Cheshire Cheese

More samples.

2012-01-27T18:56:00.001Z

Mostly plastic, a few fabric, and the paper ones I forgot last time [apart from the doyleys which I couldn’t find – and I think they are probably a wee bit naff].

Love the bubble wrap, but it doesn’t really say anything to me.

Then I decided to get nasty with my favourite samples, in an attempt to age them prematurely [premature compared with sticking them out in the garden for 6 months, that is]. This is known, technically, chez Cheese, as adding crud.

The top lot met puff paint, UTEE and a heat gun. I found there was a fine line between puffing the paint and burning the paper, but this is not a problem. [Hey, I could cut out the middle process and just burn them!]

I’m not sure about the overall effect – the UTEE is a bit blingy [which is a problem] but the puff paint alone looks a bit like bird s**t – which isn’t.

The middle group are bleached – lovely, lovely, lovely. I particularly like the effect on the brown paper, which ended up looking a bit woody – perhaps it could do with some ~~bird sh~~ – puff paint?

The bottom group is my attempt at rusting. Now I think I was probably the only textile artist in the world who had not yet experimented with rusting, so I had to consult the members of a Yahoo group I belong to for advice on how to do it. Plus there is a general shortage of rusty stuff round here [I think Wensleydale was a bit offended when I asked] but with the help of some good advice, some old keys [so-so] and some wire wool [brilliant] the attempt was made. The best one was, of course, the bit of copy paper I put in because it happened to be lying around.

There is another problem you may have noticed. I rusted the edges of flat paper and there was a certain amount of deterioration of the cheaper stuff. This is not necessarily a bad thing – but how am I going to roll and glue it? Answer – roll and glue first, rust later.

Photography and envelope rolling have also continued. Despite a falling off in post since Christmas, POT is now 2.6 metres long and weighs a healthy 1.5 kilos.

And my new photographic subject is beginning to think about flowering.

In the middle of all this I went to see the doctor – which means I have now seen a doctor more in the last 18 months than in the previous 18 years – well, almost. Turns out the reason I have been feeling so wobbly is that I have an inner ear infection, so I now have some ‘granny’s little helpers’ to control the more anti-social aspects of the problem. The drawback is that I can’t drink while I’m on them. :>(. And as they make me sleepy, I can’t drive either. :>((

Progress!

2012-01-21T18:35:00.001Z

and here’s the proof. A box [made from a recycled mailer, naturally] containing various sizes of tubes made from almost every type of paper I could think of, labelled with important details. ] It’s a workbook, as I'm sure you realise, for Module 15, ‘Fabric/Stitch Trials’.

[Bother, I forgot atlas pages – and book pages. Doyleys? Or is that a bit naff? Doyleys over brown paper might be interesting.]

It was a useful exercise – as well as my old favourites, newspaper and brown paper, I'm excited by the possibilities of single layer corrugated card, and some black paper I bought to make book pages until I decided it was too shiny. I am also semi-excited by wallpaper but it is a b****r to roll and an even bigger b****r to glue – although I confess I wasn’t using wallpaper paste, only some sort of gel stuff I bought in my continuing and so far unsuccessful search for a half-decent glue. [I have a hate-hate relationship with glue – which I may have mentioned before…]

But then, does it matter if they aren't stuck down properly? Would sticky out flappy bits be interesting, especially if I'm not tying them together but making free standing pieces?

And looking at the box gives me an idea for a piece – a box full of tubes? the bad photo i took of it before upping the exposure and using the flash had a gentle golden glow, which might be quite nice.

Tomorrow I intend to pay around with some plastic and possibly some fabric – although I think I’ve got enough ideas just from the paper, you never know, After that, I’ll look at ways to colour/distress the tubes, or add lumps and bumps. I have several ideas, and I know once I get going others will appear. Trouble is I've only got 6 months…

So apart from the continuing cold, which has turned into an ear infection which is affecting my balance – things are going well.

I am officially fed up -

2012-01-19T17:39:00.001Z

fed up with this cold

fed up with blowing my nose – I’ve emptied at last 4 boxes of issues over the last 11 days

fed up with the cough which kept me awake most of last night, despite the Lemsip, Benelin [sp?] and Vick

fed up with feeling as though my head and ears are full of cotton wool

fed up with the headache

and fed up with not being to taste or smell anything. Apart from oranges. Riverford’s organic oranges have been the one bright spot – well, W. as well, of course.

At least the sore throat’s gone. The cold is not anywhere near as bad as the chest infection from hell, but I slept through most of that – sort of. I’m awake enough to appreciate this one in it’s full glory – and if W. is anything to go by, I’ve got at least another week to go.

Grrrrump.

I did manage to stagger into college yesterday morning, to get the details of the final 2 modules [‘Stitched Samples’ and ‘Final Body of Work’], plus the module I’d missed [‘Sketchbooks’].

I think the overall reaction was ‘Is that it?’ – more of the same, only more focussed. However it did motivate me to think about getting started –as you may have noticed, I've had rather a long hiatus. I was intending to start sampling tubes today, but I was so tired after a really c****y night last night that it didn’t happen.

However, I did manage to add a couple of envelopes to POT, photograph everything, and make a sketchbook and a work book Nothing can start till I have the right book. The usual recycled Amazon mailers – quick, easy, and fairly strong.

[I thought I’d already made some, but can’t find them – that cottonwool-head effect again.]

I also made another bib. I had only intended to make two, but last night I stumbled on this pattern which I think looks great for little boys. [OK, that’s sexist – it would probably look equally great on little girls.]

It was very quick to do, even after I’d adapted it slightly as I wasn’t convinced about my ability to add poppers that wouldn’t come off. We’ll have to see which one the VHC and his mummy prefer tomorrow.

Cheese Acres are alive…

2012-01-14T18:22:00.001Z

with the sound of coughing and sneezing – a cold which the VHC kindly gave to his granddad, and which his granddad equally kindly passed on to me. Wensleydale, being Yorkshire bred, had soldiered on – I retired to the sofa on Tuesday and stayed there till Thursday. occasionally lifting a hand to my pale brow, dozing and whinging. Why not take advantage of a good opportunity?

I stuck it out till Friday when I decided I had to get a grip and went to the gym – where I was gently told off for going :>(

After that we took Babybel to playgroup, while her mummy took the VHC to baby massage – where he took after his father by eyeing up the girls and then making his escape. Everyone seems to have enjoyed themselves and we will repeat the exercise next week, when hopefully we will all have recovered from our various illnesses [Babybel and her mummy were also off-colour].

I was so preoccupied with whinging I forgot to take photos on Thursday, and POT got neglected too. I made up for it this morning, which meant I could take advantage of a wonderful frosty sky.

And there were other good things too.

[I love the film grain setting on my camera.]

POT is now 2.5 metres long and weight 1.4 kilos – a tad lighter than the VHC. Can you spot when Christmas was? Back to the boring standard sized envelopes now.

And this afternoon I decided to make a couple of bibs, as the VHC has outgrown the ones I made for his sister. Do you know how exhausting making bibs is? I had to give up and leave then for tomorrow.

I am feeling better – and I hardly cough at all provide I don’t stand up, sit down or [worst of all] lie down. W. is generally better during the day, which means he gets the treat of being kept awake at night by my coughing, but he hasn’t complained once, bless him.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

What’s been happening around here?

2012-01-05T20:13:00.001Z

Not a lot. New Year passed quietly, although we enjoyed the neighbours’ fireworks from our bedroom window. No progress has been made on the too-small-to-see canvas work – or much else for that matter. I even had to unpick several rows of my ‘Killing’ sweater, when I realised that the ball of wool I was using was a different shade of natural [not red] to the rest of the sweater. Fortunately I have another ball, and I will be knitting quickly to get to the end before it runs out. [Wish I was as skinny as Sofie Grabol, then I wouldn’t need nearly as much wool…]

We have been to the theatre with Babybel and Mrs Cheddar to see ‘Wind in the Willows’ – as usual at the Watermill, excellent music and a had working, accomplished cast, but I think it was a little too old for Babybel, who was coming down with a bug anyway. [Like her little brother and her Granddad.] She did enjoy Mr Toad dressed up as a washerwoman though – and a squirrel trying to stuff a very large conker under her seat.

College restarted yesterday – we had an entertaining talk from Maggie Grey and I increased my collection of D4Daisy books [now there’s a surprise]. No new modules to work on, though we did get an outline of what they are – apart from scary…

Thursday is, of course, photography day. We’ve had a couple of very windy days, and this necessitated a series of ‘interventions’.

‘Plastic’ had fallen down again, so has been provided with a stronger string and rehung …

CG1, which continues to disintegrate nicely, was getting friendly with a branch …

And P&P were getting friendly with each other [I don’t seem to have taken a colour photo for some reason].

All were restored to what passes for normality at Cheese Acres.

POT weighed in at a healthy 2.3 metres and 1.3 kilos…

and I started a new weekly series of photos, but not of a new piece, just my cherry tree. [Long term readers will know that I am rather fond of my cherry tree.]

Some bloggers seem to have flowers on theirs already, but mine, as you can see, is bare. Watch this space.

As we got Modules 10 & 12 back at college on Wednesday, I decided to ‘put them away’ – i.e. stick most of the bits in the heap on, under and around the spare room bed and hope no one comes to stay. However this led on to some semi-advanced tidying, so the bins are now full and, as W. said, you can see my workroom floor. My plans for throwing some paint around - in the interests of doing something other than draw tubes in my sketchbooks - went for naught. Maybe tomorrow…

I’m easily distracted.

2011-12-31T19:57:00.001Z

Today was going to be spent working on the RSN too-small-to-see canvas work, and possibly making a piano hinge book with the remains of Cellophane.

But …

while I was dismantling this year’s desk calendar [yes, I know I’m a day early, but I know what day it is today, for once] I found this bit of packaging.

It’s a book cover. Obviously.

So, a few simple steps and an afternoon later I have a two sided notebook.

Then, this evening, I was wandering through the blogs I follow when I came across this post from Cas Holmes.

Coincidentally, when we went to the Air Museum for Wensleydale’s birthday, I’d spotted a similar piece of lace behind a Spitfire. These two events led to me spending more time than I will admit to Googling about, finding out a bit more about them. They are amazing pieces of work, made on Jacquard machines, and measuring around 15 ft by 5 ft. I found the locations of about 6 of the 38 made – anyone know of one near them?

So now it’s 7pm, and neither cellophane book nor minute canvas work have been tackled – still there’s always tomorrow.

And I did finish the embroidered corrugated card last night. [It’s not really this bright.]

Wensleydale keeps going on about it looking like some outdated bit of electronic equipment…

And I got the marks for PCs and PMS.

Let’s just say I’m quite pleased and surprised.

Well, very pleased and very surprised.

Well, ecstatic and gobsmacked.

Say no more.

Happy New Year – don’t drink too much champagne. We’re saving ours for breakfast.

It might as well be spring.

2011-12-30T18:50:00.001Z

I spotted these while photographing tubes today – and there are more snowdrops out. Very cheering – but it can’t last…

CG1 and Cellophane have continued to fall apart – I have brought the bits of Cellophane into the house to decide what to do with them. I had thought of making a piano hinge book with them, but they may be a bit too soft and squashy. Alternative ideas are to make a box – or to lay them out like a skeleton in an archaeology programme…

Like a lot of us, POT got bigger over Christmas.

I keep forgetting to measure him, but he is at least a couple of metres long, after 3 months. I am not sure how I am going to photograph him if I keep going till The summer.

I also managed a bit of scrappy embroidery for the gold book -

well, weaving, to be more accurate. The idea for the squares of card came from Jane Patrick’s book, ‘Time to Weave’ – which includes an easier way to do Japanese binding I wish I’d known about 6 months ago. I’m now alternating between adding embroidery and beads to a piece of gold painted corrugated card – as you do - and trying to finish a piece of too small to see canvas work I started on an RSN course 3 years ago. Difficult to decide which is more like hard work!

Hope springs eternal.

2011-12-27T19:28:00.001Z

I have mentioned before that I do not like winter, so I am always glad to reach the ‘shortest day’.

Even better, on Christmas morning I spotted sme of these in the garden – although they seemed to have borrowed their leaves from a cyclamen! I can’t remember ever spotting snowdrops in December before, although it may just be a failure of observation on my part.

Snowdrops are probably my third favourite flowers - after daffodils, and cherry blossom. [You may detect a theme here…]

That was the most exciting thing which happened on Christmas Day – and that is not a complaint. We had a quiet day at home, eating and drinking what we like, not what tradition demands.

Boxing Day was a little more adventurous – a family gathering chez Babybel/VHC, when a good time was had by all – although as the VHC got his timing wrong and spent most of Christmas Day night awake, waiting for Father Christmas, his parents were feeling slightly worn. Not that that stopped them doing a Boxing Day race in the morning.

Little in the way of college work has been done – not even POT, in the absence of postal deliveries. I have been in a paper cutting mood – just messing about in one of my ‘make pages out of a lot of old bits of painted paper’ sketchbooks.

I have also resumed my intermittent interest in family history. I got a bit discouraged because I was hitting a lot of brick walls, but over the last few days I’ve managed to knock a couple down – or I think I have.

Turns out the reason I couldn’t find Wensleydale’s GGparents wedding was because it took place about 4 years after his Gfather was born… [It amuses him but would have mortified his mother.]

Of course it is highly likely that I can’t track down some marriages in my own family for the same reason – or because they didn’t bother getting married at all.

It’s happened again.

2011-12-23T17:53:00.001Z

Computers – or, in this case, their associates - have conspired to stop me doing what I’d planned on doing – i.e. playing around with paper and paint. [Handing in my sketchbook(s) just meant I had to make another one – or three.]

We ~~have~~ had three printers – 2 his-&-hers cheap-as-chips HP all-in-ones of different ages, and, because the HPs throw up their hands and judder to a halt if fed anything thicker than paper, a cheap-as-more-expensive chips, Durabrite ink using, A3 eating Epson, which has so far digested everything I’ve given it apart from black paper – which the HPs ~~eat~~ ate happily. [Not completely black, of course, that would be silly – black painted with Inkaid.]

However, the older HP started whining and chuntering and refusing to eat anything – or rather it would swallow part of it and then gag. [I think this metaphor may be straying into dangerous waters.]

So, when it refused to print Wensleydale's bank statement, we decided that it should be taken to the dump after Christmas, he could use the younger HP, and I’d surrender my claim to it and cleave only unto the Epson. [The younger HP has decided it doesn’t want to be turned off, but we can work round that.]

Which would give us more room on the desks, after a little reorganisation. I'll spare you the details, but it involved cleaning the desks [shudder] and took half the afternoon. And I discovered as I lugged it about that the Epson is a lot heavier than the HPs.

There was a good result to all this labour. Wensleydale’s laptop needed to meet the CD that came with the newer HP – which I managed to find, by a minor miracle. In the process of searching through the CD cache, apart from the usual collection of CDs and manuals for technology we no longer own, I came across a long forgotten present from Cheese Major. Some years ago – possibly last century - he went to China quite a lot, and on one occasion he came back with some CDs of Chinese art - sort of high class clip art. [They probably cost him about 5p, but it’s the thought that counts…]

Unfortunately the desktop I had then refused to have anything to do with them, so they got stuck in a drawer and forgotten about for years.

This afternoon, in my usual spirit of experimentation, I fed one to my laptop – it gobbled it up and after some time and a bit of chuntering downloaded a few images – well, around 80.

Did I mention there were 8 of these CDs?

I now have 100s [literally] of high res images of Chinese art, and the lap top is creaking a bit under the strain – bit like me after a Chinese meal.

The images are a mixed bunch, and not all are to my taste – but still plenty to play with. I think I may be sending home printed Chinese birthday cards from now on…

They are mostly landscapes

but this cheerful little fellow reminds me of the VHC – not that the VHC has plaits, you understand.

Isn’t this cute? This one could almost be a Van Gogh -

and this one could be Indian.

So far [I haven’t yet looked at them all] this is my favourite – and would be Babybel’s too, I suspect.So once I’d sorted the technology and the cleaning [shudder], I got my reward.

I can’t tell you anything about the CDs as the only things I can read on the packaging are the numbers 1 – 8, the Windows symbol and ‘PC’ and ‘Mac’. I believe the Chinese are quite relaxed about copyright, so feel happy to post a small sample here – hope you like them.

it was a good present even if it was several years before I got round to opening it!

It doesn’t seem like Christmas.

2011-12-22T18:11:00.001Z

Despite the frenzy of card posting and present delivering [for two birthdays and an anniversary as well as Christmas] and shopping and cooking and decorating. Not much of the latter, just a tree and a wreath on our smart new door – and no, I didn’t make it, £7.95 from the Winchester flower stall.

[As I am an official Scrooge, the lack of Christmas spirit is not a bad thing – apart from the essential Christmas spirit in the form of Penderyn and Glen Livet, which we do have.]

While delivering presents I did manage to fit in half an hour of VHC cuddling and conversation - big sister was at Nursery so he had my undivided attention.

Today was photography day [just remembered I forgot to snap POT, have to do it tomorrow – he’s been a bit neglected of late].

Country Gardener 1 and Cellophane continue to deteriorate nicely.

And I’ve done a little gold embroidery to put in that gold book. [Those tubes get in everywhere these days.]

We are now going to hibernate until Boxing Day, which is when we have the big family get together – starting with a fun run for the young and fit and a bit of childminding for the old and unfit [much more fun, and may well involve ducks].

Happy Christmas!

I found something to do…

2011-12-18T20:43:00.001Z

preparing and then enjoying Wensleydale’s birthday celebrations.

First a little baking – the usual Guinness Chocolate Cake as requested, [this is the nearest I can find to my recipe, but mine has no nuts, and a chocolate Guinness butter cream]] , and some of Dan Lepard’s totally wonderful tamarind spice biscuits [I used mixed spice rather than garam masala, which I shall try next, and almonds rather than stem ginger, which I didn;t have].

Then a quiet day with W. for his actual birthday – and today a three generation visit to Solent Sky, where we were, for most of the time, the only visitors. Great fun was had by all, and the staff were brilliant. I wonder why it is that Southampton wants to build a Titanic Museum, but seems to undervalue and ignore its much stronger connection with the Spitfire?

