Perhaps it’s the start…

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.

Going round in circles…

well, polygons.

As promised in my last blog, I’ve been playing around with Sumopaint.

I started with the image top left, and Sumopaint’s kaleidoscope filter, which has to be my favourite filter.

Then I made a few more from some of my other litter pictures. My original idea was to make flower shapes, but I got a bit carried away.

I’ve posted some on Ideas of Inspiration. The most boring originals seem to make the most interesting kaleidoscopes.

Last night, when struck again with insomnia, I imported some of them into GIMP and played with them a bit more.

Like this. 

It’s turning out to be as bad as my passion flower fixation, but this time I have slightly more idea what I’m doing.

 

Today, only three days after committing myself to the essay, I did get started on it.

First, I procrastinated for an hour or so, downloading and trying out different mind mapping programs. I’ve been using Vue for a while, chiefly because it lets me change the layout of the mindmap, unlike the one I was using before. But I find it restrictive in other ways: I wanted something which could give me an essay layout plan, rather than a conventional mind map.

At the moment I’m trying MindApp, which allows me to make what I discover are called Warnier Orr diagrams. Essay title on the left, list of paragraph topics in sequence next to it, ideas for contents of each paragraph next – all I’ve got to do now is write it.

But the program keeps crashing. The search for the perfect free mindmapping software continues.

The only other interesting [?] thing I’ve done is try to get ready for college on Wednesday. We will be introduced to the next module, ‘Personal Cloths’. [‘Module 12, this is Cheshire – Cheshire, meet Module 12’.]

We have to bring the materials we need to work on our personal cloths. Which is a bit difficult when we don’t yet know what they involve. I have been told that they don’t have to be cloths – so I have packed up a basic book-making kit, a selection of litter images printed on paper and fabric, some sewing stuff and some threads.

And I bet I won’t have what I need…

Could e-mail and ask, but I’m sure the answer will be that they don’t know what I need because they don’t know what I’m going to do. Any more than I do.

I believe this is called ‘Catch-22’.

Cutting and sticking.

Having spent the best part of an insomniac night making a basket which ended up in the bin this morning, I decided to play around with collage this afternoon.

I was inspired by a statement in one of BBC4’s art programmes, that contemporary art seeks to convey the artist’s feelings [I paraphrase]. That led to a discussion of how you convey ‘confused and uncertain’.

So after reading up automatic drawing [which led to some very odd websites], and wanting to play with my graphics pad – I tried to draw ‘confused and uncertain’.

It certainly wasn’t automatic, because after the first few tentative wobbles, I was thinking about it.

Looks like archipelagos to me.

 

Today I collaged some archipelagos – and some negative archipelagos. This was a piece of paper with a rather odd pattern on it, that had been hanging around waiting for its time to come. I think they need a bit of computer manipulation to make them more interesting.

That led to another experiment, with a piece of painted disposable tablecloth [can’t remember why I painted a disposable tablecloth – it may have had something to do with Creative Sketchbooks], some Bondaweb and some hand-dyed fabric. 

These two I really like – although I think I may have been under the influence of the hyperbolic coral reef at the time.The tablecloth bonded to the fabric really well [or it did when I remembered to take the release paper off], and the texture shows up well. These may get some stitch – when I can decide what sort.

 

Following on the theme of collaging my computer ‘drawings’ – this 

 

 

 

 

 

 

morphed into these two  -sort of.

 

 

The base of these was a scrumpled, painted, paper bag, [I think – it’s a long time since I did it]. Not sure about the dimensional paint on the one above, but - ‘they're only samples’. I wish I’d scanned the bag before I cut it up.

 

 

 

I did also fulfil my promise to try making kirigami in Sumopaint – but I think that may be another post. 

Mind the gap …

between two semesters, that is. Although it is hard to believe, the first semester of my degree course has finished. This means that for the first time for nearly 18 months, I’ve got nothing to do, until after the university exam board meets next week. Then, assuming I haven’t been thrown out for insubordination or [perhaps more likely] being useless, we start a new theme – ‘past, present and future’.

