Sometimes one thing leads to another…

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:

1. better quality oil pastels
2. a more interesting shape
3. better quality oil pastels
4. 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.

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:

1. a carrier bag
2. shrink-wrap
3. 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…

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.

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…

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…

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…

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.