The most entertaining moment, however, was when we were waiting for Babybel, VHC and entourage to arrive, and I was trying to explain to the entourage where we were. Babybel’s uncle took the phone from me and gave directions – ‘turn right at that drinking establishment, turn left at this drinking establishment…’ - ‘pubnav’? It worked, though.

Then everyone came to our house to make short work of the baking.

Perhaps not a conventional birthday bash, but we enjoyed it.

So what do I do now?

2011-12-15T18:21:00.001Z

The PMS’s and PCs were handed in yesterday, and then we had an interesting talk from Pauline Thomas – altered books, work about the passage of time – what’s not to like? She even inspired me to think about videoing some of my pieces – yes, me, the technophobe, who has never videoed anything in her life except by accident when she pressed the wrong button on her camera. Need to get a tripod though…

Then we had our usual college Christmas do and came home.

Since when Wensleydale has got fed up of me whining ‘I’ve got nothing to do. I'm bored.’ Not completely true, I had presents to wrap and cards to write [Christmas, 2 birthdays and a wedding anniversary – it’s an expensive time of year.]

Then I remembered that college may be over but POT goes on, so he had to be added to and photographed.

He’s getting to be quite a big boy, just over 2 metres/ 6 foot 6.

That reminded me to go out into the cold and photograph the others.

Remember ‘Plastic’? Last week he looked like this.

Today he looked like this. I’m not sure when he came down, but we’ve had some pretty stormy weather recently, and his strings had broken.

Good job I didn’t spot him earlier or I'd have been panicking about changing the photos I was handing in. [I suppose I could e-mail a copy? – no, that way madness lies.]

Mmm – what to do? Leave him there or restore him? Time for what I have learned from Pauline Thomas is called an intervention.

This pathetic object, on the other hand, is staying just as it is.

though when it has completely disintegrated I may collect the tubes and see if I can do anything with them – I have vague thoughts of a piano hinge book of these photographs…

[Why are some of my pieces gendered [always male] and some not?]

The other pieces are coming on well, too - ‘Country Gardener 1’ is disintegrating nicely -

and interesting things are happening to ‘Storm Cones’.

And then I decided it was time for something completely different

and completely purposeless – a gold book. [The cover – recycled wrapping paper - is a uniform colour, that’s my shadow!]

It was late by then, I was tired, I rushed it and it shows – but it was good to make something which has no connection with college at all! Perhaps some small bits of gold embroidery now to go in it?

I should keep my mouth shut…

2011-12-13T16:15:00.001Z

After my last post everything went pear shaped.

I woke up the next morning with a painful right arm – pulled muscle? RSI/arthritis? Who knows? By moving the laptop onto my lap, mousing left handed and rationing my computer time, I’ve managed to get everything done, and the arm is less painful than it was – but doctor’s again if it doesn’t get better soon.
Both computers developed problems, and as W. knows even less about them than I do, guess who ended up clicking and cursing? I got everything sorted without having to phone India, one of several drawbacks to getting your broadband from BT, but I do wish people wouldn't update things – updated versions are rarely an improvement. And I have no idea why the new mouse will work on W’s laptop and not mine…
Yesterday afternoon, timetabled for a gentle sorting out of my on-line course diary, turned into sitting in ENT waiting to have a silent hearing aid sorted out. The annoying thing was that when I realised what the problem was [a blockage in the tube after I ‘cleaned’ it] I could have sorted out myself in 5 minutes. Still – I learned that the best time to go to the drop-in clinic is 3 pm – and it wasn’t last Friday, when things at our hospital got a bit dramatic. [According to this, it could have been interesting there yesterday too.]

Despite all these little interruptions, Modules 10 & 12 are now finished, boxed up, and ready to be handed in tomorrow – and Wensleydale has been informed that the Penderyn he bought for Christmas will be opened a little early.

I am always surprised…

2011-12-08T18:47:00.001Z

by how much I can achieve on a day when I have a good night, get up at a reasonable time, and don’t have to go out. As I’ve been sorting out college stuff, I don’t have much to show to show for it – one box with Module 12 stuff - the Personal Cloths and associated paperwork - which is more or less complete – and one box for Module 10, the sketchbooks, which isn’t – but I feel much more confident I can get everything assembled in time.

I still have to write the evaluation - I intend to do that tonight - a final round up of the scraps of paper with notes on which are scattered round the house, and the diary, which I'll do when I’ve finished everything else

I even ventured out into the wind to take some photographs – nowhere as bad here as it is in Scotland, but still pretty windy. ‘Country Gardener 1’ is beginning to decay quite nicely, but photographing the deterioration was impossible.

I did manage clearer images of ‘Cellophane’ than this one – but this is the one I like best!

Not surprising that it has shed some components.

I also managed a bit of cooking.

Well, back to the grindstone.

So now it’s Tuesday…

2011-12-06T21:14:00.001Z

and I meant to post sooner – although I’ve nothing very exciting to show.

Saturday was the first free day we’d had for ages – so I had a good chance to get cracking on all the paperwork for college. It was sunny [part of the time] and windy [all of the time] which meant I could get a bit of movement - so I took a few more photos – and then spent the rest of the day playing around with them.

Guess who’s worked out how to use the ‘burst’ setting on her camera?

I’ve resurrected the Tumblr account I started months ago, and will try to upload the images there, so as not to bore you if you are not interested – but don’t rush over there if you are interested, I’ve only got ~~one~~ two up so far…

On Sunday we VHC sat while his mum, dad and big sister went to the panto. The normal pattern with the VC is that he consumes all that his mum has left for him, plays for a bit, sleeps for a bit, wakes up and demands more, before his mum gets home, when we are unable to provide it.

As it was sunny we decided to take one boy and his dog for a walk – during which he fell asleep – here’s the proof.

And he slept, and slept, and slept – and when we left his mum and dad were dissuading big sis from waking him up. ‘Let sleeping babies lie.’

He missed some stunning skies – after it stopped being sunny.

Yesterday we went to Mottisfont, which has two art exhibitions on at the moment. It was wet and getting dark so we skipped the angels in the garden and went to look at ‘Cutting Edge – Contemporary Paper Art’. Bet you’re surprised…

You are probably familiar with the work of Rob Ryan – I've bought several of his cards, but it’s well worth going to see his bigger pieces, and marvel at the man’s patience. I had come across John Dilnot’s work on line - but the others were new to me. I was especially struck by Eileen White’s piece in the downstairs corridor – an installation+paper+shadows = magic. and now I’ve Googled her I remember admiring that piece in the Cathedral last year.

Today I have actually done some work – I’ve wrestled with Office/Picasa to print out some images for contextualisation. I keep coming across new artists whose work is relevant – like Barbara De Pirro, [whose name I have misspelled in my documentation – knickers].

If you look at the second group here you’ll know why I had to include her.

After that I wrestled with PagePlus 5/Photoshop/the Epson wide printer to print out some of my photographic experiments for the sketchbook. I can’t get PagePlus to ‘see’ Photoshop documents, and I can’t get the printer and PagePlus to co-operate on where the printable area is on a sheet of A3 – which meant converting all the Photoshopped images to JPEGs, a bit of trial and error, a few notes and lots of frustration.

Right now I should be using that hard won knowledge on some more images, but I’m procrastinating by writing this – and waiting to see what emerges from the small printer, which Quality Control has just set going by walking over it.

It’s a test sheet. How boring.

Where did that week go?

2011-12-02T18:10:00.001Z

In order of preference, family activities, paperwork and dentist’s visits, that’s where – in addition to the usual routine, of course.

I did finish two things – Wrap and L&F – well, sort of. I’m glad to see the back of L&F, it is completely uninspired and uninspiring.

Wrap is a bit more interesting, and all I need to do now is to work out where and how to hang it. I’ve decided I don’t want to put it outside, as originally planned – so when I’ve worked out how to support it, I’ll have to find a space big enough, at least for long enough for it to be photographed.

I decided that I will present most of my cloths as photographs – which means having decent photographs to present. And although I've been snapping the things weekly for up to two months – the weather has been so drab that most of the photos are a bit dull – and POT has grown so long it is difficult to photograph it full length any more.

Cue a bit of lateral thinking – and the way this collage ended up is down to Picasa, not design…I’ve spent some time pondering on the legitimacy of manipulating the photos, before deciding that, as I could argue that the photos are the cloths as well as the cloths, if you see what I mean, [bit of land art thinking there] it was acceptable to do so. [Bet you’re surprised!]

Hence the desaturated background on this photo of ‘Cellophane’ – which took a good part of the afternoon to do.

I am resisting the temptation to play around with the photos of all 11 cloths. ‘No, Cheshire, you haven’t got time!’

Of course I now have the problem of how to present the photographs. [Did I mention that presentation is one of the marking criteria?] I am trying to resist the feeling that I need to make a book.

Then there is the contextualisation, making sure the diary, planning sheets, and workbook are up to date, putting something vaguely relevant in the sketchbooks, and writing an evaluation – you can see why I decided to start a fortnight before it’s all due in.

In between all this, I fitted in some gallery visits – the exhausting college trip to the Courtauld Gallery [my new favourite gallery – Manet! Monet! Van Gogh! Gauguin!Cezanne! Matisse!– the Degas’s were presumably on loan to the RA]. Less tiring was a visit to the Hepworth inspired exhibition at the Discovery Centre – mostly less famous names, but some lovely work none the less.

I’m looking forward to a rest at Christmas.

Bad nights…

2011-11-24T17:58:00.001Z

early mornings and busy days makes Cheshire a dull woman, who doesn’t achieve much apart from rushing around and whinging about being tired.

I did finish this. I found a pattern on Ravelry [sorry, too lazy to finds the link] which used 2 and a bit balls of Cashmerino.As I had 2 and a bit balls of Cashmerino and it was simple enough even for me in my current mood, I cast on. You can see how much I had left.

It will be delivered to the VHC on Sunday when we VHC and Babybel sit, while his mum and dad run a race dressed as Santas. Of course, although it's a three month size, he could have grown out of it by then…

I have also managed to ~~keep~~ get back up to date with L&F and POT.

A’s green contribution has been joined by an orange one from Babybel. I haven’t measured either of them but I’m having to stand on a stool to photograph both.

And I finally got round to buying some more white floss to assemble the final cloth. Tomorrow I will work out how I want to hang it and, more difficult, where – I am running out of space in the garden.

Then it’s head down, writing up the paperwork for PCs and PMS before handing them in at the end of term – which is all too close!

Today started off well…

2011-11-20T18:46:00.001Z

but went rapidly downhill in the afternoon.

Printed off my spam messages, rolled them and added them to L&F? √

Finished another PC? [More details later.] √

Had an enjoyable lunch with W.? √

Successfully experimented with inkjet transfer techniques? XXXXXX

A week or so ago, when I was having a procrastinating tidy-up, I came across some of the litter photos [remember those?] which I had printed off for some reason I can no longer remember. So I decided to do nasty things to them, in a spirit of enquiry and ~~filling up space in~~ to make a meaningful contribution to my Personally Managed Sketchbook.

So I glued tissue paper on and drew on top – although it doesn’t show much.

or I scratched and sanded and painted them with watercolour

or painted them with gesso and coloured them with Graphitints

or – most dramatic of all – resisted parts of the image with crayon and then added bleach.

So today I thought I’d try image transfer.

I tried 2 sorts of acrylic gel and plain water.

I tried leaving the image for seconds or minutes.

I tried 2 different sorts of paper, and acetates which turned out to be not the ones you use in ink jet printers [which worked well if you didn’t want a recognisable image]

I looked for the hand sanitizer I once used successfully and couldn’t find it.

And an entire afternoon, much cursing and several cups of tea later I had nothing to show for my efforts apart from a bin full of paper..

Then, in a fruitless search for the right sort of acetates, I came across something called ‘Studio Paper’, which I had bought heaven knows where, and which, though remarkably lacking in anything like instructions for use, implied that you could use it to make transfers just by printing on it and rubbing.

And you know what? You can. Even on to brown paper.

I also found some sheets of labels I never managed to work out how to print addresses on, and got a rather nice window pane effect, although the labels are a bit reluctant to stay stuck down…

So it wasn’t a complete disaster.

Plus I am pleased with these – which I expected to end up looking like lampshades, but which W. has christened storm cones. [He used to live in Whitby – it leads to him coming over all nautical at times.]

Mind you, after I researched storm cones, I can tell you that this signal means there are storms coming from both the north and the south at the same time.

Perhaps I ought to stop whingeing and look on the bright side of life. After all, I have learned that, in the unlikely eventuality that I ever do want to make inkjet transfers again – if I get out the Studio Paper I’ll have no problems. [You can wash off the remnants of your image and, apparently, reuse it.]

I have kept forgetting…

2011-11-18T18:50:00.001Z

to post pictures of the book I made from Photoshopped pictures of an early tubes piece, now named ‘Chronicle 1’, as it is made from an old copy of the Hampshire Chronicle [a newspaper, at least nominally].

As you can see, I was exploring different paper treatments when I printed the images. The binding is the drumleaf, which I found in Dorothy Simpson Krause’s ‘Book + Art’, and like very much – it’s firm, feels good in the hand, and looks professional, while not being difficult to do [just slow]. This is destined to be a Personal Cloth, if only because it is too good to be a sketchbook <g>.

I actually finished it a couple of days ago – nothing much college-related has been achieved today due to a circular tour round the Hants/Berks/Surrey borders.

Sandy kindly alerted me to an exhibition in Bracknell – and regular readers who look at the image here will know why! The tubular piece is by Margaret Hodges, who is exhibiting with other artists from New Greenham Arts – which is another discovery. It is quite a small exhibition, and all visible from outside the gallery if it isn’t open!

We followed that with a return visit to the Watts Gallery, which we haven’t been to since before it was restored. The restoration is superb, but I find the art puzzling. Obviously the allegorical/historical type of subject is of its time, which is not ours, but Watts seems to have painted in so many different styles. Is this more obvious because there are so many pieces by the same artist displayed together? Do other artists change their styles as frequently? [The website seems to suggest that his ‘ceaseless experimentation’ was a bit of a problem.] Some good portraits – but why did none of Watt’s sitters ever smile?

No time to visit the Watts Chapel, which is much more to my taste, but lunch was good, and we had a pleasant drive home along the Hogs Back, with stunning views because the air was clear and the leaves mostly off the trees.

The art of procrastination.

2011-11-16T16:22:00.001Z

It dawned on me a few days ago that it is now only a month till the hand in date fro PC and PMS – I’d been telling myself it was December – which it is – but the middle of December, nit the end.

So I panicked ~~quietly~~ and then I decided to sort out my Picasa files. Not because this would help with either the PC or the PMS, you understand, but because it was something I’d been putting off since having an internet conversation with Margaret Cooter about it several weeks ago. It suddenly became high priority…

In the process I did remove a lot of dross from the files – and from ‘My Documents’ which I moved on to when I got bored with moving Picasa folders around. In the process I did find my ‘History of British Embroidery’ which I thought I'd accidentally deleted – not that it's relevant to the degree but someone suggested I put it on line so I might just do that [more procrastination].

The VIbirthdayP on Saturday went very well – Babybel’s clever mummy had won a free party at a local ‘children’s edutainment centre’ –or place for running, jumping, climbing, swinging, sliding, chasing, dressing up, playing ball and shrieking – so a good time was had by all. Even the VHC found something to his taste.

Sunday [in our case] was spent recovering from the VIBP.

The rest of the week seems to have gone by in a bit of a blur. The artworks in the garden were photographed a couple of days early because it was a beautiful day. I’m glad to say that some of them are beginning to look a little tatty. Today at college we were introduced to Module 13 [I hope not a significant number]. This one is ‘Professional Practice’ – learning about running a business, plus preparing for our graduation exhibition.

Part of the former is setting up a web presence – and unfortunately a long-established blog won’t do. We have to look at, and be prepared to discuss good and bad examples of artists’ websites – so if anyone can suggest good and bad ones, especially the latter, I’d be grateful! I have some good ones on my Gimmee bar, but of course I don’t add the lousy ones – you know, so picture heavy they take a year to load, so clever you can’t work out how to find what you’re looking for, and in grey on black so you can't read them. Artistic? Yes. Good at communication with potential customers? Forget it.

The latter involved setting up a committee [i.e. all of us] and having an amicable discussion over lunch about what we might do – which given that things like dates, locations and contents are as yet undecided, was a bit diffiult. Yours truly was unanimously elected treasurer [this of course is because no-one else wanted to do it]. However, as we are only seeking to raise a little money to pay for publicity, I don’t think I’ll be able to retire to South America with the proceeds…

It’s official…

2011-11-11T19:07:00.001Z

Thursday is now photography day.

Outside -

and inside.

I am also now officially bored with LAF, and I think I will abandon it at the end of the month. It’s too uniform, and printouts don’t have the same connotations as all those lovely envelopes.

Something else is happening outside.

We have had problems with our soakaways –we are not on mains drainage so getting rid of rainwater into the sewer is not an option.

Given that said soakaways are probably about 60 years old at the back of the house, and 90 at the front, and that the pipes turned out to be full of tree roots, this is not surprising.

We have had a hole, a spoil heap, some pipes, and a skip full of chalk. Those of you who are gardeners will have realised instantly that we can’t grow azaleas – given that we only have about 6 inches of soil on top of the bedrock, we can’t grow much of anything. However chalk soils are very good for soakaways – once you’ve dug a big enough hole and filled it with gravel. Two fit young men [in both sense of the word ‘fit’] laboured mightily in our back garden and the job is now finished. Then they are on to indoor repairs.

I have preserved a little of the chalk for drawing purposes, plus this, which the younger FYM thinks is a fossil.

Yesterday we left them to it, and went down to Stourhead, because W. wanted to look at the trees. We were a bit too late to see them in their glory but there were still some leaves on the trees – and some lovely reflections.

We also indulged in a little retail therapy in the excellent Stourhead Farm Shop.

We spotted some more colour on the way home

and some people standing in a field with a lot of old stones.