I can’t settle on anything to do in the mean time. I start one thing – dryads, books, bit of purple embroidery – drop it, and start another – knitting, playing with computer programs. Today I was all set to make a basket, until Wensleydale declared it was a day for going to Hobbycraft. [A man who likes to go to Hobbycraft!!! Or maybe it’s the coffee and cake at Haskins afterwards…]

Of course, it is half term, and the place was full of half term offers – so in addition to some boring things for me [PVA, black dye to restore some faded T shirts] – I ended up with several rather more interesting arty things for Babybel.

Part of my not settling to anything was due to a crisis of confidence – I’m half way through but I’m not convinced I’m any further on than I was when I started this degree. Yes, I’ve learnt stuff – but am I actually doing anything constructive with it?

Why can’t I decide on an approach or a style changing my mind all the time? [Did you see the programme about the sculptor David Nash last week? I want to attack wood with a chain saw! I want to set fire to things!]

I know I need to draw more, so why can’t I make myself do it?

But after a conversation with the ever-supportive Wensleydale, I came to the conclusion that all this fiddling around with computer programs is sort-of-drawing, and that, as I feel more willing to do that than pick up a pencil – I should stick with it. And do more with the graphics pad which Cheese Major and his partner so kindly gave me for Christmas.

So here are my first efforts – with a little help from Sumopaint. Don’t laugh.

Snowy trees

 

 

 

- circles [OK, I didn’t draw the circles free hand, just the lines and dots!]

 

 

 

 

- and the ravening bugblatter beast of Traal.

I’ve been reading about automatic drawing, so that’s what this is – although the sources I’ve read are a bit vague about how you actually do it.

 

I liked the circles best, so I played around with them in PostworkShop.

As you can see, some of the filters change the original image beyond all recognition.

Cheating? Maybe, but I do like some of the results.

Now i need to decide what to do with all these ‘drawings’.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

When I finished the not-angel, I thought that the head and neck needed work – and in the chilly fastness of an insomniac night – I thought ‘Why bother having a separate head at all?’

Which led to the idea of a tall cone. 

So I made an armature from six junk CDs and some rolled up magazine pages, measured it, drew a pattern. tried the pattern on the armature, cursed – and made a bit of liberated patchwork for the fabric.

I wasn’t sure I really liked the patchwork [which means of course that really, I didn’t like it] but I machine quilted it to a piece of wool felt and stuck it in the washing machine to shrink.

Which it did – in fact it shrank so much it was too narrow fro the intended purpose - which solved the problem.

I think it will make a book cover, one day – or I might try cutting it up and  - er, no, make that a book cover.

 

 

 

Plan B started with making another, better pattern – but while I was fossicking in the cupboard for the Vilene to make it, I came across one of those bits of fabric you keep because you just know it will be useful one day. Well, I do – a sane person probably wouldn’t keep something like this - a bit of calico I’d used as a drop cloth when I was painting something with blue Quink [judging by the colour] – although there are several varieties of paint on there as well.

I forgot to photograph it before I got to work on it, so just imagine it without the embroidery, OK? The radial blue bits are recycled from the 3D drawers – the stuff I was going to cover them with before I decided not to.

And this is the machine embroidery I don’t do.

I seem to have a thing about leaves – I saw leaves in the blotches, so I outlined them. I will probably add some hand embroidery before I assemble her – I think she’s a dryad – or a naiad – not sure what the difference is [or even how to spell them].

 

 

 

My recent computer games have involved taking an image I made in Sumopaint - and playing with it in PostworkShop [I did splash out and buy the artists edition, – even more filters! - but I managed to find a discount download so it cost me a bit less].

Some are just for fun – but others are definitely embroiderable.

