Welcome

Welcome and have a look at my work for Distant Stitch - Creative Sketchbooks, Module 6, with tutor Lizzy Lewis

In this module I will make a free-standing book on a theme chosen by me - Close to my heart.

Donnerstag, 30. Januar 2014

Chapter 9: Combining letters with pattern

 

Activity 2.9.1. Draw patterns that Klimt used in his work

 

141 Klimt ornaments This was done on heavy cartridge paper with a calligraphy pen. 
I love drawing with this pen, but with its fine lines the ornaments tend to get very small. 

I like the way Klimt paints distinct areas made up of
contrasting ornaments




142 Klimt ornaments coloured So it was a lot of work to colour the page (it was fun though!). I used watercolours and gold ink, working with a fine brush. At first I had planned to leave some white here and there, but it looked like holes punched in the pattern. So the lightest areas are grey.
Looking at Klimt’s paintings I was impressed by his elegant colourways and attempted to stay in the blue-green-gold range with spots of violet, ochre and red.

143 Klimt ornaments 2 The gold ink intrigued me, so I covered a page in my sketchbook with several layers and painted the ornaments with gouache. I like the part on the right, where the golden background is left as a line between blue ornaments. Drawn with the brush the ornaments are much bolder.


Activity 2.9.2 Make an illuminated letter in the style of Klimt

 

144 Klimt Letter I wanted an uncomplicated but stylish letter shape that should leave clear spaces to fill. I think the Y works well. The background was painted in turquoise acrylics, the letter in gold ink. I then added the ornaments using gift paper, gift and chocolate wrappers, acrylics and gold gel pencil.

The very light triangle and circles are not really so light as they appear on the scan. On the sheet they fit much better.

 

Extra activity

A design from Chapter 4 with Klimt ornaments

73 a, 14x14 cm 145 Ornamented letter pattern 14x14cm
I chose this design – letter B from Fancy Pens – because it leaves enough space for the ornaments. First I painted the lines of the letters and the background with gouache. For filling the letters I cut out shapes from gift paper using a stencil I had made in Chapter 4. Cutting the shapes to size left swirls of paper which I added to the round shapes and in the corners. The small circles and triangles were cut or punched, further lines added with gold gel pen. 

Sonntag, 19. Januar 2014

Chapter 7 and 8

 

Chapter 7: Jasper Johns

2.7.1. Find out more about Jasper Johns

137 Thoughts about Jasper Johns With some pictures of Jasper Johns’ number paintings downloaded from the internet  as reference (and the reproductions in the manual) I noted some of my observations.

I wondered how Jasper Johns defined the forms and created contrast. Enlarging the images I found pieces of print under the colour and thought about using bits of newspaper in my painting (did not do it though). In this stage I imagined how it would be to paint in this way – in the end it was quite different.

These are the two paintings I used as reference, one for the application of colours, the other for coherence.

1-13-Jasper-Johns 1-1e4b4d88761d140f1e196358dad710e1

 

2.7.2 Create a painting in the style of Jasper Johns

I wanted space for this, so I did not divide a page of my sketchbook, but used two opposite pages. Each letter is A4. I hope it is okay that I painted two letters, not four.

 

138 Letter B, A 4, acrylics on heavy catridge paper 139 Letter G, A4, acrylics on heavy cartridge paper
Letters A 4 each, acrylics on heavy cartridge paper

 

I made this collage on Picasa to present them side by side. I think they correspond quite well.

I used colours straight from the tube without mixing: prussian blue, ultramarine, turquoise, red, yellow and white. For application I took brushes, a palette knife and pieces of old credit cards in different widths, which were very versatile for applying thick coats of colour as well as thin scrapings. They also made ridges of colour which help define the letters and add texture.

I started with dark colours and applied the lighter colours on top. Colour mixing happened on the sheets with the paints still wet or when I scraped colour thinly over another. The scan does not show the tints and shades too well. I tried to create contrast by placing light against dark colours and thick coats against transparent scrapings. Applying white made a lot of difference.

The letter G (which had started out as C) was too large which made me notice the space around the letters. I also tried to break up the contours of the letters and let the colour spill over to the space around them, so the mind completes the form.

It was very interesting to see that the process of painting was different from what I had imagined, much more controlled, and I liked the dialogue that happened as I went along: a blob of yellow belongs here, a little red wants to be there ...

Like in Module 1 in the Matisse chapter I felt intimidated at first (Paint in the style of Jasper Johns?! Me??), but once I started it was really thrilling.

 

Chapter 8: Using your camera

2.8.1 Make an alphabet in photographs

I wanted to make one alphabet of letter shapes and one of found letters. One self-imposed rule was not to make arranged shots, another was not to use the same source twice.

All but seven of the photographs for the alphabet of letter shapes were taken during a recent Sunday stroll in lovely weather (which gave a lot of shadow shapes to observe). I took my camera “just in case” - and returned with a surprising heap of shots, several for almost every letter. Once I started looking there was no stopping. And it is still going on …

 

140 Collage Shapes 2

The letter A looks man-made, but it is a stone formation, an amazing find. My window sill also provided material, like B, a dried garlic stem, and the amaryllis V. The letter R is a good example of how shapes presented themselves: I saw it in my camera display when I  considered the pole on the left for the letter I and wondered what the dark blob on the right was doing there.

I also reviewed old photographs and found the Y shape, a funny shower contraption seen in a Scottish hotel during one of my walking tours. 