A bit bigger than the ones in our skip, and definitely not chalk.

The last two images were taken from the moving car, so a bit blurry, I’m afraid. We didn’t stop because we’ve done the old stones before and I always find them disappointing – I think the scale of the landscape is such that the true size of the stones is lost. The landscape, on the other hand, is stunning – chalk is also very good for hills.

Today has been much less exciting – catching up with POT and LAF, which got neglected yesterday, and another session of ‘add glue and wait for it to dry’ on a little book of photos of tubes. Don’t suppose much will get done tomorrow either as we have a VIBP [very important birthday party] to attend. A home made Thomas cake is promised – can’t wait!

As promised…

2011-11-07T18:57:00.001Z

a photograph of POT, showing A.’s kind donation. She felt he was looking a little blue, so posted me an envelope in her favourite colour, to cheer him up.

POT is getting increasingly difficult to photograph – next time I think I will have to stand on a chair.

I got out the glue gun today, not to glue anything, but to draw with.

These are the best of my efforts – the yellow one is on fabric, and I’m not sure how firmly the glue has adhered. I tested it by adding some gold wax, as the white needed toning down, and it seems to have survived – so far. I am thinking of adding some stitch in the gaps.

The other one contributes to my current obsessions with brown paper and stripes, and my long standing obsession with trees.

My third arty thing today, although it wasn’t on my original 3 a day, was a visit to the ‘Place-ment’ exhibition at the Discovery Centre. We thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the work of Tina Bird Wallbridge – although not all her paintings are of Hampshire, I think it is probably of most interest if you know the area- she says that she looks at one’s sense of identity linked to the place one lives, and her art really raised those sort of feelings in us.

Then we came home and Wensleydale’s lap top died when he tried to pay some bills on line. Two identical laptops, bought at around the same time, one used daily and one used weekly if it was lucky. Guess which one is still going strong? [Is there an emoticon for ‘fingers crossed’?] We have invited the compute doctor over, but I’m not sure whether even he can do anything but rescue useful stuff off the hard drive…

And then there were nine.

2011-11-06T18:20:00.001Z

‘Personal cloths’, that is. I just need to think of a name for it – apart from ‘number nine’.

This one was made from a collection of plastic zip-up storage bags whose zips had gone. After rolling I added smaller wrappings with shrink wrap, zapped the whole lot with a heat gun, and then incised them with the soldering iron. [I was very good and wore my Darth Vader face mask throughout – which meant I didn’t realise what an awful smell I was making till I’d finished…]

Then I sponged them with black acrylic and wiped it off again, before knotting them all together, rather untidily, because of the lumps and bumps.

It is hanging in the front garden, while I try to resolve my dilemma about whether to hang one in public [it’s litter! I haven’t got the bottle! They out to be out there! Think of it as [non] knit hacking!]

Insomnia struck again last night, but I kept to my new resolution to do something constructive, and made a little collage. The word was on a bag from Compton Verney and seemed very appropriate.

Nothing to do with tubes, but it’s going into the sketchbook as an idea when I get bored with rolling things.

Speaking of rolling things – POT and LAF continue to grow. I received an interesting donation for POT last week [thanks A.!] – all will be revealed in my next post [if I don’t forget…]

What a difference a day made.

2011-11-03T15:46:00.001Z

At 2 a.m. on Wednesday I was convinced that my college work had wandered off up yet another dead end – I didn't know where it was going, didn’t think it was saying anything, and I was missing stitch – to the extent that I got up and worked some blackwork samples inspired by security envelopes.

But I took some photos of the tube-y things I’ve made so far into college and begged for a tutorial.

Amazing what a difference someone's positive reaction makes!

Suddenly everything seemed much better than I thought it was:

it’s not just doing the same thing over again, it’s ‘working in a series’
POT was ‘ a very strong idea’ and I should consider doing something similar with e-mails
the photos I’d taken of the other pieces outside were very good and I should put them all outside and photograph the changes over time – this was before I’d mentioned that T&T were living outside
I should use some of the photos, enlarged up to A2 [!!!] as part of the degree show.

all the other suspended tube pieces have gone outside permanently and been photographed for posterity.
POT has also been photographed, for the sake of consistency

and I have started a new piece – hereinafter known as ‘Love and Friendship’ [LAF]. I abandoned the idea of using all my e-mails – or even all the spam e-mails – there are just too many of them – and decided to use just selected ones in white [you can guess which from the image] – plus e-mails from friends and family in green.

Mmm – perhaps I need more friends?

I was very tempted to call it ‘Love and Freindship’ [especially as it was an epistolary novel] but decided that trying to show off would just lead to most people thinking I didn't know how to spell.

I have plans for 2-3 more in the outdoor series – and then I'm done up till Christmas – apart from the paperwork, the contextualisation, the work book, and the PMS.

But I still like the blue blackwork security envelope patterns…

Student does college work shock!

2011-10-30T17:01:00.001Z

OK – not very much of it – but I am back in the mood, after finishing this [sorry about the c**p photo] and running up a bag from the leftovers for the recipient’s big sister.

I rolled a few envelopes – not many this week, POT has only grown by a couple of inches – although it depends whether I measure him contracted or extended. Doesn't it always?

I played around in my sketchbook – I like the yellow pages stripes on the left, which I may translate into tubes – if i can work out how to tie them together.

And I finished some plastic tubes I started the last time I was in college, nearly three weeks ago – except I then decided they needed wrapping with shrink wrap, heat gunning, soldering and rubbing with black paint – original in the middle, zapped on the right, painted on the left. For some reason W. says the last one looks Japanese. I just think it’s a lot more interesting than the virgin one in the middle.

So far I’ve only done the one – but intend to tackle the others tomorrow.

Plus I've done a bit of paperwork, and got ready for college [not difficult as I didn’t really unpack after my last visit…]

And as the icing on the cake, I’ve found some good examples for contextualisation – now to Google the maker, Dorothy Liebes and ‘rigid weft’ weaving.

A bit of this…

2011-10-26T18:22:00.001+01:00

i.e. college work – and a bit of that – i.e. a Christmas stocking.

A day late I got round to photographing T&T. Brown paper T is soggy and beginning to show signs of wear around the edges – the result, I think, of this morning’s heavy rain – but the plastic bag T is also living up to expectations and looking good.

POT also got some attention – and in response to Karen's question about how I fasten it together, I took some step by step photos.

Step 1.

Collect tools and materials. The secret weapon is my rouleaux turner, which has penetrated far more envelopes this last month than it ever turned rouleaux. [The tools also include Radio 3, but you’ll have to imagine that.]

Step 2.

Roll tubes

You can see the ends of the strings emerging from POT, ready to attach the new tubes. The ball of string is in waiting in case it is needed.

Step 3.

Insert rouleaux turner into tube. It is just long enough.

Step 4.

Snag one of the strings emerging from the last tube into the hook of the RT.

Eagle eyed readers will have noticed that this is a different tube – I couldn’t get a decent photo of the blue one, which is slightly longer.

Step 5.

Remove the RT, bringing the string with it.

Step 6.

Insert the RT into the opposite end of the tube and snag the second piece of string emerging from the other end of the last tube. Pull through.

The tubes should look like this. [Those extra bits of string sticking out of the palest tube are the tail ends of a knot.]

Side view of snugged up tubes.

Step 7.

Repeat till you run out of envelopes. Or glue. Or string. Or patience.

Much quicker to do than describe.

If you are wondering about the preponderance of plain blue envelopes – we are in the process of moving our bank account to the Co-op, so we are getting a lot of letters, in duplicate, in their rather nice mid-blue or indigo lined security envelopes.

After all that, I tackled the Christmas stocking – which has required more unpicking, rearranging, resewing and at one point, chucking in the bin and starting again [only the back, fortunately – I cut it out upside down] than many more complex things. I have decided to hand quilt the front [only ‘big stitch’, in the ditch, nothing fancy] – and sitting down to do it has been wonderfully relaxing, especially compared with the previous stages. Good for the foot, too – I have realised how little sitting down I actually do when machine sewing!

You might think…

2011-10-24T18:13:00.001+01:00

that having done nothing for college while we were away, I’d be busy making up for lost time.

Er – actually – no.

POT has progressed – this is how he looked on Saturday. I though there would be a lot of envelopes waiting when we got back – but we appear to have had very little post. [The postie has made up for it since.]

I’ve been collecting envelopes for about a month and POT is just over 2 feet long – which means that by Christmas when he is due to be handed in – he could be 6 feet long. And if I carry on till the degree show [aaaaagh!] – he could reach the 20 feet Sue the tutor suggested when she looked at my first 9 inch effort.

Not sure she really meant it seriously …

Today I managed to get round to assembling this lot, which have been sitting on my desk for too long. This one [‘No Entry’?] is definitely not long enough, and it would be better if the diagonals were higher up – but I was interested in whether the technique would work – and as you can see, it did.

But three a day? Depends what you count as three.

feed sourdough starter
add envelopes to POT
work on Very Important Sewing.

Baby Bellerina has a birthday soon, and I had a request for a bag for her ballet kit, as part of her present. A pink one. With dancers on it.

With a little help from the members of the British Quilt List, I found some fabric [thank you Angelika] and made this.

Not sure her mum will be able to wrestle her tutu into it, but it should take her shoes and cardigan.

Babybel’s mum also asked for a couple more aprons for herself, a bit longer than the last one. That ought to have been a quick job – but of course I couldn’t resist adding contrasting bindings, and pockets, and embroidery. Or, unfortunately, making mistakes, unpicking, resewing, unpicking etc. etc. etc..

Last but not least, the VHC needs a Christmas stocking. His big sister has one, and I can just see his little face looking at me saying ‘Where’s my stocking, granny?’ OK, he will only be 4 months at Christmas, but he has a very expressive glare.

I’ve got as far as cross-stitching his name for the top, and tomorrow will be spent making some patchwork for the rest of it. And quilting it, if I get up early enough.

Then making sourdough bread.

And rolling up envelopes.

And trying to find my recipe for Christmas cake, which has to be made in half term week. It’s a tradition. I used to make Christmas pudding and mincemeat as well, but we don’t really like the first and don’t eat enough of the second to make it worth while.

I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Good job I have a good excuse got not going out much at the moment…

I haven’t disappeared…

2011-10-22T18:07:00.001+01:00

off the face of the earth – just to the very edge of England.

That’s Wales, over there.

We have been here to learn about organic food and cooking for vitality.Unfortunately my vitality was a little compromised because:

it was very cold [but we’ve been before so were suitably dressed]
I fell down a step on the first day and bruised/sprained my foot. Luckily one of our fellow guests was a GP, so I had expert medical attention and the foot is steadily improving – though it did cramp my style a bit.

We had some free time so went on a nostalgic trip into Wales, where we saw something we’ve only seen a couple of times in the 30+ years we’ve been visiting the area -water pouring over the Pen-y-Gareg dam. It was so spectacular I had to walk up to the dam to take photos.

If Cheese Major was still responsible for Welsh Water’s control systems, I’d know who to blame – but he isn’t, so it must have been deliberate.

On the last night we were challenged to help ourselves from the kitchen and garden and produce a rainbow coloured meal.

So, with a little artistic licence:

red – dried strawberries [we learned to do some very interesting things with a dehydrator], chillies
orange – carrot, nasturtiums, marigolds
yellow – polenta – which I forgot to photograph
green – fennel, aduki sprouts, salad leaves
purple – beetroot.

Ah, I hear you cry, defeated by blue.

Not so.

There was a gardener amongst us who could recognise borage when she saw it. [That’s a delicious dairy free chocolate mousse with damson sauce underneath, though the chef, Daphne Lambert, made that.]

And to top it all off, we were presented with a dollop of well-established sour dough starter to bring home. I was delighted because I have tried and failed to start a leaven several times. I was advised to use filtered water as our highly chlorinated stuff probably caused the failure – which makes sense, really.

So did I get any college work done?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions…

What’s been happening?

2011-10-15T18:59:00.001+01:00

Not a lot.

Tubes have been made and strung. [The eagle-eyed amongst you may be able to work out that the gas bill came today. Fortunately Wensleydale was sitting down when he opened it.]

Tubes have been made but not strung – I branched out into plastic bags before returning to my favourite newspaper and Brusho.

But mostly [apart from routine stuff like the gym and getting my hair cut] – it’s been sorting out stuff for college. Which isn’t very photogenic.

We had been given rather confusing instructions about what to hand in for each of the modules due in at Christmas – which overlap just a tad – and thanks to C’s dogged pursuit of clarification - we were clarified. Basically, hand it all in, and they’ll sort it out. Sighs of relief all round.

However, I asked a supplementary about what we should hand in from all the stuff we did over the summer, which has now been rejected. [It seems that I am not the only one to whom this happened]. The answer was – not a lot, for fear of p*****g off the markers. [I paraphrase.]

This was good news – until I got started and realised that it was not a simple job. There were practical problems, such as things in the sketchbooks to be included which were on the back of things that were not to be included – and motivational problems like finding myself thinking ‘I've done all this !”&£$£%”£^$ work and some of it’s quite interesting – and in any case it shows how my thinking progresses – so I want to hand it in.’

My solution:

leave the sketchbooks as they are, it's too much trouble to try to weed them.
put the background stuff in one folder, make it clear what it is, and then it’s up to them whether they look at it or not. Fortunately I’d done most of it loose-leaf, so it was easy to weed out the irrelevant/rubbish. I was tempted to call it ‘How I got where I am today’ but I'm not sure the tutors share my somewhat odd sense of humour.

Of course I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to keep, and at one stage found myself raking through the recycling bin because I thought I’d thrown something away I now wanted to include. [It was in a sketchbook all the time.] However, it has clarified my mind about how I got where I am today, so it has been ‘A Good Thing’ [© W. C. Sellars and R. J. Yeatman 1930].

But of course it took a l-o-n-g t-i-m-e.

The highlight of the week was babysitting with a princess and a very hungry caterpillar.

The princess was fine, though a little reluctant to go to bed – perhaps there was a pea under the mattress? – but she was persuaded when her granddad offered to continue his marathon reading of the collected works of Jean and Gareth Anderson upstairs.

The VHC was hungry, despite demolishing what had been left for him. [I thought my days of pushing prams full of crying babies round the neighbourhood in the dark, to persuade them to go to sleep, were long gone.]

Fortunately his mum came home just before he starved to death. I think when he was born he took one look at his dad, his mum, and the princess and decided he had a lot of growing to do…

One thing leads to another

2011-10-11T19:17:00.001+01:00

A week or so ago we took the painting by Linda Gleave which we bought at Highcliffe to be framed.

And while we were there we fell in love. Not with each other, that happened in 1970, but with this.

‘Lavenham Storm’ by Terry Watts. The sky! The clouds! The church and field catching the light! The fact that we spent the first night of our married life in Lavenham! The way it matches the paintwork! [Not really, we’re not that crass, and didn’t realise till we got it home.]

It was a tad expensive, but the shop assistant quietly pointed us in the direction of the ‘Own Art’ scheme – and now we’re in hock to the Arts Council for ~~life~~ 10 months. Except it may be for life because now Wensleydale’s got the bit between his teeth, he’s planning what to buy next.

From the sublime to the ridiculous.

It was T&T’s day to have their photos taken – they are looking surprisingly well, considering we’ve had some quite windy days.

I’m sure you’re bored with my enumerations of my three a day – but photographing T&T was one of them, and I managed the other two too. It works for me.

The ultimate test…

2011-10-09T19:23:00.001+01:00

of the 3 a day system was always going to be the day after an insomniac night.

Today was such a day – and the system worked. So often after a bad night I mope around feeling sorry for myself, and achieve nothing.

Not today.

Roll up some more tubes. √
Photoshopping X –but it is going to happen after I finish this.
Finish the Country Gardener √
[It gets a red tick because it is so overdue.]
Here’s the proof. I tried tying it up with some lovely red satin ribbon but it was too wide, so I ended up doing raised chain band in 4 strands of perle cotton. I wanted the tubes to twist – and they do, as you can see – but unfortunately the red circle disappears as a result. Perhaps better if I’d painted it on both sides.

And I finished this - a cardigan for the very hungry caterpillar [VHC].

Made with the wool I indigo-dyed at Walford Mill. There wasn't quite enough so the sleeves are shorter than the pattern suggested – although they don’t look too short to me. The test will be in the wearing.

Yesterday was a 3 out of 3 day too – although I had included Mr Cheddar’s birthday bash in the list. The other items were the usual envelope rolling, and making my weekly record of progress on POT.

POT on the left, another work in progress on the right, looking remarkably similar. It is a sky scarf – 2 rows each day based on the colour of the sky at coffee time. I started the scarf in August and POT at the end of September, so the latter is growing quicker, and the weather seems to have been better wherever the envelopes have been…

We enjoyed Mr C’s birthday at Popham Airfield, and so did Babybel – here with her other granny.

Thanks to Mr C. for the photos – hope he enjoyed it too.

Not sure about the VHC.

Funny how everyone who sees him with this expression on his face comments on his likeness to Wensleydale…

Never say ‘I don’t like…’

2011-10-07T19:10:00.001+01:00

Some readers may remember that in the past I have said that I don’t like realism in art.

I take it back – although I think what I like is photorealism in art. Like these images by Robert Davies, who has an exhibition at Winchester Discovery Centre now. Yes – those are drawings. There’s a video in the exhibition showing him working on one, although you can't see what techniques he uses. He does also take photos, and those of the River Avon are very lovely.

I decided that it is photorealism which appeals to me because I also like the work of George Shaw – though I’m not sure ‘like’ is the right word. His work is eerie and disturbing, with all sorts of connotations that I'd rather not think about in too much detail.

There’s one in Southampton Art Gallery for those nearer there than Gateshead, where he is a finalist in the Turner Prize. I note that the Daily Mail dismisses his work as ‘boring’ – they moan every year about the lack of what they call art, but give them a realist painter and they don’t like that either!

Visiting the Davies exhibition was just one part of a busy day, so needless to say there has been slippage on my 3 a day. Only 1 envelope in the post, but even that hasn’t been rolled. I hope to get some time for Photoshop later on – assuming there’s nothing on the telly. So 1 – maybe 2 - out of 3 – and the Country Gardener is still slipping, because I keep having ideas. I finally got it ‘tacked’ together yesterday, but then when I was looking for something else I came across an oval mask – and decided CG needed a red oval.