In the helpful help pages I’ve just reached  combining filters – the top image was made in Sumo, the bottom has PostworkShop’s ‘Speed Painting’ and ‘Dark Magic’ filters added – definitely more interesting. [Adding them the other way round was much more boring – flat and drab.] One of the advantages of the paid-for version is that you can save combinations you like, so I’ve saved that one.

 

 

You will escape being bored with my computer excesses tomorrow, though, as tonight is Danish detective drama night and all I can do when that is on is knit, as it needs intense reading.

When I got up this morning …

I knew that there were four things I had to do, in addition to al the usual chores:

1. Make some soup
2. Empty the waste paper bins
3. Get my hair cut.
4. Go to Holland and Barratt for some stuff.

So after the usual chores I emptied my workroom bin – and then got distracted into tidying the room a bit more. In the process I came across the materials I’d gathered to try something from Lois Walpole’s book – and got distracted into making a useful pot to put things in.

If you think it looks as if it’s made from a plastic bottle and a plastic bag – you’d be right.

Walpole uses coloured plastic bags, but we don’t have many of those, so I used a transparent one – and I like the result. However, I think she also uses bigger bottles, and this one [1 litre] was really too small to work properly. You bend the uprights back down under the weaving, and they needed to be longer to stay in place.

Then it was lunchtime – and I remembered about the soup. Reach for the can opener…

After lunch I went upstairs to get ready to go to the hairdressers – and fell over the bins I’d put on the landing for emptying and forgotten about.

And on the way down town I realised that I’d forgotten the shopping list.

I did remember to get my hair cut – and I went into H&B and got what I thought I needed – luckily I was right – and I did the bins when I got home. Still cross about the soup, though – canned is not the same as home made.

Of course, I haven’t forgotten to play with Sumopaint in the evenings.

This is the usual blurred and smudged gradient – very moody

 

 

 

 

 

- with two more layers stamped with brushes -

 

 

 

 

 

- and different filters added – like Sphere Designer here, on the second layer. I love this one, it is very – er - spacy.

 

 

 

Just for fun, I tried applying the same filter – Kaleidoscope – to each layer in turn – this is the last layer I added -

 

 

 

 

the middle layer – [‘doyleys in space’?]

 

 

 

 

the background -

 

 

 

 

 

 

and all three merged together – definitely the least interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

But this one is my favourite - Wave Lab applied to the background to make wonderful flowers.

I think it would make a great starting point for a [restrained] touch of embroidery.

And yet more.

Tidying, that is. I hope you are suitably impressed – it’s not something I do very often!

I decided it was time to tackle the scrap box – I have far too many scraps for a mere bag. I hauled it out from the bottom of the cupboard [I knew all that upper body work at the gym had a purpose] and threw out all the small, ugly or boring scraps. I now have a bin bag full to be thrown away – and the scrap box looks no emptier than it did before.

Something productive did come from it however – I sewed all the larger bits of navy fabric, together at random [a.k.a ‘liberated patchwork’], quilted the result, added the unfinished embroidery I found during the last spate of tidying, and finished - and made a cover for my contextualisation file [i.e. the place where I shove all the interesting arty bits I come across but can’t find a better home for].

I wish now I’d used more interesting thread to apply the embroidery, but I had forgotten that the quilting would shrink the fabric and I was convinced it wasn’t going to be big enough so I did it in a bit of a rush. Sort of like knitting quicker because you think the wool is going to run out.

Apart from that – I’ve been playing with Sumopaint. Again.

My plan is to get confident with Sumo, then go back to GIMP, which has more bells and whistles, and then when I am more confident with that – try Paint Shop Pro, which I have had for ages and which confuses me utterly. I did open it by mistake the other day – in the course of making this [bet you can’t guess who it is for] but closed it very quickly. As I say every time I use Word 2010 – it is possible to have too many choices…

But I digress. With Sumo I think I am beginning to get the beginnings of an inkling of a sort-of-understanding of layers.