 

141 Collage Letters

For my alphabet of found letters I went back to the collection started at the beginning of Module 2. But I also made a couple of new photographs and scans. Being a great fan of Tolkien and Alan Lee I especially like the T, scanned from the cover of “The Hobbit” (you can just see a glimpse of Smaug’s body on the left). 

One result of this chapter’s work for me is an increased awareness of the wealth of design sources in my everyday surroundings. And I am pleased that my simple camera can do so much.

Samstag, 4. Januar 2014

Chapter 5 and 6

 

Chapter 5: Recycled Papers

Activity 2.5.1: Make a collection of recycled papers

A review of my collection showed a couple of useful items:

- gift papers
- old maps and map printouts
- old envelopes
- red kite paper
- kneaded paper (I made this following the instruction of Cas Holmes in her book “The Found Object in Textile Art”, Batsford 2010)
- an old engineer’s scriptbook
- illustrated papers from fashion and outdoor magazines
- coloured papers from module 1
- wrapping papers
- old letters
- train tickets
- newspaper
- paper bags
- pages from old books
- cartridge paper with scribbles, paint and various marks
- cd cover
- copies made from knitted and woven textiles

When I bought flowers and new walking boots I was very pleased to get green and brown wrapping paper as well – the “collecting bug” has really got me.

Glue

I used cellulose paste, or wall paper paste, as I used mostly thin papers which I find difficult to handle with PVA glue. Another advantage is that the papers dry reasonably quickly (my impatience again). I had to take care though to moisten the papers thoroughly so that they do not come unstuck. To flatten the dried papers I put them under heavy books overnight.

Acrylic medium works nicely and dries almost too quickly, but for me it is too expensive for making a bunch of papers. I brushed it as a sort of varnish on some papers I would like to use later on, perhaps as covers for stitched books.

 

Activity 2.5.2: Using glue to make recycled papers

 

More papers using strips are in the boxes below, as I worked on them further with paint and stitch.

 

 

Activity 2.5.3: Using stitch to make recycled papers

 

Stitching the papers was very enjoyable. The more I stitched the more the paper changed and became heavier and more “textile” to touch.

I used machine stitching in no 102 to make a sort of cut-back appliqué and free machine stitching in no 100 to fuse two layers of kneaded paper.

In no 92 I wanted to prepare a ground for printing by just making the holes without a thread. I stitched with the wrong side up to make a texture and rubbed a wax crayon lightly over the paper.

No 104 (with the detail 105) does perhaps not really belong into this category, as the stitching was used as an addition to the glued strips, not as a means for joining the papers.

 

Activity 2.5.4 Adding to the surface

 

I used gesso and acrylics for painting. I was very interested in how the gesso would alter the crinkled surface of the kneaded and stitched papers (98 and 100), and found it greatly enhances the texture. I think that is why I kept to very muted colours.


Newspaper collage painted

I liked Wil Ashford’s work a lot (and also Tom Phillips, who I learned about alongside with his “Humument”), but only when I bought a  newspaper with appealing layout and  lettering I got going. The advertisement papers just did not work for me in this activity.

 

The image of the apples was in a book magazine and too lovely to pass by.

The bits of leaves in the last image became unstuck under the transparent layer after drying. They seem to need another adhesive. 

 

Chapter 6: Printing

Activity 2.6.1 Make your own letter printing blocks

106 Alphabet cut from funky foam and bought letters This alphabet is from a font called Arkham. The letters in the fourth row were bought in a newly discovered craft shop. They work beautifully.
107 More letters for a line of poetry I found this line in one of Alice Walker’s poems, called “We alone”, which deals with the value we put on rare things like gold and jewels. She suggests we put more value on other beautiful things and stop exploiting people and fighting over the rare ones. In an activity which deals so much with found and leftover material,

recycling and low-tech solutions I found the quote very applicable. The letters are – ironically - from a font called “Henry Morgan Hand”. I was so taken with the act of printing that I repeated a word by mistake.

Funky foam worked very well for making the blocks. The curves and details were easy to cut, and the edges are well defined. I glued all the letters to a heavy cardboard backing to make handling easier. 

 

Activity 2.6.2 Use home made printing blocks to make patterns

I used acrylics for printing and applied them with a brush or by stubbing the letters on a coated surface. After misprinting the S in no 110 – therefore the change of direction - I wrote the letters on the backing to avoid mistakes.

Printing on the kneaded papers was much fun. Adding water to the acrylics made a difference in the way the letters show on the paper. With a drier colour the texture of the letter is more broken (no 114, 115, 128).

The paper for no 129 (the last image) was done last. I wanted to explore the different textures of plain and kneaded paper in one sheet and made a woven sheet. Gluing the weave at the edges required a more sticky adhesive than the wallpaper paste.

 

When I had paint left over I brushed it on heavy copy paper or in my sketchbook and continued to work on this surface. No 133 and 134 have been printed against each other when wet a couple of times during the process. I like the way the negative spaces show up with light colours against a darker background as in no 132 and 136, should have explored this further.

 

I pressed an M into a thick layer of leftover colour to create texture. After drying I rubbed this with red using a paper towel to bring out the textured letters, but I am not pleased with the result. Blue would perhaps have been a better choice, or I should have scraped the red colour with an edgy tool rather than use something soft. I finally printed blue M’s over to take up the texture. .