Now I can’t decide whether to continue with my original idea of adding half hitches or raised chain band to hold it all together, or just to replace the ‘tacking’ with something a bit more robust – and whatever I do, what colour? Any suggestions?

Busy day tomorrow as well as it’s Mr Cheddar’s birthday bash – happy birthday, R!

A day off!

2011-10-05T19:02:00.001+01:00

No college today, as the new third year were being inducted.

We decided to take the chance to visit Cranborne Manor, as the gardens are only open on Wednesdays. Maggie Grey mentioned the Manor on her blog, and I realised that we had driven past it several times on our ‘avoiding the A31’ route to Walford Mill .

Although W. and I are not great gardeners, we do like gardens if they have a bit of art scattered about.

Like this lot.

Not the best day for exploring gardens – a bit cold and threatening rain – but probably as a result we had the place almost to ourselves. The gardens are unusual – there are lots of small, distinct spaces, separated by hedges, often with vistas through gates or gaps, which is the sort of thing I like.

There is also a tea shop, with well-filled freshly made sandwiches, a garden centre if you are more into gardening than we are, and a shop. [Lovely little girls’ dresses, less than lovely and more than little price tags…]

Then as we were only just up the road, we went on to Walford Mill. The current exhibition is ‘Women Working in Wood’ – some lovely, covetable furniture and miniatures – and some less covetable.

I loved this table by Tomoko Azumi – add half a dozen of these and I might give up my black ash, chrome and glass collection! These by Akiko Kuwahata were inspirational. Not every exhibitor was Japanese, but those were the ones I particularly liked – and most of the pieces on show had a similar simplicity of line and respect for the medium.

So, after toasted teacakes and tea, we came home. You might think that this means that my three a day has slipped – but no worse than yesterday! Especially when you consider that we got no post yesterday so No.1, adding the day’s envelopes to POT, could be crossed off straight away. I did get the mending done – and I did catch up with Monday’s slippage – here’s the proof.Tweedledum and Tweedledee [hereinafter known as T&T] in situ. My plan is to photograph them once a week until the summer, so any deterioration can be recorded for posterity – or at least for the degree show. [I have to keep writing that to try to lessen the panic.]

But assembling the Country Gardener got abandoned half way though, and won’t now be resumed till tomorrow.

Today’s list was:

Go to Cranborne Manor and Walford Mill √
Add envelopes to POT X
Write college diary for last week and plan for next week √ & X

Notice the ~~bit of cheating~~ clever idea there? Build in what you are going to do anyway – a knack learned in writing action plans when I was a manager. [Sometimes I don’t miss work at all. Well, all the time, really.]

I have written as much as I can of the plan for next week, leaving space for my three a day [which all start ‘envelopes’ – apart from Sunday]. The diary will be written after I’ve finished this – honest…

Marks out of three?

2011-10-03T20:48:00.001+01:00

At least 2. Possibly even 2.5.

“Add any mail to ‘Postage of Time’ [POT].” √

Notice the posh cream one? A. has threatened to send me a lime green one. Red letter days I’ve heard of – but lime green letter days? [Before anyone writes to tell me, I know red letter days have nothing to do with the mail.]
“Make 20 brown paper tubes, and 20 plastic bag twists and tie them together with garden twine.” √
“Hang the latter from a tree and take their photographs.” X

After naming POT, I’m tempted to go back to naming my pieces. At first I tried to think of sensible names - ‘Plastic or Paper’? – but of course things rapidly got silly - ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee’? ‘Pinky and Perky’?

I would probably have got round to the hanging if I hadn’t:

Spent 10 minutes looking for the twine [which is green, the photo lies]. Because it is green, I keep it in the green thread drawer – except it appears that I don’t, because I found it in the string box. That is more logical, if only because there is more room in the string box. Well, there was till I bought some more. I’m quite partial to string – especially with brown paper. [Not to eat, you understand.]
Spent 10 minutes looking for the eraser stamps I carved on Friday. [No, I didn’t need them today, using them wasn’t on the list, I just realised I couldn’t find them while I was looking for the twine.]
Spending another 10 minutes carving a new stamp and proofing it. [As you can see, it isn’t a very complex stamp.]Just when I got to the stage when I remembered that the drawback to carving out all 6 faces of an eraser is that it guarantees you end up with inky fingers, I remembered that I’d washed the previous stamps after using them and left them to dry by the sink. So now I’ve got three stamps with very similar patterns of lines on them…
Getting perfectionist about not twisting the bindings on the tubes - or rather, only twisting them back to front, not left to right. This led to frequent unbinding.
Getting perfectionist about getting the right amount of twist on the plastic bags.

Is it is possible to be a perfectionist when you are working with brown paper, plastic bags and garden twine? For ‘perfectionist’, read ‘mad’.

Despite all that, I enjoyed myself. I am finding the ‘3 a day’ lists quite motivating, even though I didn’t finish. I think this is because they make me break tasks into smaller parts, in order to make them doable in a day, and there is a greater sense of achievement.

The idea came from Margaret Cooter, although I’m not using her system. I started with bits of paper, but I’ve now redesigned my college planning sheets to include space for daily lists. I am including mundane things in the lists as well - tomorrow’s includes the dreaded word ‘mending’.

Of course I reserve the right to change my mind in the morning – these things should be spontaneous.

Despite the excitement …

2011-10-02T19:29:00.001+01:00

of making decisions about PCs – nothing in that line has been done today.

This is why.

Granny and Granddad were trusted to look after the very hungry caterpillar and his big sister. [Believe me, the nickname is well earned.]

After his mum and dad, not forgetting the dog, came back from their bike ride, we had a lovely, leisurely lunch in the garden while the caterpillar slept and Babybel caught up with an old friend.

We had a great time, and hope they did too.

I had managed to do a bit of creative stuff yesterday. The tubes at the top are destined to be a work in progress for some time – possibly up to the degree show [gosh, that sounds scary].

Inspired by Bonnie Epstein's use of found paper, I’ve decided to make tubes from all the envelopes that come through the door. This is 3 days worth, so it could end up quite long – it is already surprisingly heavy. Wensleydale christened it ‘The Postage of Time’ which I though was very clever of him.

The lower lot are also a work in progress, but one likely to be finished rather quicker. I’ve named it ‘The Country Gardener’ because that is what it is made out of – plus a little Brusho and some glue stick – which keeps coming unglued. I want to use this one to explore different methods of fastening the tubes together.

All in all, a good weekend – we just won’t mention last night’s insomnia.

Decisions have been made…

2011-09-29T20:30:00.001+01:00

as have aprons. And mind maps.

Fortunately I made the apron before the decisions, or poor Mrs Cheese Minor might have had to wait a long time for it.

It was going to be a quick job – find a pattern on the internet, find a bit of fabric, and whip it up.

Mmm – well, the pattern I found turned out to be enormous even on me, and Mrs CM is considerably slimmer. So the first one has become a dyeing apron, as it covers most of Cheese Acres, and this one is smaller – although still quite big.

I decided it looked a bit boring, so why not add a bit of machine embroidery? – just an automatic pattern, nothing too time consuming.

That bit was OK – but when i came to top stitch the other sides, the thread kept breaking -

and break ing

and br eak ing.

I changed the needle – twice. rethreaded the machine top and bottom times without number, adjusted tensions in all directions. finally moved the spool from the vertical prong to the horizontal prong – and it that seemed to solve it.

So, sorry Mrs CM, bits of it should not be looked at too closely – but it should help to keep you clean.

On Wednesday I hauled half the contents of my work room into college, and did quite a lot of printing and a bit of stitch – which I have forgotten to photograph.

In the afternoon I had my tutorial, and after inspection of my summer work [most of which is now quite definitely samples], judgment was given,

This -

but primarily this, together with its baby brother, have been given the thumbs up.

The rest, nowhere.

We then had a long discussion about where I could go from – and I was sent away to see ‘What if?’ and make 15, all different, by Christmas.

At which I quailed just a tad.

I realise that what I should have done this summer was just try out ideas without worrying about what constituted a PC – and leave making decisions till now. Which is what I did in the end, [but not ‘without worrying’]

So, last night I made a mind map [don’t I always?] and came up with several ideas – which I am already considering diverting from…

Never very good at doing what I’m told, me.

As it was a lovely day, I went out and took photos using the different settings on my camera – which I may Photoshop later, for the PMS. I’ve gone back to the idea of making a book as well – although according to Sue the tutor, the bunch of sticks is a book because it’s got a cover [sticks top and bottom] pages [rolled up newspaper] and a binding [plastic cord]. Works for me.

This afternoon I made another one, with cellophane. This may be a way to use up some of the acres of paper-like substances i have squirreled away.

One down, 14 to go – unless I include the originals…

Did you know I was trendy?

2011-09-26T19:54:00.001+01:00

http://www.style.com/fashionshows/complete/slideshow/S2012RTW-MKORS?iphoto=10#slide=10

No, neither did I. [I'm sure no one says ‘trendy’ any more, proving irrefutable that I‘m not.] Can’t work out if it’s a wrap, a top or a dress, but I like it – although I would undoubtedly wear rather more underneath.

Coincidentally, I tacked up the hems on this lot yesterday – though as I was watching a bike race at the time, I was a bit distracted. Well – a lot distracted at the end.

250 metres out I was sure he was going to lose.

But he didn’t. And by the end my heart was going nearly as fast as his must have been. [Well, perhaps not quite.]

Several good things have come out of Copenhagen this year.

That was the highlight of my week. College was catching up and finding out what we’re doing this term [‘student directed learning’ mostly]. However next week is ‘print and stitch’ which meant that most of my free time has been spent assembling this lot.

I want to experiment with printing on collaged backgrounds – which meant collaging some backgrounds, both fabric and paper. Then getting things to print with – paint, gesso, gels, Inkaid, stencils, leaves, feathers, collagraph plates, plastic bags, crisp packets – yes, that is a Guinness can on top.

Then things to stitch with sewing kit, threads – that bit was easy. Plus the stuff I’ve worked on over the summer for a tutorial.

Getting it all out took far longer than the lesson will – and then it will have to be put back.

I took this in to do during lulls in college, and got so much done I was inspired to finish it – though it still needs blocking. I like it, and I enjoyed doing it, but I’m not sure it says anything about litter. So it’s into the box for the tutorial.

Tomorrow I need to go through all the other UFOs and decide what to work on next. The partly embroidered photo? The disgusting plastic bag that never got finished? Some more fake cans? Or the adaptation of a Japanese basket using a plastic bottle and plastic bag cord? Decisions, decisions…

A day of two halves.

2011-09-23T17:14:00.001+01:00

It was a good morning – despite having to be at the bus stop at 9.01 a.m. [Yes, I know, I used to get up earlier too.] [9.01 because I can’t use my bus pass before 9.]

In pursuit of this week’s theme of any course that’s on offer that isn’t related to college work, I’d signed up for the first of a series of recycled jewellery workshops, run by Jacqueline Rolls. The first one was wire, which appealed because Wensleydale gave me quite a lot of redundant cable, and tells me there is even more in the garage, though by rights it belongs to Cheese Major.

These are my efforts – completed one on the left, too big and a boring shape , so therefore to be deconstructed and recycled on the right. I’m told the thin multicoloured wire is phone/IT cable - which makes Cheese Major’s left-overs even more interesting…

Although recycled wire is not litter, I have some ideas for using it for college work – when [if?] I make up my mind what I’m doing. I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to use what I have [heaven knows there’s enough of it] rather than buying more – and therefore what I make has to be adapted to the materials I have. Plus litter.

Then I met W. for a nice lunch at the usual place, and we drove over to Hobbycraft for some retail therapy.

Where the Vilene shelves fell on me - and I hadn’t been rough with them, honest!

So we went to Haskins for coffee to recover – where I dropped my change in my coffee. It’s not even Friday 13th!

Everything has been relatively peaceful since then, apart from the normal M3-on-a-Friday-afternoon traffic coming home. [Fortunately we managed to miss the end-of-shift-at-the-Ford-factory traffic.]

I spent 15 years commuting up and down the M3 – from before it was the M3 - but I still forget that it is always worse on a Friday afternoon. Lorries in the inside lane, car drivers who are going slower than the lorries but think the middle lane is the place for cars, and boy racers on the outside. Grrr!

Exciting ironing?

2011-09-20T18:41:00.001+01:00

A contradiction in terms, you may think – but ironing my indigo pieces was definitely exciting.

First up – the plains and fancies – samples dyed without any shibori at the top, shibori’d or discharged at the bottom.

I’ve had trouble getting the colour of these images to look right – for example, the ‘grey’ piece [middle left] isn’t grey at all, but a slightly greenish blue, because the original colour of the silk was a yellow-cream.

The sample in the middle at the bottom is the discharged piece you last saw looking like this – bit of a change there.

the one above it to the right is also discharged, with Tiggy’s wooden stamps. It has come out better than I thought it would and is probably good enough to make a little bag for Babybel, which is what I’d planned. I’ve learned never to judge an indigo piece till it’s dry – the contrast is usually stronger than you think it’s going to be.

Cotton muslin tied with rubber bands at the top, habotai silk bound with string at the bottom – each about a metre square.

Both of these are saying ‘scarf’ to me. I think the silk one would make a great beach wrap – if I ever went to the beach with the intention of swimming.

This one was always going to be a scarf, after I’d seen Tiggy’s pole wrapped muslin, though mine is silk noil. I wish I’d given it a few extra dippings, but it’s still pretty.

I think I enjoy dyeing threads even more than I enjoy dyeing fabric – so I did some of those too.

The wool at the top was going to be a hat for me but it is such a beautiful baby blue [paler than it looks here - one dip only] that I think it will probably become a cardigan for Babyboy – don’t want him to be jealous if his big sister gets a bag…

Most of the threads were from a dyers pack from Texere – there’s cotton, linen, wool, rayon, viscose – and a couple that had lost their labels. The differences in colour are fascinating, given that they all went into the vat at more or less the same time.

And finally – the piece de resistance. [Sorry, couldn’t resist.{Sorry again}].

Again – it’s bluer than it looks here. It was experimental because the resist was tied buttons, which as they were wood – or possibly coconut shell – we thought would take the dye. They didn’t – instead some of the colour from the buttons transferred to the silk, giving a browny green blob in the centre of each circle. It’s a happy accident which I love. I think this is destined to be a wall hanging, perhaps quilted, with some stitch using those dyed threads.

Despite having officially given up quilting, I’m inspired by Tiggy’s sampler quilts to use the smaller pieces to make one – and, despite what I said yesterday, I have a purpose for most of the other fabric. I can still pet it though.

I will need a bit more dyed fabric for a quilt, but this afternoon Wensleydale braved the loft and found a long-unused beer brewing bucket, and its associated heater, which I hope still works. I’ve got a vat, got fabric [just a bit] just need the other ingredients. And some time, as all of this will, of course, have to be fitted in round a bit of degree work – back to college tomorrow to find out what this year has in store for us.

Dyeing in Dorset.

2011-09-19T18:44:00.001+01:00

Despite the weather, and the traffic on the way home, A. and I had a great weekend. We went down to Walford Mill for a ‘Dyeing the Blues’ 2 day course with Tiggy Rawling – and had a wonderful time. Tiggy is an excellent teacher, and I would strongly recommend her courses if you want to learn about shibori and indigo dyeing.

On the first day – when we had a bit of sunshine – some of us tried out dyeing with ferrous sulphate solution [bottom centre, clamped and overdyed with indigo].

Then we tried some shibori – which I have tried before with little success, though A. is expert at it. I was more successful this time – some samples bottom left. I think it helped using thicker thread and slightly heavier fabric, which made it easier to get a good resist.

Then we learned the care and feeding of indigo vats, and got down to the really exciting bit – standing with our hands in a murky, warm, blue green liquid, taking them out, putting them back etc. etc. etc.

Top left is a plain piece, dyed for later discharge [bottom right] with potassium permanganate paste. This was the least successful process for me – I either got too much of the paste, as you can see here, or too little, when I tried using some wooden stamps. I’ll show you what it looks like after discharge when it’s dry!

Top centre is some pole wrapped silk noil, unwrapped top right. I’m very pleased with this, which I think is just about long enough to make a scarf. [While we were dyeing on Saturday, one of the other visitors to the Mill came over and asked A. what the fabric was for. A., very quick wittedly, started talking about cushion covers. We got the feeling that ‘It‘s for stroking’ would not have been an acceptable answer – and A’s indigo dyed silk velvet was definitely for stroking.]

Overnight we all went home and did voluntary homework – some more stitched resist for me and this experimental piece, which I neglected to photograph before it met the indigo. Viscose wool felt, marbles and string. Hairy string, which in this case was not a good idea. The little beads were attached at Tiggy's suggestion so I could tell my dripping blue lumps from other people’s dripping blue lumps. Surprisingly, there seemed to be no doubt about who owned this one…

Post dyeing and machine felting bottom left
after I'd separated the hairy string from the hairy felt, and removed the marbles top left. A couple of the marbles had already made a bid to escape – hence the holes, which I love. It makes me think of bladderwrack.

On the second day – when it rained – we retreated upstairs at the Mill for more shibori-ing. I did a couple of traditional tie dye targets, an experimental button resisted piece – which got more experimental when I dropped a button and couldn’t find it again, so had to rethink the design - and made lots of hanks of thread and wool. We dyed again in the afternoon when the sun came out, and finished with the discharging I’ve already mentioned.

This afternoon I tackled this lot – rinsing, untying, and washing – show you more when they are dry.

Thoroughly exhausting but great fun – and lots of ideas to try with procion dyes as well as indigo.

It’s been a beautiful day.

2011-09-15T21:18:00.001+01:00

See what I mean?

We had already planned to go to Highcliffe today, and struck lucky with the weather.

We went to see the exhibition by Quattro: Linda Gleave, Dawn Thorne, Liz Heywood and Linda Robinson – for whom I cannot find a link, apart from the one from my blog entry about their previous exhibition – which no longer works.

