It’s finished!

The evaluation for module 3 is finished, printer, reprinted after I punched holes in the wrong side of the pages, and bound. OK, it’s just a simple card cover with  lolly stick and rubber band binding – but  that’s all I feel up to.

I have also finished my third, of a group PowerPoint presentation for the following week, which I have emailed [I hope] to she who is in charge of collating PP presentations. I am now attempting to print it, but working out how to print it with notes attached has proved difficult, as I am unfamiliar with PP 2007, and what used to be simple in XP is much less obvious in 2007. [Note to Microsoft – it is possible to have too much choice.]

And the printer has stuck on delete which means that to get it to do anything I need to turn everything off, turn widdershins three times. throw salt over my shoulder to propitiate the gods of small things and try again.

Grrrrr!

However I do have the prospect of a day of grannying tomorrow, so getting all of this out of the way has its rewards.

Spell check wants to change ‘Grannying’ into ‘granting’. Wonder if it’s trying to tell me something …

Progress has been made …

The portfolio cover has been completed, and a binding method found. I remembered I had some binding rings I bought for a book making course and never really took to – but they are perfect for this. They even provided something to tie a handle to, which was another problem solved.

The black band is elastic to hold it shut.

 

All the samples fit for public display have been mounted and included. [This is just a sample of the samples.]

I solved the problem of A3 paper  samples looking silly in an A2 portfolio by mounting them on A2 paper – although that necessitated double mounting to make them stand out.

Now all I have to do to meet the Module 3 deadline is to complete the evaluation.

So I am procrastinating by writing this blog entry.

And we won’t mention modules 1& 5 …

A Tale of the Unexpected

Last month Sandy posted about her unexpected batch of goodies from Dylon. Emma Forbes from their PR company had spotted her post about  snow dyeing, and sent her a batch to play with.

‘Lucky lady’, I thought, ‘Things like that never happen to me.’

You can guess where this is leading, can’t you?

On Thursday I, too, had an e-mail from Emma, who had  seen my post about snow dyeing with Dylon. She kindly  offered to send me some more dye because I seemed to be using older ones.

So at an ungodly hour this morning the postie brought me this lot.  Lovely dyes and some Colour Catchers to feed my embroidering-on-Colour-Catchers habit.

And I realise just how old my dyes were - when did Dylon start putting their hand dyes in packets rather than those little tins which were so difficult to open?

If we’re unlucky there might be some more snow dyeing in my future – but I think it’s more likely to be conventional dyeing – well, as conventional as my dyeing ever gets. As Dylon will dye both viscose and wool, I'm tempted to experiment with viscose/wool felt to see what happens. Watch this space.

At the moment, though, I'm trying to stay focussed on collating everything for the various hand-in dates after half term. I’m sure normal human beings would just put everything into a bought portfolio – but those who know me will not be surprised that I decided to make one. [I blame A. – half way through C&G she made a remark about imprisoning embroidery in plastic – or words to that effect, it’s been a long time – and I started mounting samples in books. Can’t blame her for having to make them myself, though – that is entirely my own obsession.]

I have already made an A4ish sized one – but needed something bigger. This is the front cover - roller printed slubby furnishing fabric from the Fent shop in Skipton, backed with a piece of leather cloth from who knows where. It is A2ish in size, because that was the size of the leather cloth. I have painted some grey board for the back. I will probably bind it all together with binder posts – but I’m also thinking of a stick and elastic binding. I don’t want to use anything too permanent as I expect to add more samples as the course goes on.

Of course it is too big for most of my samples – but better too big than too small. I  am trying to resist the temptation to make an A3 one as well – which smacks of procrastination. What am I procrastinating about? Writing my reflective journal entries to go with the samples. Normally I enjoy writing – but this is new, unknown and scary …

I’ve been a lazy blogger …

although I have been a busy one as well – deadlines for college are looming after half term, and although I thought I’d kept reasonably on top of things, there still seems to be a lot to do.

Wednesday’s degree session was very enjoyable, despite including an afternoon of drawing. In the morning we had a lecture on Fine Art Textiles – which started with the history of embroidery [been there, done that, wrote a tome about it] but then moved into looking at textiles in art, which was, I'm ashamed to say, pretty new to me.

The afternoon’s task was to make a mind map on the subject of ‘line’, then make 50 30-second sketches inspired by the mind map, and then ‘become obsessed’ about our favourite thumbnails and produce a more finished piece. And in the middle we’d have a tutorial …  all in about 3 hours.

Mind maps – no problem, after all I used to teach mind-mapping. So, because I usually run out of space when I make a mind map, I used a piece of A3 and wrote small. But although I wrote a lot, I didn’t really get very creative – it was all a bit literal. Like straight, dotted, wiggly, parallel etc. etc. etc.

So I decided to get started on the thumbnails.

I didn’t mean to make a book – honest. I only realised it was a book when a fellow student commented on the fact that I was making one ‘as usual’. How well they know me …

What I thought I was doing, was using an idea in one of the new Beanery and Littlejohn books [‘Constructions’ at the bottom of the link– it’s good].

B&L suggest making a concertina of paper, folding it up and making a series of line drawings on it, without being able to see the others – a sort of visual Chinese whispers. B&L used architecture – but I used lines.  Like straight, dotted, wiggly, parallel etc. etc. etc. [Most of the other students did line drawings, rather than just lines – perhaps because they are more confident drawers than I am.]

I found that the requirement to do 50, quickly, made me use different media, and get more and more inventive about what a ‘line’ was – lines of dots, weaving, wrapping, slashes in the paper. I did do some ‘proper’ drawings too – of my mug which was sitting in front of me – but using two different pens held together, or with my eyes closed, as well as the conventional way.

