I never thought I’d say it …

but I actually enjoyed drawing studies yesterday! Perhaps because we spent most of the time working relatively quickly on exercises which did not require accurate reproductions.

We spent most of the time drawing a still life – the same still life, more or less. We drew  it with different media. We drew it with both hands. We drew it rotated, 4 times, on the same piece of paper. We blew up acetates of bits of our drawings on an OHP [I want – no, need - an OHP!] and then went over the lines with paint.

We also did a bit of scaling up or scaling down the old-fashioned way with squares. We looked at negative space and chiaroscuro. And it was exhausting but fun.

Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos before I packed the results  of all this work into my new polyfolders from Artesaver – and as that took half the afternoon, I don’t propose to haul them all out again until I have to. [Not that there are a lot of them – it is just that finding a space for an A! size folder was a little difficult.]

I can show you two more results from my exploration of things I wanted to try but hadn’t got round to.

I started with this, which I took in the snow.  Then I used a technique from Jane Dunnewold, in Issue 28 of Quilting Arts – except I cheated by using a photo. I printed it on good quality paper, painted the white bits with acrylic paint, and when it was dry covered the whole thing with Indian ink. When that had set for a bit I shoved it under the tap.

 

As you can see, the paper didn’t disintegrate – and most of the ink did wash off the paint. The point of the process is to get those grainy, etching-like lines, which I love.

 

 

 

Now for something completely different.  I don’t often wear brooches, certainly not flowery ones, but when I saw the instructions by Roz Johnson for this, in an old copy of Patchwork and Quilting, I had to have a go. [Sorry, I can’t tell you which edition, but there are kits on her website.  Oh, it also tells you that it was issue 190!]

The brooch is about 6 cms across, uses tiny scraps of felt and embroidery floss, and took an evening of peaceful hand stitching. I enjoyed it so much I’ve got another one cut out already.

Tomorrow, however, I must buckle down to work to meet the next two college deadlines!