I found it much more inspirational than most of the textile exhibitions I have been to recently – Robinson’s use of sun printing [?] and tiny areas of stitch, Heywood's combination of knitted wire, paper pulp and machine stitch [how does one come up with something so original?], Thorne's wonderful 3d works, which I have admired several times before [W. coveted her coach bolts!] and Gleave’s mystical combinations of stitch and watercolour or transfer prints [not sure what they are but I’d like to find out].

Gleave’s work was our favourite, however – so much so that we bought one – this watercolour called ‘Evening Calm’. In contrast to the stormy watercolour of hers we bought last time, which I can’t photograph because it’s under glass.

While at Highcliffe we also saw Collection’s [sic], a contemporary art exhibition. The art was better than the punctuation.

In no particular order, we liked Elly Scrivener’s 3D pieces using knitted wire and other bits of hardware [W. wondered how she’d got galvanised metal to rust], Amanda Thorp-West’s landscape triptychs, Isabel Devall’s amazing geometrical pieces, especially the ones which seemed to be printed on iridescent plastic, Janet Bullas’s seascapes [seems to be a developing theme in our tastes], Demeter Dykes’ origami-like constructions, including one which seemed to be made out of cigarette packets, and the atmospheric video stills of Sharon Pearce.

After all that art, we strolled down to the beach, climbed back up again, rewarded ourselves with a cream tea [up to Compton Verney standard] and came home. [To more tea, but without the cream.]

Slash and burn.

2011-09-14T18:55:00.001+01:00

Make that stitch and burn.

This – yesterday’s sample -

led to 21 of these – a stitched photo before and after burning. [You can tell that I am still coming to terms with my new camera.]

I like the way the stitch makes the bottle cap look almost 3D.

Safety procedures were followed – although I forget to wear my mask , and the process is smelly.

The burned scraps are waiting to be stitched together.

The yellow background is temporary - my messy surface, which is a John Lewis bag over foam board. Useful because I can lift it off the table onto the floor when I want to do something odd like eat off the table.

All that after a bad night, a visit to the gym, and the usual chores.

Will it last?

Things to do with a photograph.

2011-09-13T19:02:00.001+01:00

Stitch into it –the black line].
Set fire to it.
Like it.
Consider doing the same to 20+ photographs and stitching them together into a hanging, inspired by Bonnie Epstein. The current plan for the hanging is use litter photographs where the litter becomes more and more dominant as your eye moves from the top to the bottom

I had a long discussion with W. about my concerns about originality/derivation/plagiarism. His view was:

All artists are influenced by someone.
Were the [few] people who tried Pointillism copying/plagiarising Seurat?

To which my answers were:

True
Possibly – but at least at first, with his knowledge and encouragement.

I find it a difficult issue – working like Seurat [if you’ve got the patience] seems less derivative than working like Warhol. Where does one draw the line? And using a specific technique, like sewing bit of paper together like Epstein, seems more derivative than using found paper, as she does.

Of course I’m using my own photos rather than found paper, and I’m feeling a bit happier about it since I did the stitching & burning bits, which also seem more developed from the original.

Curiously, I’m not worried about plagiarising people who stitch into photographs – partly because there are several of them, [most recent discoveries here and here] which maybe makes it a movement, like Pointillism – and partly because none of the people I've discovered are using stitched outlines.

Need to get back to college and ask for a tutorial – because as you can see I'm enthused by this.

Probably won’t last.

A good [long] weekend!

2011-09-11T21:11:00.001+01:00

Despite the weather.

A few good nights’ sleep helped, of course.

On Friday I managed to finish the new bag – it looks good, provided you don’t look too closely. And although it is only a couple of inches wider than the previous one, it holds all my gubbins comfortably – so much so that I am trying very hard to resist the temptation to put even more ~~essential stuff~~ junk in it.

So, flushed with success, I made another one.

This has to be the world’s quickest bag – a pair of bag handles, of which I have several, and a scarf, of which I have far too many.

So quick that I spent longer photographing it [using the camera’s different colour settings], than making it, and that included finding the scarf.

Instructions here. If you have a genuine Furoshiki, lucky you, but I made do with a bit of hand-dyed silk.

On Saturday we went to Chawton House, which was open for Heritage weekend. We went a couple of years ago and inspected the house, the horses and gardens, but the weather deterred us from doing more than the house on Saturday. Still interesting, though – and W waited patiently while one of the room stewards and I compared the relative merits of Colin Firth and Toby Stephens…

Saturday ended with a very enjoyable visit to see Babybel, Babyboy and their mum, dad and dog. We delivered the socks, and got a cuddle and some cakes – and other lovely food as well.

We also got to read most of this collection of Topsy and Tim books, which Babybel enjoys as much as her dad used to. The collection doesn’t include the book with the dinosaurs, though – does anyone know what the title of that one is? I can’t remember.

Today has been quieter, but a little college work has been achieved, in between the housework.

This is a little sort-of-book of litter kaleidoscopes, inspired by this one on donna Meyer’s book a day blog. I’m still off the idea of making books for my final year’s work – but this treatment seems to make the most of the kaleidoscopes.

I’m afraid that my other college work this afternoon is also derivative – inspired by the work of Bonnie Epstein. I have a lot of photographs arranged on the ironing board, which is the biggest clear space in my work room, waiting to be sewn together.

I am very ambivalent about working so derivatively – it doesn’t feel right, but when I tried it with the work of Karin Wach, but then wandered off onto a road of my own. A dead end as it turned out, but still my own road – and I make revisits the dead end to see if I can find a path out. [This metaphor is getting a bit overstretched.] As something may come out of this, I’m persisting with it for now.

Anything but college work…

2011-09-08T19:30:00.001+01:00

a little knitting – some boot socks for Babybel -

and a little non-college embroidery – for the flap of a new bag.

Of course both of these are essential – Babybel likes handmade socks in her wellies, so after I had finally remembered to measure her feet [5” long, 6” round the instep] I was happy to oblige.

And having:

got some new bigger reading specs
got into the habit of actually taking my mobile with me when I go out [sometimes I even switch it on!]

I needed a slightly bigger bag. I spotted one I liked the look of on the net and ~~copied~~ was inspired by it. I’m sure it is bad internet etiquette to admit you've knocked off a copy of something you’ve seen – but I’m afraid this will be fairly close to the original – just in different fabric and with simpler embroidery. And definitely not for sale.

I didn’t even design the embroidery – it is taken from a transfer, at least 40 years old, which I inherited from mum. [No, transfers don’t transfer on to blue fabric, which is why you may be able to see embroidery pencil marks on there.] Working on it gave me a lot of respect for the designer – as I added each of the extras – French knots, fly stitches, detached chain and straight stitches – I realised how much they contributed to the overall design. And I remembered how much I like Dorset feather stitchery.

This afternoon I've been wrestling with the bag lining. I found a bit of hand-dyed silk satin, left over from C&G, in the right shade of pink. I thought hard about using silk satin for a lining but recited my mantra ‘what are you keeping it for?’ and cut into it.

And remembered who it has been hanging around since I finished C&G – if you have never tried to cut or sew silk satin – you haven’t lived. It is a b****r. Talk about slippery! Pin, tack in your smallest tacking,and it will still fight back.

I will resume the fight tomorrow….

Despite the weather…

2011-09-05T19:37:00.001+01:00

I’m feeling a bit more cheerful than I have for quite some time.

Partly because of this lot, made last week.They are more Unidentified Litterlike Objects – and a cat. [I didn’t kae the cat]. The ULOS are, clockwise from top right:

three bits of woven, ironed plastic bag;
Another bit of Japanese wrapping – rolled newspaper, twigs and plastic bag cord;
The leftovers from 2 of the woven pieces, used on my flower looms. [I don’t know why I have both a Clover and a Prymm one, but they do produce slightly different results.]

The odd photos were because I was experimenting with some of the different settings on the camera – this one is ‘pin-hole’.

The better reason for feeling cheerful was the lovely afternoon we had yesterday with Babybel, Babyboy, their mum and dad, Mrs and Mrs Cheddar and assorted dogs. [Quality Control decided not to attend.]

It had been a foul morning, but by the afternoon the sun had come out and we had a great time. We went along to cheer, baby mind, hold dogs, etc. etc. while Babybel and Babyboy’s mum and dad competed in a 4k race. Yes, I did say Babyboy’s mum. To save you backtracking through old posts and counting on your fingers, he was 2 weeks old on Saturday. And not only did she compete in the race, she won! [Well done. L!]

Needless to say, her role model is Paula Radcliffe.

Oh – their dad came fourth. Well done, R!

This afternoon, less excitingly, has been spent making several ~~miles~~ metres of wired plastic bag cord – and very slippery it is. This is for the purpose of experimentation in another Japanese Basketry technique.

The importance of being flexible.

2011-09-01T19:59:00.001+01:00

Plan A

On Tuesday we were going to go to Walford Mill to see the current exhibition and have lunch, and then on to Kingston Lacy for a walk in the gardens/round the house [dependent on weather] and tea.

The car had other ideas [flat battery]. The RAC man restarted it, but by then it was too late to go mad in Dorset.

So we went to Mottisfont. We had had a quick look round the current exhibition with Babybel a while ago, but it wasn’t really her sort of thing – she preferred the ribbon tree

and the ‘fiss’.

So it was good to go back for another look. I’m afraid we galloped through the Cicely Mary Barker flower fairies – this makes the third exhibition of her work I’ve been to – but the rest of the exhibition slowed us down - some really big names including Paula Rego, Peter Blake, and Cornelia Parker [wonderfully spooky, this one].

A million times better than the similarly titled exhibition at Southampton Art Gallery a couple of years ago.

Plan B

Was to swap Thursday for Tuesday and go to Dorset today.

Car starts? Check.

No traffic hold ups? Check - cleverly avoided by turning off just as one was starting.

Cafe open? Ah.

We were hungry so…

Plan C

We went straight on to Kingston Lacy, and had a good lunch [Brie and gooseberry chutney sandwiches strongly recommended]. Then, because the weather was beautiful, we walked round the sculpture trail – work by Paula Joule Blake

My favourites were the long tailed tits, but I failed to get a good photo of them – and the sheep.

I loved the way Blake uses her materials to capture the essence of the creatures.

Materials? Chicken wire, what I suspect were metal lathe turnings, and plastic bags – this is the sheep’s back.

Then on the way out, we spotted this – tiny with the naked eye, but thanks to the brilliant zoom on our new camera, instantly recognizable [I hope] if you know what it is.

I’m sure someone out there can tell me...

I say on the way out – but when we bought lunch we were given a voucher for 10% off a cream tea – so how could we resist?

That’s my carb allowance for this week gone…

After an afternoon off yesterday…

2011-08-29T18:59:00.001+01:00

I managed a bit of college-related work this afternoon.

You may remember that I wrote that I’d changed my mind about making books.

Never believe anything I write. In my pattern sorting out I came across some illegible instructions for making triangle books, which I’ve always wanted to do. Despite being unable to read the very small print, even with a magnifying glass, which led to cutting the paper for the concertina too small, I managed this. The photo [same one twice] is of crumpled foil/litter, presumably dumped from someone's sandwiches. To give you an idea of scale, that tinsel-like stuff is a pipe cleaner – pressed into service when I realised the book was not going to stay shut. I covered the cover with what my friendly DIY man tells me is ‘self-adhesive aluminium flashing’.

Then, flushed with success, I did something else I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I’d made and coloured the paper rolls, collected the sticks and made the plastic bag cord – I just hadn’t got round to assembling them.

This – as yet nameless, if only because I'm beginning to have problems remembering the names - was inspired by a Japanese technique for storing chillies in the excellent book Basketry Projects from Baskets to Grass Slippers. Not that the author, Hisako Sekijima, uses anything as trashy as newspaper and plastic.

I’ve come to the conclusion that what I like making most are these woven/baskety/3D things, combining natural objects and rubbish. And I like photographing all my ULOs in their natural environment – too much exposure to land art, perhaps?

Land art for the littering society?

The gaps appear to be getting longer…

2011-08-28T15:41:00.001+01:00

No reason apart from not having a lot to say – must be a first for me. That is because not a lot has been happening on the creative front – just housework, shopping, sorting and reducing stash, optician’s appointment [=£££s for new specs] ~~half~~ - ~~a quarter~~ - about an eight of the porch ceiling falling in [=£££s I expect, but we hope the insurance will pay for it].

Just a normal sort of week then <g>.

All I’ve done which is at all creative was take a very simple drawing of a bottle…

use Photoshop to bend it, bend it, just a little bit [if you are now singing you are as old as I am], and colour it -rather unsuccessfully.

But a bit of pixilation in Picnik and saturation in Picasa work wonders.

And now I'm going to find something entirely unrelated to college work to do…

I didn’t mean to disappear…

2011-08-24T20:24:00.001+01:00

but BT had other plans for me. No internet connection. I had two different explanations from 2 different gentlemen in India, and finally got it back after 48 hours. For now – so I’m making the most of it.

Mind you, not a lot has been happening at Cheese Acres. Apart from the big thing, of course – although at 7lb something he’s a bit smaller than his sister was.

Here he is at about 18 hours old

and this afternoon [counts on fingers] at 5 days.

The considered opinion is that he looks like Wensleydale, but with slightly more hair.

In the intervals between admiring babies and their big sisters, I’ve been:
1. photographing sunsets [followed by pouring rain which knocks one old adage on the head],

2. playing with PostWorkshop [glad not all the photo-editing software I use is on line],

3. drawing squiggles to make Photoshop brushes – although I haven’t yet made the brushes,

4. doing some old fashioned embroidery on one of the pieces of needlepoint canvas I bubblejetsetted and printed,

And - of course -

5. watching the repeat of ‘The Killing’* on BBC4 at 10pm on most nights of the week. Just as gripping, just as brilliantly acted, but with the benefit of knowing whodunnit you notice nuances of his performance you didn’t spot first time round.

Speaking of which - a belated anniversary present to W.

* NB – the original, not the US remake, which we couldn’t bring ourselves to watch. How do you follow perfection?

I’m a granny again!

2011-08-20T11:39:00.001+01:00

Babyboy arrived safely in the very early hours of this morning – mum and baby doing well. Off to meet him this afternoon!

A bad start – but definitely improving…

2011-08-19T19:00:00.001+01:00

It started when I had to leave the house before the rush hour was over. I'm sure you realise that pensioners are forbidden to leave the house that early – enforced by not allowing us to use our bus passes – but I had a hospital appointment at 9a.m. Today was HA day – the day I got my hearing aids.

Everyone who knows me is probably saying ‘not before time’ – but it makes me feel old. And being assured that my particular type of hearing loss is inherited, not due to ageing, is no consolation…

I can hear much better - in fact everything [and I do mean everything] sounds incredibly loud.

I was assured that I would habituate to this fairly soon – but listening to myself eating lost its charm very quickly.

So this afternoon I found myself something quiet to do.

I mentioned that I’d been inspired by the work of Karin Wach. I love her stuff but I don’t want to copy it exactly, so I began to think about developing it for textiles.

My first idea was to use T-shirt transfer paper – but:

would it work if I overlapped it?
would the colour show through the layers?

The answers were no – and no. The colours were fine on the rather pale coloured image I was using, but getting everything lined up when you are working without being able to see what you are doing, because you put the images face down on the fabric, was a nightmare. And then peeling one layer of backing paper from between two transfers wasn’t much easier.

Then I thought ‘Stack and Whack’. I have made a couple of stack and whack quilts, but no more. Fun when finished? – yes. Fun to make? – no. As you will shortly see, I don’t do precision.

Last night I played with a few off-cuts of transferred photos to try the idea out.

Not a very inspiring image, but worth following up.

So I did.

I carefully [who am I kidding?] cut equilateral triangles out of 6 transfer paper copies of this not very exciting image – and then made interesting patterns with the left-overs…

It is not a good idea to put a hot iron down on a section you’ve already taken the backing paper off. Ask me how I know…

However there is an article by Margaret Applin, on using transfer papers, in the April edition of Quilting Arts. She suggests colouring the fabric around the print after you have transferred it. So if I add some more black smears, possibly the original black smear will be less obvious?

I remembered that Maggie Grey has a section on using transfer paper in ‘From Image to Stitch’. I found the book [with some difficulty – I had a tidy up of my bookshelves one day when I was procrastinating] – and decided to try applying the images over textured backgrounds – of which I had several, in the ‘interesting things to put through the printer’ pile.

But as they were based on Bubblejetsetted or Inkaided or Printabilitied fabrics – I decided to print on them first – with an enlarged, sepiafied copy of the same image.

Of course I had to scan the results before I did anything else with them. [To think I decided to use them because I thought it would be quicker than Bondawebbing some lace or scrim to cotton…]

And finally – I made my hexagons.

The transfer paper [an old packet from WH Smith which says very firmly it should only be used on cotton] struggled a bit with the odder elements of the substrate, and tended to peel off – and I’m not sure the background print was such a good idea – but I like the slightly surreal effect. Maybe I don’t even need to do the cutting up and reassembling?

So, overall, it’s been a better day than I thought it was going to be. And it may turn out to be even better, if a certain event happens tonight, as expected. Not saying any more, we’ve had one false start already…

Perhaps it’s the start…

2011-08-17T19:18:00.001+01:00

of the beginning of getting back to work – despite another attack of insomnia last night. At least this time I managed to do something productive, instead of playing computer games or fossicking about in my new ~~time waster~~ research tool, Pinterest.

I didn’t have the energy to battle with Photoshop – instead I played with PostWorkShop, where all I have to do is upload a photo and click on the ‘apply random style’ button a few times. [You can do much more than that, but at 2 a.m. it was all I was capable of.]

And then I added a frame with Picnik [don’t know of you can add frames in PWS, have to find out].

The photo was taken at Manor Farm [where else?] on Monday when we did a spot of Babybel sitting. This is her new best friend.

I also printed off 12 copies of this,

so that today, inspired by the work of Karin Wach, I could do this.

Fiddly, but fun.

I always said a knowledge of geometry would come in useful – and a pair of compasses and a protractor.