The resolved piece was more difficult – done in a bit of a rush at the end and, I realised, on too big a scale. What worked for the thumbnails didn’t work at 8 times the size.

Yesterday I made the concertinas into a book – although they are doing their best to escape. 

 

 

 

Funny how you don’t realise your lettering is wonky till you look at a photo.

 

 

I also did some more work on the unresolved piece - which went so well that it is now in the bin.

This is the second try.  I bet you’re  surprised that it’s another book. Same size, different format.

 

As instructed, I became obsessed.

 

 

 

 

After all that we had an enjoyable trip to the Watermill with Mr and Mrs C to see ‘Heroes’, which was very funny and a bit sad, and just what I needed in the middle of a stressful week.

Oh – and the tutorial? It was better than expected. I was told my drawing needed to get freer, and some useful suggestions were made. 

The drawings by Babybel which I had included were admired just a little bit more than her granny’s efforts, though. Quite right too.

A few more samples.

I forgot to post the two FME samples I was working on last week – so here they are.

This is the required sample of FME lace – not one of my favourite techniques! The flower petals have holes in them [I do like holes] – the leaves were made separately and then attached to the fabric.

 

 

And this silly thing  is what I did with the samples of cords.   The background is a left-over from C&G – cheapo velvet with painted bondaweb, to which I added FME zigzags and couched cord of all descriptions.

Thanks to Anna for the tips on cords. I don’t find the normal foot flattens them too much if I reduce the pressure, but her straw idea did make the free motion ones much more controllable. So much so that I used that trick for some cords for this. Can’t show you mine, though, as it is a gift for someone …

Today I’ve been working on a screenprinting sample – although it morphed into another FME sample. [Not sure what has brought on this citrus-coloured fit.]

This was originally covered with rather too many red and orange flowers, but they faded or disappeared when I washed it. So I FME’d over their ghostly remains. The result is better than the original, I think – the vagueness of the remaining outlines meant I felt freer about what I was doing.

It really needs another flower in the middle, although there is no ghost there, so I may need to take my courage in my hands and do it completely free hand …

 

Busy busy busy

Well, busy for a retired person!

Wednesday was college, as usual. This week it was screen printing, which I had done before. Once. Despite having a screen of my own.

As might have been expected by those who know the two tutors involved, this was a rather more experimental session than my last experience. Precisely cut stencils under the screens? No. Careful registration of the screens? No. Washing them out between colours?  Don’t be silly. I did end up feeling that I really need some thermofax screens, though.

Unfortunately I only took one photo of my work, and the rest of it is drying, so unphotographable. And these ladies gained a bit more colour later, when we all went into a scraping the dye on with old credit cards phase.  These were done with a freezer paper stencil.

Even more unfortunately, the colour seems to have faded on some of my pieces – the result, I suspect. of old dyes. But they are, after all, ‘only samples’ …

Yesterday was busy in a different way. First we went to an exhibition at the Discovery Centre by Louise Cattrell. Wonderfully atmospheric pieces, which at first glance look like Turner skies – until you begin to look deeper into them. If anyone would like to buy me ‘Strand’ for my birthday? It is one of the smaller ones …

After a nice lunch just next door to the Discovery Centre , we went back for a talk on Van Gogh. Very good – apart from a woman in the row in front of us who tutted at any and every thing. My fellow student L. moved along the row behind her to sit next to us - ‘Tut’. Someone else moved along the row in front of her to sit with their friends - ‘Tut’. And that was before it had started! I wasn’t surprised she was on her own.

She told Wensleydale during the interval [L. and I had sloped off to look at the Alice Kettle] that the talk wasn’t very good because the speaker was either saying what she already knew, or going into too much detail. Couldn’t win, really, could he? Fortunately she then left, and three rows relaxed …

We are obviously ignorant because we learned lots of new things, and we liked the details he gave on Van Gogh's painting techniques, influences and use of colour theory – which is what I think she meant by ‘too much detail’.

After all this gadding about, it’s been good to spend today at home. I splashed some Brusho about  – a bit of Pollocking and lots of paper [brown and cartridge], painted using a technique suggested in Frances Pickering’s book ‘Page after Page’. Lovely book, very inspirational, strongly recommended if you are an embroiderer who likes to make books – or possibly a book maker who doesn’t mind sewing.

The papers ended up pretty good too, although the colour choice was governed by ‘What have I already got mixed that needs using up?’

That is corrugated card top right. Why paint it? No idea - it seemed like a good idea at the time, and is what the book was wrapped in. Pickering encourages you to try different materials for your books - the brown paper is also recycled packaging.

Another Tuesday trip – but -

for once, without Wensleydale.

I think I have mentioned that, for the degree, we have to do a presentation on an artist of our choice. And our group’s unanimous  choice was Alice Kettle.

Quite fortuitously, she has an exhibition on in Farnham, in collaboration with ceramicist Stephen Dixon. So of course we had to go. Very interesting work – recognisably Kettle, but different to the Discovery Centre piece that I am so familiar with. A bit smaller, to start with - especially the plates. If you, like me, are a Kettle groupie, it is well worth a visit. And the gallery is under threat as the result of funding cuts so they need as many visitors as they can get! The exhibition is free, but you can pick up a copy of the limited edition book about it, with personal stitches by Alice, for £7.99.

We also popped into an exhibition by the designer David Hillman – an opportunity for nostalgia if you remember the launch of the Sunday Times colour magazine [no, it hasn’t always existed] or that wonderful magazine Nova - [the original, not the short lived pale imitation].

And we also visited the art shop for some retail therapy – much to the consternation of the students, who were a bit thrown by this invasion of middle-aged women talking to the saleswoman [who was a quilter] about textiles …

Have to go back for the Bernard Leach exhibition, though.