I started with a gradient and attacked it with the blur and smudge tools so it went all – er - blurry and smudged.

 

 

 

New Layer!

I added some blobs with the Custom Shape tool, set to Smoothing mode and a highish mode value [50+]. The shape tools all fill in the shape they make with a gradient, so you can make them tone with the background.

 

New Layer!

I added more blobs with the Polygon tool, setting it to 8 sides, and with ‘Shape Trails’ ticked. If you swirl the cursor round and round and in and out, you get these shapes. I’m not saying what Wensleydale said about them.

Then I started playing with the Filters, which is when it dawned on me that, provided you haven’t merged the layers, the filters only work on the layer you have open, not all of them. [I’m sure you know this, but I didn’t.]

Suddenly, the filters in the 3D Effects group,which I had thought were boring – weren’t.

Like Reflection -

 

 

and Cylinder Designer

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Perspective Tiling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course I didn’t stop there.

This is one of the Wave Lab settings – I can't remember which.

 

 

 

 

 

This is [I think] Pixelate – Pixelate – but I could be wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

This is Pixelate – Mosaic – Cube. If I still did patchwork, I think this would look great in hand dyed fabric.

 

 

 

I made several more, but I think I have delighted you long enough.

I think the reason these work so well [well, for me they do!] is partly because of the background, and partly because the layer I applied the filters to has gaps in it. Oh, and they are purple.

This is Pixelate – Mosaic – Cube applied to the whole image. OK, but no banana.

 

There’s nothing on the telly tonight, so guess what I’ll be doing?

The Little Red Book…

of Chairman Cheshire.  [And if you don’t get that reference it is because you are too young!]

Ages ago, I started playing around with embroidering on Colour Catchers, with the intention of making a book  – which I don’t appear to have blogged about, or if I did, I can’t find where.

Then life happened, I got a bit fed up with it, and all the bits got shoved in a box.

today, I was tidying [!] the work room [my usual post-completion clear up, but a bit more energetic than usual] and I found the box – and realised :

1. the pages looked better than I remembered
2. it wouldn't take much time to assemble the book – I had even finished the covers - much more interesting than tidying.

The covers are plastic canvas, of which I have an embarrassing amount, worked in half cross stitch with tapestry wool and torn up left over shirt fabric. I left the ends showing because at the time I was into showing the workings [oh, shades of maths exams].

The same principle applies to the pages, I left the backs visible.

The binding is 4-needle Coptic Stitch – although I’ve done it before I can never remember how, so this time I followed the instructions in Alisa Golden’s ‘new’ book, ‘Making Handmade Books’.

I’m a fan of Golden, so I bought the book sight unseen, but my heart sank when it arrived, because she describes it as a combination of two previous books - ‘Creating Handmade Books’ [which I have'] and ‘Unique Handmade Books’ [which I don’t]. I needn’t have worried – the new-to-me bits far outweigh the repetition, there are her usual plentiful and inspiring illustrations and her description of 4-needle Coptic is the clearest I’ve read by far.

And the new book was cheaper than a second hand copy of ‘Unique Handmade Books’. Bargain.    

After finishing that, I had time to do more tidying – you can see much more of the floor and the work top than you could before – and find another UFO to, though this will need a bit more work.

Thanks to quirkyartist for her recommendation of the fractal program Apophysis – another wonderful opportunity to waste time playing make art – I just wish I could work out how to save my efforts in a format Irfanview recognises!

Just have to make do with the rather less ethereal fractal liquid waves effect from Sumopaint – in case you don’t recognise it, it’s the front cover of the little red book…

 

 

 

And this is the image above, after applying my favourite filter – kaleidoscope – and decreasing the transparency value

 

 

 

 

 

or maybe the triangle pattern with decreased transparency is my favourite – it’s so hard to stop playing!

 

 

 

 

 

And finally – we’ve had some very good news – Babybel will have a little brother or sister in August. We are delighted, of course!