Yes, I could do something similar on the computer – and in fact I have [this is Sumopaint] – but playing around with bits of paper was peaceful and satisfying.

Tomorrow – who know? It is the one day this week I have no other commitments – yet.

What’s happening?

2011-08-15T20:16:00.001+01:00

In terms of college work – not a lot.

In family/personal terms – a lot. The latter has got in the way of the former.

So what have I achieved?

I washed the quilt from hell, but it didn’t seem to shrink much, so I am going to wash it again at a higher temperature.

I took one small plastic carrier bag, an afternoon and a lot of machine embroidery thread to make 4.5 yards of cord, knitted it on 3.75mm needles and ended up with a piece 2” square. [Sorry for the mixed measurements, it comes of having mixed tools – and a mixed-up brain]

Like the result – but I feel the work input/product output ratio is a little unbalanced…

This is the product of a larger bag from a well known UK grocery chain. Half for the cord at the top, half for the weaving at the bottom. The weaving was done on a 4 sided wooden loomy sort of thing I’m too lazy to go and photograph. It wasn’t going to stay put unless I ironed it – so I did. I like this but it is only about 4” square so I think I need to make lots and lots and lots…

Unfortunately it’s not going to get any quieter for at least a week – paramedical appointments from here to Friday, and the potential arrival of Babybel’s little brother.

Oh – nearly forgot – we did get to the tiny Fortuny exhibition at Whitchurch Silk Mill – but only because we were on our way to something else which was cancelled at short notice and it seemed a better idea than gong straight home. I didn’t know:

Fortuny is still in business and
they do furnishing fabric and lamps, as well as dresses. I covet this lamp – so if anyone has a few 1000$ to spare? Because you really need two or more of them. Mind you, I'd have to redecorate the place to go with them.

I covet the dresses as well but I don’t quite have the figure for them…

This is the worst quilt…

2011-08-10T19:02:00.001+01:00

I have ever made. And ~~possibly~~ ~~probably~~ definitely the worst bit of sewing I've ever done, worse even than the skirt I made in school when I was 10, entirely by hand – although I unpicked that even more often, at the teacher’s insistence.

Today I found a good light, sat under it, and unpicked to Radio 3. [Bach is excellent to unpick to, Prokofiev less so – too jaunty.] The plastic stood up to it as well as could be expected. Not well– just as well as could be expected.

I free machine quilted it, very very very badly. In my own defence, for conceptual reasons [‘ark at ‘er] I’d chosen a fake leather backing, and it did not slide easily. No more unpicking, it would not have survived. Then, fed up with it, I zigzagged round the edge, but even using a walking foot the borders shifted.

Told you it was bad.

But – I’ve learned a lot about what plastic works – the mail wrapper from Quilting Arts, which I get from a UK stockist whose name escapes me – what works less well – a Debenhams's bag -and what doesn't – bin bags, and a laundry bag from a Chinese hotel Cheese Major stayed at on a business trip in 2003*. [Never throw anything away.]

And I'm quite fond of her [Paddy, because I threw so many making her]. The ‘wadding’ is felt, so I’m hoping that by the time I’ve shrunk her and zapped her, the worst excesses will be disguised. The design concept is messiness – I decided I wanted something that was the antithesis of what you think quilts are – i.e. not comforting and cuddly – and messiness, wrinkles and holes just add to the aesthetic. [‘Ark at ‘er, again – AEE, for future use]

Did I have that idea in mind when I started? No, I started off as I so often do with ‘I wonder what would happen if…?’ and then made the rest of it up as I went along.

And after all, if Tracy Emin can make quilts which don’t reach the standards of the quilt police** why can’t I?

* I know this because the only things I could read on the bag were his name, the name of the hotel, and the date. Just before he came home he would have all his clothes laundered and then pack them still in their bags. He has always been very good at finding an easy way to do things.

** If you think the quilt police don’t exist, you haven’t listened to the comments of some more conventionally quilters on Ms Emin’s work. Er – no, it’s not well made – that’s part of the point.***

*** That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

A chapter of accidents.

2011-08-09T18:22:00.001+01:00

The bin liners I painted yesterday to see if they would take acrylic paint. They looked fine to begin with but when I tried to cut them up to weave with them, the strips gave way under any tension at all. Into the bin.
Then I discovered the paint had come off on my cutting mat…
The black bin bag which I tried free machining on. Not a good idea without some sort of supportive backing. Into the bin.
Waking at 2 am and not getting back to sleep till 8, when I would have been better getting up.
The layered [shrinkwrap, black bin liner, iridescent film, black felt], then free machined, then shrunk piece I had hoped would reveal interesting layers when zapped – didn't. The layers seemed to meld together. Not into the bin, but definitely more boring than I’d hoped, though the burnt felt wasn’t bad..
The plastic patchwork – which worked fine till the very end. [It was a bit slippery, so my piecing was not very accurate, but I could live with that.] Then I broke a needle. In trying to find the tip of the broken needle I broke my stitch ripper [don’t ask], and when I started again, the machine decided to rip the plastic not once but twice. Which meant replacing most of one block and a complete section of border.
Quilting the result – despite heavy pinning, the plastic shifted all over the place, which means I have to unpick it. Tomorrow – I’ve had enough. Fortunately I have another stitch ripper.

Rather better news – our anniversary present to ourselves arrived, just in time for Babybel’s daddy’s birthday – not to mention that of Babyboy, who is due around the same time.

I’ve had fun playing with it.

It’s a Panasonic, as recommended by A., and is going to take a bit of getting used too.

Quality Control made a good model for a slightly more elegant image than

this one – not taken with the new toy, but when she dozed off on the scanner. Cat scan.

This is even less elegant – but interesting – a rotting apple in the garden.

W. will get a look in, I promise – if only because he knows more about photography than me.

And the other good news is that Mark is finished – maybe. I’ve run out of green wool, but I fancy making him into a little cushion, so may add something else round the sides. Macro close up on the left so you can see the shards of coke can hidden in the ‘grass’. Not sure why the other one has ended up with an orange cast, but it is brilliant example of the way shadows are the complementary colour to the object <g>.

I didn’t mean to disappear…

2011-08-06T18:09:00.001+01:00

but sometimes life gets in the way of art – and blogging. A combination of several insomniac nights and some unexpected events [some good, like an evening’s Babybel sitting, and some less good] left me with little energy for PMSs or PCs – or even SAMs – still lots of ideas, just no motivation.

The only thing I managed was a revived interest in playing with Photoshop. I had been trying to work through a ‘Classroom in a Book’ but I've decided I much prefer working with my own images, not ones selected by the author. So I bought myself a companion volume to PFAEC – this one is Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook. [PPEC.]

I like the effect of removing the colour from the background.

The books were written for an earlier version of Photoshop but I have managed most of what I’ve tried so far.

Apart from the pen tool.

This morning, after a couple of good nights’ sleep, I got up raring to go.

I intended to work through some of my ideas for free machine embroidery [which you may remember I don’t do], but started with a little ironing :>( and a bit of tidying. I have realised that if I tidy the work room first, even minimally, it clears my mind for later, more creative activities. And I find things.

Like the pin weaving board I warped up ages go with some left-overs from Daisy and then put on one side.

“I won’t get started on it now, but I’ll go and look for those ~~bits of wood~~ found objects I thought I would include in the weft.” [This led to a cat in a cupboard, so it has had to be left open until she decides to emerge.]

“I'll just push them through and see what they look like.”

“Not bad but I don’t like that bit of bark, I’ll go outside and look for a stick.”

“I could hang it up from that stick.”

“I wonder if this shrink wrap I tried making machine wrapped cord with* will work as a weft?”

“I'll just go on till lunchtime and then I’ll get the machine out.”

Bet you can guess what happened. I was enjoying myself far too much not to finish it**. Completed the weaving, made tassels [shrink wrap and floss], and a twisted cord [shrink wrap – surprisingly, but reinforced with floss], hung her in the window and took photos. Might not be art, but I reckon that’s a Personal Cloth, don’t you?

I was going to try zapping her, but like her too much to risk spoiling her. Gives me ideas about natural objects and plastic as well: this is turning into an exploration of plastic, rather than litter. [Told you I was weird…]

I might do a bit of reverse engineering, make some smaller pieces as ‘samples’ and try zapping them. How many times can I go into Superdrug, buy a packet of paracetomol [39p] and ask for a bag before they begin to wonder if I’m contemplating suicide?

* It kept catching in the hole in the plate and breaking. Black bin liner worked better – just.

** her – Penelope.

Of plastic bags, Colour Catchers, drinking straws, pinching ideas off the internet – and exploding paint cans.

2011-08-01T19:24:00.001+01:00

But chiefly pinching ideas off the internet.

1. First internet idea – pompoms made of plastic bags. I’m sorry, I can’t remember whose idea it was, but I thought it was an interesting idea.

Then I spotted instructions for making a ladybird in the instruction leaflet from my pompom maker. [Yes, I know you can make pompoms with two circles of card, but I bought myself a pompom maker. OK?]

Now – this little fellow, who I have just named William [because he’s orange, obviously] is either an ironic comment on nature and plastic bags – or he’s naff. Personally I am leaning towards naff but cute. He has no spots because I couldn’t work out how to add them – the leaflet suggested glueing on bits of wool which I found a tad unhelpful – and no eyes because I couldn’t find my googly eyes.

While I was wrapping the plastic round the pompom maker I had ideas of making him lots of brothers and sisters, but after I’d added the legs and feelers I decided it was too much like hard work.

2. Second internet idea is from the ‘Between the Lines’ blog. The great looking originals were leather – would it work in plastic?

Mmm – that’s a definite ‘maybe’. I think it’s partly the colour – perhaps a few more shopping trips to Superdrug are called for, to supplies to make pink ones?

They look great made from Colour Catchers, but CCs aren’t litter…

[I did some research and apparently most litter is either smoking or fast food related – which matches my own more limited observations.]

3. I put those on one side for the third internet idea from Aunt Peaches. [Well worth looking around both those blogs, for two very different but equally appealing aesthetics.]

It’s not quite a chandelier, but these are my efforts. The ones on the left are the original design.

Then I tried leaving a shorter gap between the two cut ends, and squashing the straw segments flat.

The result looked as though it would liven up a flower from internet idea 1. I haven’t quite perfected the method of attachment, but definite more interesting. Pink ones with white stamens, perhaps?

Then Wensleydale suggested they looked like dandelions – before and after seeding – so I tried wiring the flattened ones together

Photographing them on the black paper made me think of the work of Mrs. Delaney – which gives me a whole new set of ideas…

And the exploding paint tin? Felt like tragedy when it happened, but is starting to seem like farce. I decide I wanted to add some webbing spray to a page of my sketchbook. I should make clear that this was NOT Krylon webbing spray, but a can I bought in a sale from a DIY chain which no longer stocks that make. [Could be a reason fro that.]

In taking the top off the can I knocked the spray nozzle off – and the $**&”!%& stuff began to spray everywhere. I put my finger over the end and panicked – couldn’t think what to do. Go out in the garden? I didn't want nasty black stuff all over the grass. I headed for the scullery, yelling for Wensleydale – but still couldn’t decide what to do. Don’t want it in the sink, don’t want it in a bucket, why did I come in here, better out in the garden…

W. arrived, a tad calmer than me, and said ‘plastic bag’ – he grabbed a bin bag and we shoved the hissing beast into it. Then, bless him, he helped me clean the overflow off the floor, the sink, my specs, myself. I can recommended Tufanega cleanser and Superdrug exfoliating mitts – though I still have trendy black nails, albeit on only two fingers…

Sometimes one thing leads to another…

2011-07-30T19:06:00.001+01:00

and you suddenly realise the whole day has disappeared.

I meant to spend some time on this – the latest litter beast, known as Mark because it’s green.

But before that I was going to try some ideas from Gina Ferrari's sketchbook ideas on her blog.

Her second suggestion [after you’ve coloured your pages with watercolour and cling film] was to make a mask [or six], colour round the edges on a painted page with white oil pastel, and add more watercolour.

We’ll get back to that one in a minute.

Her third suggestion was potato printing.

Slight logistical problem here.

No potatoes.

But I did have fun foam – and long term readers will know that I love fun foam stamps: they are a bit like Pringles – you can’t stop at one.

[Sorry about the colours]

While I was making stamps, I thought I’d try some eraser stamps on the litter theme.

Dedication or what, drinking all that Guinness in pursuit of my art?

Then I remembered an article in a recent ‘Quilting Arts’ about using eraser stamps to make little figures.

After I’d made the first set of body parts I noticed that the erasers I was using had little logos impressed on them, which I didn’t want on my figures, so I had to remake the body, head and feet using non-logoed erasers. Fun results though.

Then I remembered that I wanted to recolour the nasty coloured felt, because, as I expected, the spray paint had washed out. So I mixed up some acrylic and sprayed it with that.

Believe me, this photo flatters it. Do you it looks sufficiently like the rotting contents of a plastic bag you’d rather not speculate about?

When the external examiner told me that ‘It doesn’t have to be beautiful’, I wonder if she knew what she was letting herself in for. And will she live to regret saying it?

But I digress.

As I had paint left over, I decided to try out some of the fun foam stamps. The green was really too runny, but I like the patterns it made, and the Guinness cans over pre-painted pages worked really well.

Then I tried the masks.

Oh, well, can’t win them all.

I think the technique is great, but it needs:

better quality oil pastels
a more interesting shape
better quality oil pastels
more contrast between the underpainting and the overpainting

And better quality oil pastels.

So, without meaning to, I’ve done quite a lot for the PMS - on top of the drawing I’ve done for Sian Martin’s Summer Sketchbook Project.

All litter, apart from the shell. The one on the left is a stripy plastic bag, top right is some crumpled metal. The shell crept in because none of my litter has the right sort of texture.

Oh, and the black felt did shrink. And really interesting things happened to the iridescent plastic when I zapped it.

I’m not sure how that effect fits into my litter theme but I’m going to have a really good try to find something.

Spot the difference.

2011-07-28T18:16:00.001+01:00

No, they are not fried eggs – although if i wanted to embroider a fried egg I think I’ve discovered how to do so.

The top group are my experiments in quilting plastic [and a bit of painted silk which appeared from somewhere] onto felt.

The bottom group are the same pieces after they’d been through the washing machine.

Unfortunately they are not in quite the same positions – one difference you may have noticed is that the numbers washed off.

As numbered in the top photo they are:

a carrier bag
shrink-wrap
a bit of swing bin liner

and the silk, which I thought it was polyester until I tried a heat gun on it and it didn’t melt, just burned. No photos of the heat-gunned pieces as the differences were surprisingly small – mostly just holes in the yolks [a bit of acrylic felt as a resist under the plastic.]

I liked them so much I made a few more – shrink wrap, black bin liner and iridescent film from Crafty Notions. I think it’s shrinking felt as opposed to acrylic felt – we will find out tomorrow.

And in my pursuit of something suitably disgusting to make bag contents, I took a piece of not very nice dyed felt and made it even worse with spray paints – although it has just dawned on me that the paint may wash out when I try to felt it further. :>(

And on top of all that, I finished Daisy, who was waiting until I could replenish my supply of Superdrug bags.

As someone who has carried recyclable shopping bags for years, I am finding it very hard to accept a plastic one if it is offered – but as this small piece took 1.5 bags, I will need to get into the habit of collecting them!

Unfortunately the daily drawing has slipped in this welter of machine embroidery [which, long term readers may recall, I don’t do] but I hope to get back to it tomorrow.

It was forty years ago today…

2011-07-26T18:02:00.001+01:00

that a young man and woman, both with longer hair and slimmer waists than they have today, went to Ipswich Register Office [in those days conveniently located next to the ante-natal clinic] to get married.

The bride was on time but the registrar was late, and there are no photos because the uncle who was the official photographer somehow managed to lose them.

Despite that somewhat uneven start, they are still together, and today went out for a quiet celebratory lunch.

Thanks, Wensleydale, for being there and putting up with me all these years.

I’ve changed my mind.

2011-07-24T21:04:00.001+01:00

Although I said yesterday that all samples were potentially personal cloths – these are definitely samples.

Interesting? Yes.

Odd? Certainly.

Unidentifiable litterish objects [ULOs]? Undoubtedly.

Resolved pieces? No.

I got up this morning with the intention of playing with plastic bags. The first one which came to hand was the shrinkwrap off yesterday’s paper, so I slid some nearby detritus [raffia and skeleton leaves left over from a long ago C&G piece] into it and ironed it. Mmm, interesting.

So I did it again with two weights of plastic bag, some cellophane, and some cling film. And then to finish off I tried ironing the lining from a wine box, though without trapping anything inside. [Too opaque – and it didn’t melt anyway.]

Then I tried my Clover mini iron [though not on the wine box lining], my heat gun and my soldering iron, all successfully – though the wine box lining took a lot of zapping before anything happened, and was most affected on the edges.

And while watching the last stage of the TDF [what will I watch for the next 49 weeks?] I tried stitching them. The cling film just ripped, but, with a bit of care, all the others took stitch.

Some of them look very litterish, so may lead to a resolved piece, after I’ve thought more carefully about the contents. [I want something that looks really disgusting, inspired by this. Nasty, isn’t it?]

Cadel, Andy and Frank made a break for freedom, attracted by the noise of the party next door, but I caught them before they managed to escape.

And after Mr Cavendish had won the final stage and the green jersey, I did some drawing to calm myself down. I cannot get the top right – looks more like a bottle than a can - but I like the shadowy effect of the bit of collaged hand made paper.

Tomorrow – what happened to the can next.

Another productive day. It can’t last.

Progress has been made…

2011-07-23T18:20:00.001+01:00

on the PCs/PMS, though I’m not really sure what constitutes either. At the moment I’m working on the assumption that if it’s 2D – or 2.5D. like a book mock up – it goes in the sketchbook, and if it’s 3D and/or textile/stitch, it’s a personal cloth – or a sample for a personal cloth. I have come to the conclusion that I should just make stuff for the PCs, and whether it is a PC or a sample will ultimately depend on how much stuff I manage to make [The target is 10-15.]

So if I make 16 – 1 or more of them will be samples. Between 10 and 15, they'll all be PCs. Simple.

