I am always drawn towards the oranges of autumn, and the colours of summer, but pale, snowflake blues with peaches and greens always interest me. Anyway, we shall see...

Sew what?

...that's the question. I am embarking on the Open College of Arts Textiles 1: A creative Approach course. This is my first foray into textiles since my needlework classes at School back in 1987. Those were not happy days. I remember grappling with the bobbins almost constantly, sitting quietly until the teacher got back round the room to me to help. I am sure she thought I was pretty simple. My confidence in sewing straight lines and making PE bags may not be at its highest, but my creativity has been proven to be not all that rubbish in the last few years. I have made a few hundred pounds for charity selling my jewellery in that time, and can make myself any necklace/bracelet/earrings I want whenever I want, which is always cool.

My mum was a needlework and art teacher. I remember seeing her university sketchbooks as a kid and being really impressed at her work. She made my clothes until I was old enough to object to being dressed in the latest fashions (the Bay City Roller red polyester trouser suit with tartan cuffs was the last straw), but I have always been impressed and in awe of her practical and creative endeavours. This journey for me is a nod to my mum, Joyce Fretwell, and I am looking forward to the journey...