On that calculation – these may or may not be PCs, but they are definitely not for the sketch book:

Daisy because she’s a textile, and lumpy

and Cadel, Andy and Frank because they’re 3D [and look as if they are on a podium]

I’ve noticed that a major constituent of litter is fast food detritus, so I decided to have a go at making my own ‘disposable’ cups using papier mache and photographs of the things which litter despoils. These will eventually be photographed in situ, but they are still a bit sticky. The rims need a bit of thought, but in general I’m pleased with them – especially Cadel.

I don’t like Daisy as much as her brother Tommy, the blue litter beast, so she may end up as a sample, if I manage to make enough pieces. Mind you, the quality of workmanship wasn’t improved by working on her while watching the TDF time trial – not normally my favourite part, but this one was almost as exciting as the Alpine stages. And now the right man has won [sorry Schleckies], all I’ve got to worry about is Mark Cavendish falling off in the Champs Elysees. [Does that really mean Elysian fields? I’ve never really thought about it before.]

I’m so productive, I’ve even done a bit of drawing. Sian Martin has been running a summer sketchbook project on her blog. As I already had a collaged, stained sketchbook like she suggests, I decided to join in.

I’m a bit behind, but at least I’ve started, and I hope to do more tomorrow. Not the organic forms Sian recommends, but more potential litter, which makes it a contribution to the PMS, and kills two birds with one stone.

Speaking of birds, there are either more pigeons this year or they are all following me around. Paranoid? Moi?

Time to stop whingeing…

2011-07-21T21:44:00.001+01:00

and get going – with the Personal Cloths, that is.

So yesterday, because I think one of my problems [apart from no motivation] is having too may ideas [and no motivation to start any of them].

So I made a mind map – which at least sorted out my ideas, if not my motivation.

Today, after I’d tidied the workroom [again] and made a book for the workbook to go with the PCS – I found the ~~rag~~ shrink wrap ruglet I’d started and finished it.

Then I decided it would look better sewn into a cylinder - and then I wished I’d sewn it into a cylinder round a branch – like yarn bombing only with litter.

But I couldn't be bothered to unpick it and resew it onto a tree so I took it outside and photographed it in it’s natural environment.

I think it’s cute. I’m tempted to give it him a name. I also think he may be a resolved piece rather than a sample – which means there’s only another 14 PCs to go.

Fired with enthusiasm [I wish] I assembled materials and equipment to try making a hooked ruglet [Tommy is a proddy rug], but then I made the mistake of turning on ITV4’s live Tour de France coverage and couldn’t look away. Talk about nail biting! I was complaining to Wensleydale the other day that no-one makes dramatic lone break-aways in the mountains any more – spoke too soon.

I realise this is really boring if you have no interest in cycling, but I have to put up with all the sports I’m not interested in [i.e. all of them] for 49 weeks of the year, so I make the most of TDF [No satellite telly, so can’t get the Giro or the Vuelta.] 200 fit young men in tight lycra – what’s not to like?

Unfortunately little progress will be made tomorrow due to various medical appointments [nothing serious, just tests], so I hope to get back to number 2 on Saturday, TDF willing. It’s the individual time trial, which I usually find less interesting, but if the yellow jersey race is still as close…

I had a dream…

2011-07-19T18:38:00.001+01:00

about making an enormous wall hanging – not about litter, but for some reason about the kinder transport. I woke up at the stage when the tutor was gently suggesting I ought to quilt it.

That did give me an idea for joining some of my photos with faggotting [no, -I don’t see the connection either] and as I am at a complete loss for what to do for the PCs, I might just try it.

Today, being the second completely free day since the end of our Babybel-sitting duties [and I already miss the little monkey] had been allocated to PC/PMS. Instead it was spent on the essay. Wensleydale had read the penultimate draft, and, as usual, provided some sage advice, this time about clarifying my argument. And in the process of doing that I realised that some of my examples were irrelevant to the argument, while others needed development.

And when I'd done all that, just to be sure, I read the marking criteria. :>(

I hadn't contextualised my practice.

This of course assumes that I know what my practice is – even after two years of this course I am still trying to answer that question.

But I wittered on about how I would use what I’d learned from the study of artist’s books in my own books, not mentioning the distinct possibility that I won’t make any, proofed and printed and put it all in a binder and shoved it in my college bag.I will look at it again, honest, just in case, when I feel a little stronger.

Funny – I really enjoyed the written work on C&G.

Of course, finishing that and 3/5 of SAM has freed me up to worry about the personal cloths, and as I am at a complete loss for what to do for the PCs – oh, did I mention that?

Worry, worry, worry.

One holiday task nearly finished…

2011-07-18T20:19:00.001+01:00

only another three to go.

My trusty editor is, at this moment, reading my essay. Of course I realised as I gave it to him that I had left the date of the draft in the footer – so I shall have to reprint the whole lot whatever he says. Sometimes I'm really impressed by my ability to make work for myself.

For example – at the weekend I decided that I wasn't going to be making books for my final pieces after all, so I could give up making book models and do something else.

Then I came across some photographs in this book, showing a sculptural book made by soaking a Japanese bound book in water. [Googling that book led me to the author, Faith Shannon’s website – very inspirational!]

So I had to try, didn’t I? Although in my case I soaked them in coffee.

Unfortunately without much distortion. Maybe because they are too small, or the paper [printer] isn't suitable.

So some more experiments are currently drying, for want of a better word, in the conservatory – cartridge paper, brown paper [naturally] and, in a tribute to Dieter Roth, newspaper. [Drying very slowly because after all, it did rain on St Swithun’s day, and our local saint, good as his word, has sent us rain every day since.

Apart from that. I’ve played around with some litter photos

and done some blind contour drawings of litter [white pastel on white paper is definitely hard to see] which I then dribbled/painted with something anonymous in a bottle [old Brusho, I think].

Not brilliant, but given my totally clueless state at the moment, I decided it was better to do something than wait in vain for inspiration to strike.

Is there a name for forward slippage?

2011-07-15T15:57:00.001+01:00

Apart from forward slippage? All because I had an unexpected morning off.

We’ve been having problems with our phone line – intermittent broadband and a very crackly line – so when BT wanted to come this morning to fix it I thought for a very long time before agreeing to cancel my gym appointment and wait in. Fridays are Wensleydale’s hydrotherapy days, so I very nobly volunteered to be the one who stayed at home – and yes, it’s better now. So far. [This is the second time we’ve needed a repair since we’ve had Infinity, which is twice more than we ever needed it in the 20 years previously.]

So having an unexpected free day, I decide to face up to a looming cloud on my horizon, and tackle the essay – which, you may remember, was on the timetable for this weekend.

I think because I’d written a fairly complete draft, I really wasn’t looking forward to revisiting it – boring, boring, boring. However I’d had a couple of ideas for improving the beginning and ending, so I got down to it this morning.

In the end, it wasn’t too bad. I tweaked the bits I wanted to tweak, pruned some other bits [its still too long but I won’t tell anyone] spellchecked it and saved it. I'll look at it again tomorrow, give it to my trusty editor for approval, and do the final draft on Sunday. One weight off my mind, only another three to go.

Unfortunately, there has been backward slippage on SAM. We had a busier week than expected, and I've been too tired in the evenings to do much mark making. I’m a long way short of 50 marks, but I will do what I can this weekend and start PMS’ing and PC’ing on Monday.

We are going to have more time on our hands for the next few months anyway: Babybel’s mummy starts her maternity leave today, so no Babybel sitting for a while. We had a lovely few days with her this week, and we are going to miss the little monkey [though not getting up at silly o’clock].

A decision has been made.

2011-07-10T17:25:00.001+01:00

This week will be devoted to SAM, next weekend to the essay [probably with some slippage] – and after that it’s PCs and PMS till September. [With a bit of room tidying if I ~~feel the need to procrastinate~~ get the urge.]

Will I stick to this? Who knows? Now I’ve told you and Wensleydale, it is more likely to happen.

As next week is going to be busy, I’ve been making backgrounds for SAM, so I have stuff prepared for a little bit of mark making in front of the telly. [The only problem with the Tour de France is that I actually have to watch it, rather than merely listening. I can knit and watch young men on bikes at the same time, but not embroider.]

Yesterday was machine embroidery, today was embellishing – with a bit of heat gunning thrown in at the end, which is why some of these look a bit burnt.

The embellishing allowed the recycling of ~~some old failures~~ pieces whose time had not yet come – and the creation of one or two more.

The black smudges are not the result of an inadvertent conflagration, but some of the marks I made at the beginning of the course, printed onto an OHT. Mark? Definitely, Stitch? Maybe not, yet.

I have also managed a bit of mark making in the book. The top one is pretty mundane – sort of Kantha plus appliqué – but I like the way it shows through the hole in the next page – and then through the embroidery on net which started all this.

Is appliqué ‘stitch as mark’? I’m working on the principle that a smudge of paint is a mark, and the simplest way to make smudges in stitch is with appliqué.

Some of my other marks are a lot more vestigial – otherwise I'd never finish.

And I’ve Photoshopped some of my litter pictures - can you spot the interloper? Found only a hundred yards from the ring pull and the screwed up bit of paper.

These were done with a variety of filters and a bit of additional work – don’t want to make it too simple…

Amazing what you can achieve with a couple of freeish days and a bit of motivation.

[We won’t talk about the failed loaf of bread – I’m sure the ducks will enjoy it…]

My first personal cloth.

2011-07-08T20:05:00.001+01:00

I’m so proud.

You may think it looks like a collection of rubbish – and you’d be right.

You would also be right if you thought it looked nothing like the photos of litter that I have been collecting for my PCs.

But, inspired by some rag rugs I saw while we were on holiday, I’ve been reading up rug making, and getting quite interested. This led to some ideas:

rag rugs go under your feet, like litter, and
rag rugs were traditionally made from recycled materials, so
try recycling rubbish into rugs – well, rugettes, really, this one is about 15x18 cm.

It is made from shrink wrapping from the post – this little piece took 5 wrappers and isn’t finished so I am not about to make any big ones.

No idea if this will turn into anything, but I feel I’ve got started on the PCs.

Tomorrow – plastic bags?

P.S. Shame about Bradley Wiggins… Go Cav!

If I gave the impression…

2011-07-05T20:10:00.001+01:00

that my 50 ‘stitches as marks’ were all going to be made on that piece of hand dye I showed you – I misspoke.

Admittedly that was my intention – but in the big sort-out I came across a little book I made in my ‘splosh ink all over a big piece of white paper, chop it up, make it into a book and cut holes in the pages’ period.

It also had black and brown paper pages, and, as an experiment, starched poly sheer pages. And a couple of bits of embroidery I’d clearly put in there for safe keeping and forgotten about.

Ready made marks.

so for the past couple of days, when not watching men in Lycra zooming around the French countryside on bikes, I’ve been mark making in or for the book.

I am particularly fond of the sloppy black stitches on a sheer page in the top two images.

The cloth has not been entirely neglected – although as all these marks overlap I cannot decide how many marks it actually comprises. I am very reluctant to ~~admit~~ accept that it is only one, as far too much effort went into it!

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

2011-07-04T18:30:00.001+01:00

I mentioned yesterday that I was overdyeing some nasty pieces of hand dye, in an attempt to make them less nasty. All of them, together, at the same time. You may not believe this when you see how they came out.

I used some Dylon ‘Jeans Blue’ machine dye because:

I have a theory that you can overdye any colour with blue and
it was all I had…

My theory was that anything which was mostly white would end up blue – and that’s what happened.

These were white with purple or blue splotches on them – so now I've got blue with darker purple and blue splotches. Not brilliant, but better than they were – they are actually a bit darker than in the photo.

The second group date from my Kandinsky period, when I was dyeing saturated multi-colour pieces to make my version of this for City and Guilds. I had a lot of fabric left over and while it looked OK in small pieces, overall it was a bit too bright. Not to mention clashing.

The one on the right is silk velvet which I didn't want to bin if I could help it, which is why I decided to try the overdyeing.

This photo is reasonably accurate,unlike the others. Reasonably accurate apart from the one in the middle which does not have a big dark blob on it. [It is supposedly silk, from a charity shop blouse – but given how little dye it’s taken, I suspect there’s more than a little polyester in there as well.]

The silk velvet is much more interesting than it looks here – a deep green with undertones of other colours. Yes, green. No, it wasn’t mostly yellow before.

The final group were either:

‘last batch of the day’ pieces, odd bits of fabric bunged in a bucket with the remnants of dye poured over – for some reason these almost always end up reddy-orange.
some underwhelming snow dyeing which was light green and pink.

My assumption, based on colour theory, was that if I overdyed orangey red or red with blue, I'd get purple – or at the worst, brown.

Definitely not green. [They are a lot darker and greener than in the photo.]

The one in the middle is about right, the others are completely misleading – like a cross between how they really look now and how they looked before I dyed them.

But I’d rather have green than brown, so I’m not unhappy, just perplexed – about the failure of colour theory - presumably this particular dye blend has a lot of green in it - and why my camera wants to take pictures of something that doesn’t exist.

Spooky.

The plan for this weekend was

2011-07-03T17:36:00.001+01:00

Saturday: take down exhibition, relax.
Sunday: a little drawing, some SAM, some photoshopping, perhaps a bit of Tour-de-France watching - relax.

The second part of number 1 was scuppered by a welcome but unexpected visit from Babybel, on her way home from Peppa Pig World. I think she was quite tired after all the excitement, but she hasn’t grasped the concept of relaxation, and after a drink and a spell brushing her toy dog, it was back to garden running, football kicking, drawing, being read to [‘Again!’], and, of course, non-stop talking. Fun, but not quite what we’d planned.

This morning, I went to look for a scrap of Aida because I had the idea of adding a cross stitch monogram to the mark cloth.

Could I find my embroidery fabric? Course not.

So I started at the bottom of the stash cupboard, pulling out boxes, bags and baskets, vaccing the floor when I found it, looking through everything.

Before long it had turned into a full-scale sort out. I had been telling myself [and Wensleydale] that I was going to sort out the workroom this summer, but it was more of an aspiration than a commitment. I certainly didn’t intend to do any of it quite yet.

But – the dustbin has been filled, two boxes are empty, things have been put away that have been un-put away for months, the nastiest bits of hand-dye are in the washing machine getting a blue overdye in the hope that will make them less nasty -and I feel very virtuous.

Plus I found the Aida. In fact I remembered where it was before I finished sorting what was on the floor [on the top shelf in a bag], but decided to carry on and finish the job.

Of course the Aida needs ironing, and that is a task too far, so I’ll have to find a different mark to make tonight.

I have come to the conclusion that I do have ~~a very great deal of~~ – far too much fabric. Does anyone have any good ideas about how to use up a lot of fabric you once thought would come in useful but it hasn't? Apart from giving it away, which I can’t yet bring myself to do.

And so we reach the final…

2011-06-30T17:45:00.001+01:00

photo challenge. Yet another self portrait. With spots. As it’s a Babybel day, for this one I took the easy way out – no Photoshop, just one of the photos I took for the last self-portrait, and the abstract geometric filter from PostworkShop.

It’s been fun, and I’ve learned a lot about PSE which I am now attempting to transfer to Photoshop, but I’m glad of a break.

Now for some mark making!

Busy busy busy…

2011-06-29T18:48:00.001+01:00

Having a college-free morning, I buckled down and tidied the workroom. Sort of. Put print-outs in the right places, emptied the bins, put some bits of fabric away – so now you can see the floor and a bit of work space.

It won’t last.

Then off to college to assemble my plinth wrapped in corrugated card with a tatty cardboard box on top of it. This was a relatively quick process - apart from taking all the cardboard off and remounting it with the corrugations outside 'cos Miss thought it would look better – and it did. Note to self – always make sure your display doesn’t have to be hung on the wall or from the ceiling so you don’t have to wait for a man to come and erect things for you. [Double entendre intended – sorry, I’ve got that sort of mind.]

Since I got home I finished this – which I mentioned a while ago and then went very quiet about. It got shelved for a while because it had got to the machine sewing stage and I was more in the mood for sitting in sunshine with a bit of hand sewing. But as part of the deck clearing, I decided to finish it. Not sure about the flap, and I think the button will have to be moved, but it holds the essentials better than the elderly black one I've been using.

For those who remember a tirade I posted ages ago about small bags, I should point out that this my little bag – I also carry a bigger one with all the rest of my junk in it – other specs, drawing kit for Babybel, shopping bags, rain hat, extra tissues, camera etc. etc. etc.

So now that is out of the way I have no more excuses for not getting started on SAM, PMS, PCs and essay - not even the photo challenge, which ends tomorrow.

The penultimate challenge is ‘black and white’. Now, PFAEC has lots of recipes for turning your colour images B&W, but the effect I fancied for the image I wanted to use wasn’t one of them. I wanted something moody, and ‘Nocturnes’ inspired by Whistler, seemed to fit the bill - so I decided to try the Nocturnes effect and remove the colour afterwards.

I think I was a bit heavy handed with some of the steps so it’s a bit cartoonish, but I’m quite pleased with it. Can you imagine Heathcliff behind those windows? [For those who don’t know it, it’s Haworth Parsonage, where the Brontes lived.]

Tomorrow is the final self portrait - will Cheshire reveal her true face to the world at last?

Not bum-bum likely.

Flowers,

2011-06-28T19:48:00.001+01:00

I need flowers. Not as much as I need gin and chocolate, but in the absence of the latter, flowers will have to do.

Especially as they are today's’ photo challenge.

For once, this effect is not from PFAEC, but a tutorial from ‘The Photographer’s Guide to Photoshop’ a ‘magbook’ I bought in Smith’s without realising that it is written for earlier versions of PS. [So is PFAEC, but I bought that second hand, not from a magazine display, which you expect to be current.] As Babybel has taken to saying ‘bum-bum’.

However, it gave me good practice in extracting an image, and I like the result, especially the reflection.

Why do I need flowers, chocolate and gin?

No real reason, it has just been a day of minor hassles – many of my own making.

The day started reasonably well. We wandered out to Haskins/Hobbycraft to buy:

a growbag so Babybel can transplant her flourishing pumpkin plants on Thursday
a basket for a present for someone who I am not going to name.

The growbag was easy – but of course I can’t go into Hobbycraft and come out with just one thing [paper, card, rug making tools for some experimental rug making – no, I haven’t got time].

I intended to fill the basket with shredded tissue paper, add a selection of small prezzies, wrap it in cellophane and add a ribbon – but I looked at the not very exciting basket and thought it would look nicer with a lining. While I was looking for some lining fabric, a bit of wadding jumped out and told me it was the right size, and I could quilt the lining.

When I'd quilted it, I realised it was too stiff for my usual ‘gather the edges, as long as it’s a bit too big it will fit’, approach to basket lining – I had to tailor it, trim it to size, and hem it properly. I still haven’t sewn it in – nor have I bought the prezzies to go in it.

Note to self: do not decide to make a simple presentation far more complicated than it needs to be.

Then a friend phoned:

Note to self: do not talk on the phone for hours.

Then I looked at last night’s embroidery.

Note to self: do not decide to unpick last night’s mark making just because you don’t like it. ‘It’s only a sample’

Then I looked at the BBC news webpage.

Note to self: do not get addicted to Thornton’s drinking chocolate just before Thornton's decided to close the majority of their shops.

Tomorrow is half a college day – putting up the display for the end of year show, which starts on Thursday night and continues all day Friday and Saturday morning.

And then it’s a summer of sketchbooking, mark making, personal cloths and essay writing.

Can’t wait.

Yesterday was ‘close up’ -

2011-06-27T18:04:00.001+01:00

here’s the same Jaume Plensa sculpture ‘from a distance’.

To give you some idea of scale, the red blob is a person inside the sculpture. The effect is ‘Seurat’ from PFAEC.

I am fascinated by this piece – does the fact that it is made of letters make it a book? Probably not – but it inspires some interesting ideas.

Knowing that today would be Babybel and gym day, I worked on the image yesterday – and I’m glad I did because today has been so hot and humid, I have little energy for anything challenging.

I will probably manage some more work on SAM tonight – I made 2,3,4,or 5 marks yesterday, depending on how you count them.

Is this one or two marks? I’m counting it as two, even though they overlap, because they are not conceptually related to each other - [‘ark at ‘er!]– apart from both being inspired by the dye marks on the cloth.

I have decided that this is also two. The little blue blobs were worked over splatter marks, and I’m counting them as one mark. The others were an exploration of related ideas, so also count as one mark.

The block on the right, which reminds me of rhubarb, was inspired by the colour exploration I did yesterday – using embroidery floss and changing the proportion of red to green by one strand each time. Then I tried a similar idea but changing the number of strands in the needle each time. I’m tempted to have another go with machine embroidery thread, which I hope is even finer than floss – how minimal can a mark be before it ceases to be a mark?

I did look up the word in a dictionary yesterday: lots of interesting ideas came out of that, including holes and symbols. But I can’t make up my mind how 3D a ‘mark’ is – and what about texture? I tried thinking about art media marks – the difference between pencil marks and paint marks, for example – and of course paint can be textured and 2.5D if not 3…

Is it just me who ~~wastes~~ spends time thinking deep thoughts about questions like this? Does everyone else just get on with it? It’s interesting, though, and looks like being a good cure for insomnia.

One decision I have made is that somewhere there will be a big red ‘X’ …

A sunny day…

2011-06-26T17:19:00.001+01:00

a good night’s sleep, Wensleydale out and chores done meant that for the first time for ages I felt like doing some college work!

I started with a little painting for the PMS. Somebody recommended this book, and when it came I saw why, but I hadn’t got round to doing anything with it. But on a sunny day, what could be nicer than sitting in the conservatory with some paint and a sketch book?

The first two exercises are ‘wet into wet’ [the circles] and ‘wet into dry’ [the squares]. They are simple enough not to deter the least confident watercolour user [i.e. me], and, once I got going, fun. Because I was using these two little sketchbooks, in which I’d collaged some bit of paper, I ended up using the techniques as colour exercises, based on the papers, and I could have gone on all morning. But it got very hot in the conservatory, so I drifted out into the garden to look for ‘marks’ – as in ‘stitch as mark x 50’, aka SAM.

This made me wonder what a mark is, anyway [according to W. it’s a stain], but I did end up with a collection of photos of lichen, bark, planks and peeling paint – which tells you a lot about our house and garden, really… These are the edited highlights. I love that daisy-like shape in the top row, which is knot marks in the fence.

After lunch I went out and tried to draw some of them, before deciding that a pen wasn’t a good idea and I’d have been better off with my favourite oil pastels.

So I fired up Photoshop for today’s challenge –’close-up’. This is a photo I took of a Jaume Plensa sculpture at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park last month – I’ll show you the whole thing tomorrow, which is ‘from a distance’. The effect, from PFAEC as usual, is ‘intaglio’ – and was much easier than it looks. Yes, the letters are back to front, but that is not because I reversed it, it’s because I was inside the sculpture when I took the picture. Obviously.

When I’ve finished writing this, I'm going to sit down outside, if it’s cooled off enough, and sew a stitched mark or two while W. sands down the window sills. Mmm – wonder who’s got the best bargain there? I will make him a cup of tea to keep him going first…

Pretty in Pink

2011-06-25T17:36:00.001+01:00

Today’s challenge is ‘something pink’. Pink is yet another colour I don’t have a lot of – and what I do have is either unexciting [a polo shirt] or something [unspecified] I do not intend to post a photo of on the net.

Fortunately on one of our Babybel walks [now there's someone who has a lot of pink] I photographed a dog rose.

This started off as an attempt at the ‘fine art flowers’ effect from PFAEC, but I failed to notice that there were 4 pages of instructions for the effect, not the usual two, found the half-way point a bit uninspiring, and added a filter.

It is my first full Photoshop effort, and I’m quite please with it, although I could do without those blue blobs.

I enjoyed myself with PS, although there are a few differences to PSE which I’ll have to get used to. At least it hasn’t got the dreadful black on black controls, which to my mind are close to infringing disability discrimination legislation….

Three for the price of one.

2011-06-24T16:38:00.001+01:00

A combination of college, Babybel and a stomach bug you don’t want to read about has made me get a bit behind with the photo challenge.

College was busy, but more productive for me personally than it has been for a while. I got my draft essay back [no problems, go away and write it], had my photos taken and, in a very positive peer review session, got some good suggestions about my 3D piece and about how I should present it in the exhibition. I don’t know whether I’ll have time/motivation to make changes to the piece itself, but the suggestion about display was easy to follow up, involving only a trip to Staples, which is conveniently close to Babybel’s nursery. All I need to do now is remember to take some scissors and our long arm stapler next week for construction purposes. The great advantage of making something deliberately grungy is that you can make the presentation grungy too…

The down side was that we were unexpectedly given more homework – the obscurely phrased ‘Mark as stitch x 50’ – which I take to mean 50 examples of stitch used to make marks. This is on top of the [non-draft] version of the essay, and the open-ended Personally Managed Sketchbook and Personal Cloths. The up side of that is that I feel quite enthused about stitch as mark [SAM?] – perhaps because it will be nice to get back to doing some proper stitch.

I did think of stitching on used colour catchers, assuming I’ve got 50, but in the middle of an insomniac morning, decided a better idea would be to find one of my large pieces of too-multicoloured-to-use-in-a-proper-piece hand dye, and work into that, rather as I might doodle on a randomly painted piece of paper. Of course finding a suitable piece was more difficult than I anticipated – too small, too big, too dominating a pattern, too good to use for that – but I did find this, and a selection of threads which may or may not match, because I picked them out in artificial light.

So have I got started on all this homework? Of course not. After mucking around with PSE, I spent the afternoon sitting in the conservatory [pleasantly warm if not sunlit] and working on the beaded bag, which I feel I ought to finish before starting anything else. And drinking tea and listening to Radio 3’s ‘Light Music Weekend’, which is a delight for anyone brought up with the Light Programme in the 50s.

But I digress – back to the photo challenge.

Wednesday's was ‘Hands’. This started off with the Surreal photomontage effect from PFAEC, but got simplified and filtered.

Thursday was ‘Sunflare’, but not much sun, so I used a holiday photo which needed a bit of sun added to it.

And today’s is ‘Animal’, for which there was really only one choice.

Quality Control meets the Cubists – or rather the Cubism effect from PFAEC, with afterthought sepia/glow in Picasa. She really needed more cubes and more distortion, but I think I was up to 25ish layers before I got bored and gave up.

These will probably be the last photos for which I use PSE, as my student’s version of CS5 arrived today [very prompt service from Adobe, Germany to Hampshire in 2 days!] so I’m looking forward to playing with that while continuing to enjoy a nostalgic weekend on Radio 3.

Self portrait? Again?

2011-06-21T17:54:00.001+01:00

This time the photo challenge is a faceless self portrait – of course, in my case, there is no other sort.

This is an attempt at the ‘Powerful Portraits’ effect from PFAEC. [Don’t laugh.]

It was somewhat restricted by the difficulty of taking a photo holding the camera above my head – and that the effect relies quite heavily on Photoshop bells and whistles that I don’t have in PSE. And that, from the look of it, my hair needs washing …

College tomorrow, so a certain amount of slippage may occur. More photography, though this time it will be by someone who knows what he is doing - for the end of year exhibition [Thursday evening on 30th June, all day Friday 1st July and the morning of Saturday 2nd July, at the Desborough Centre, if anyone is interested].

It’s been a long, tiring day

2011-06-20T20:09:00.001+01:00

and today’s photo challenge was particularly challenging – so I’m not sorry that I cheated a bit with it – well, quite a lot really.

So here’s one I made earlier.

The challenge was ‘bokeh’ – which I had to Google – and I’m still not sure if it means an out of focus background, or those circular blobs, or both, or neither.

I did try a couple of tutorials on how to make your own bokeh backgrounds but they were written for Photoshop, and I couldn’t get my brain round them for PSE – so the first cheat was to use a pre-made texture I found on the web. Well, the second cheat, I suppose, as I could have tried to take a bokeh photo with my camera instead of Photoshopping it. Yeh, right.

So this is the view of the Needles from Highlife Castle, with added blobby bits, and a darkish filter to make it look mysterious.

If I'd made it even earlier I could have cheated even more and used it for ‘silhouette’ as well…

Something orange?

2011-06-19T15:59:00.001+01:00

It’s another colour I don’t have much of – if you know what I mean, but it’s today’s challenge topic.

Fortunately the packaging industry is much keener on orange than I am – which means that a quick glance through my litter photos and a lot of muttering and swearing over Photoshop produced this. For once, it isn’t a PFAEC effect – just an extracted image, a textured background, and a trawl through the filters till I found one I liked.

And for once – I've done some sewing. Nothing at all to do with college, and not something I designed myself, just taken from a print-out of a bag pattern I got somewhere. Not my sort of colours [mmm – a hint of orange?], but based on the Chinese brocade you can just about see in the middle. I’ve been sitting in the conservatory enjoying a sunny interval and doing a bit of beading – very relaxing.

Of course, now it’s clouded over, and we are bracing ourselves for the arrival of [grand]father’s day well-wishers, so the beading has had to be put away.

Day 18?

2011-06-18T18:42:00.001+01:00

Where has June gone?

Today's photo challenge was ‘your shoes’.

Good job I told you, wasn’t it? This is the ‘abstract watercolour’ effect from PFAEC – it could have been less abstract and more recognisable, but you may be able to spot a couple of shoe-like objects in there – there are actually 5 and a bit.

Apart from that, all I’ve done today, apart from the boring bits, of course, is take out a second mortgage and order the full Photoshop – student edition while I’m still a student <g>. Just hope Adobe accept that I am – ordering it it is a complex process involving scans of supporting documentation…

Addicted? Me?

Still faffing about…

2011-06-17T18:45:00.001+01:00

doing a little Photoshopping – and making a lot of unsuccessful attempts to get Opera to talk to Gmail, without success. It had started downloading 2 or 3 of most messages, so I tried uninstalling and reinstalling it – and now it won’t download any…

I may have to return to Microsoft after all, since I have tried Thunderbird twice without ever getting it to work properly.

So here is today’s photo challenge - ‘technology’. I tried the ‘Futurists’ effect from PFAEC, on a picture I took at Hollycombe Steam Museum last autumn.

Babybel loved these cars so much it was almost impossible to get her off them.

And number 16 is…

2011-06-16T16:51:00.001+01:00

‘long exposure’.

I have been experimenting with increasing the exposure time on my little point and shoot, but all I got was blurrrrrrr. So I turned to my new bible, PFAEC, and the first effect in the ‘Photographers’ section, daguerreotypes. The outline specifically mentions that these involved long exposures, leading to blurring of moving objects, like water.

I cheated again and used a holiday photo – Daguerre comes to Yorkshire. Still not got the border the way I want it, but I’m working on it…

Here’s one I prepared earlier…

2011-06-15T18:51:00.001+01:00

since it was college today and I knew I wouldn’t have the time or the energy to work on today's photo challenge.

The topic was ‘Silhouette’. I tried the ‘Expressionism’ effect from PFAEC, but just couldn’t get it to work, so with a judicious bit of selecting, cutting and mucking about with filters, I ended up with this.

Guess who?

College was a bit undirected because we are on ‘student directed work’. I made 2 and a bit books, using some of my photos and a bit of plain paper for a fold -out. The blue cover is cut from a plastic notebook cover.

I’m experimenting with single sheet sewings from this [and let me assure you I did NOT pay anything like that much for it!].

They are fun to do, but I’m not sure that they are what I want to use for my litter books. I’m swithering at the moment between books with grungy covers – like the one with a card cover – and ones with beautifully bindings to contrast with litter photos inside. Which assumes I’m capable of making a beautiful binding, of course…

The eyes have it.

2011-06-14T17:35:00.001+01:00

Ouch.

As you may have guessed from that dreadful pun, today's challenge is ‘eyes’.

After struggling for a time with the question of how you photograph your own eyes, I realised it didn’t actually specify my eyes.

So I found an unwilling and somewhat wriggly model, and after taking lots of photos of fur and ears and other bits we won’t mention, managed this.

Just be glad you’re not a mouse.

Another attempt at the ‘Fauve’ effect from PFAEC – seemed appropriate, somehow.

Up to date…

2011-06-13T20:06:00.001+01:00

with the photography challenge if nothing else.

Today’s challenge is ‘Yourself with 13 objects’. As you have probably realised, I don’t like photos of myself, so hiding behind 13 objects had some appeal. After ‘something blue’ I assembled 11 blue objects for the photo. [Why 11? Because the camera and the cupboard made 13. Except you can’t see the camera.]

For once, this is not an effect from PFAEC, but one from an article in an old ‘Cloth, Paper, Scissors’ by Christi Hydeck.

The cupboard has glass shelves and sides, and a mirrored back, so there are lots of reflections to make the image even more interesting. Like my granddaughter, I like reflections [and shadows].

I’ve caught up…

2011-06-12T16:49:00.001+01:00

but I expect to fall behind again tomorrow!

Days 11 & 12 of the 30 day photo challenge are ‘something blue’ and ‘sunset’: one of these was much accessible than the other.

There are a lot of blue things around here, apart from jeans – sofas, curtains, carpet, vases, crockery, towels, eyes – yes, we like blue.

So what to choose? I've already discovered that I’m too impatient to spend time arranging still lives, and carpets and curtains seemed a bit restrictive – so I pulled a few things out of the sideboard, and photographed them individually, before deciding to go with this.

In case you can’t work out what it is, it’s a millefiori paperweight – which is blue – just not this blue!

This is the ‘silkscreen’ effect from PFAEC, which gave lots of practice in extracting shapes and using layers – and I managed to work out how to add a ~~frame~~ border –PSE calls it a border, who am I to argue?

‘Sunset’ was rather more of a challenge: yesterday was overcast, so no sunset, and I’ve given up expecting one today as it has been raining heavily all day [has summer come?]

So I cheated.

When we went to ‘Another Place’ last month, I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t a proper sunset, although I did take some photos of the light on the water.

PFAEC has an effect called ‘luminous landscape’ – or in my case, seascape.

Quite pleased with that.

Tomorrow is Babybel and gym, so I don’t know if I’ll have the time to tackle ‘Myself with 13 things’…

A bit of book making…

2011-06-11T19:19:00.001+01:00

and a bit of drawing took place today – as well as rather more photography.

The drawing was 2 minute continuous line sketching – I am doing more of this, and blind contour drawing, in an attempt to loosen up.

The books were quick, ad hoc things – after a morning with Babybel, good as she is, I didn’t have the energy for much else!

This, as you can see, is recycled yoghurt packaging. [Love those toffee ones]. One of my problems with getting interested in litter is that most litter seems to be things like cigarette and crisp packets, sweet wrappings and drinks cans and bottles – none of which we have around – and I can’t bring myself to pick them up…

This is much more salubrious – an off cut of hand made paper turned into an accordion book, I thought the flowers were interesting, but it needs something to bring out the patterns I cut in the inner layer.

By tomorrow I should be up to date with the photography challenge – if I can manage another two. Today’s are ‘someone you love’ and ‘a childhood memory’. I used PSE and PFAEC for both but I’m not completely enamoured with the results, and I’ve resorted to Picasa and Picnik to finish them off.

This is Babybel in the ‘echo tunnel’ on our Thursday walk. It’s an attempt at a ‘Fauve scene’ from PFAEC, but I was too heavy handed with the black lines, I think. I added some glow with Picasa which has improved it a bit.

and this sad gentleman is my childhood memory – my one legged, earless Ted, pop-arted a la PFAEC. I managed to work out how to add the text in PSE, but not how to get it into a speech bubble – and adding a frame was completely beyond me, so that was done in Picnik.

I’m feeling a bit like Ted at the moment, as yesterday my GP confirmed what I have suspected for a while – that I have arthritis of the hip – and possibly back and neck as well. So it is time for X-rays, [just like Wensleydale], and probably physio [just like Wensleydale], and hydrotherapy [just like Wensleydale]. But if that lot does for me what it’s done for him, I’ll be a new woman <g>.