More finishing!

Well, nearly.

This is done – all bar mounting it in my portfolio, as it is a Drawing Studies piece.

Notice the train on the left – it was amazing what a difference adding that little bit of couching made!

 

And this is also finished, bar the buttons. which will be added later tonight – glad to have finished it in time for Christmas. If the small cow fan it is intended for likes it, I may make another in the next size up, as it looks as though it will be a close fit – and it was quite quick to knit.

It is this pattern with added cow. I may put a pony on the bigger one – equines are fast catching up bovines in the popularity stakes. Her granddad and I both have bigger versions [without animals!] – elegant they are not but they are lovely and warm for dog and Babybel walking – and she is fascinated by the pockets on ours.

It has been quite a productive day as I have begun to sort out the Drawing Studies sketch books – making sure they have sketches in. They need to be handed in a week after Module 6, so I’ve got about a month to add contextualisation and evaluation. Might manage to fit W’s birthday bash [big one this year], Christmas, and the annual family journey on the buses in round it…

What does this tell you about me?

When I pick up a copy of ‘Hello’ at the dentist’s [the only place I ever read it] I recognise at the most 10% of the ‘celebrities’ in its pages – but show me a photo of the cast of the CBeebies Christmas panto and I know every one.

I can even recognise Justin Fletcher from behind by his boots [nice red Docs] - although to be fair who else would be playing the Dame?

Of course any non-Brit readers – and any UK readers without access to small children – won’t have the foggiest idea what I’m on about – but we get to watch the BBC’s preschoolers channel one day a week and we are aficionados.

This flippant digression is due to relief that Module 6 is finished! Writing the evaluation has taken most of the day but it's finished! I'm still waiting for the paint on the lid of this box [containing the ‘one’ piece I'm handing in], to dry but it’s finished! [Well, nearly.]

So tomorrow to fresh fields and pastures new – like the landscape sketchbook, because it’s Drawing Studies - which means more contextualisation – and possibly a few ‘drawings’.

Progress

• All 3D samples photographed.                            a
• The best photos printed out.                              a
• Photos stuck in portfolio in a more or less logical order.                                                               a
• Contextualisation examples found.                       a
• Contextualisation examples added to workbook.    a
• Evaluation added to workbook – ay, there’s the rub.
• Box found for sample to be handed in.                  a
• Box painted – er, not quite, but I’ve thought about it.

So that’s module 6 nearly finished. Must check when it’s due to be handed in!

Exciting day, or what?

Tomorrow, apart from taking W down to the doctor’s, I hope to finish off Module 6 and then have a look at what I need to do for Drawing Studies, which is due in in the second week of January. And I think someone asked for a copy of my essay plan by next week…

Must remember to write some cards and wrap a few presents some time,  preferably before W’s birthday on 17th December – or Cheese Major’s on 21st, or Babybel’s mum and dad’s anniversary on 22nd. Very inconsiderate of them all to have celebrations at this time of year!

Catching up and calming down.

I’ve spent the day catching up on all the mundane things which got postponed, due to the weather and Wensleydale's self-diagnosed sciatica – which is getting better. [He has a doctor’s appointment on Saturday so we’ll find out what he’s really got!]

In a way, it’s been nice to have a rather boring routine day, because yesterday was exhausting. It was the college trip, to half the Tates [we left St Ives and Liverpool for later].

We started off at Tate Britain for the Turner Prize exhibition – which was interesting …

I was a bit disappointed by Dexter Dalwood’s work – I have admired his pieces when I’ve come across them on the ‘net, but these felt less powerful than some of the earlier ones I’ve seen.

Angela de la Cruz was new to me and I thought the work and the ideas behind them were interesting, and worth thinking about in the context of embroidery.

I found the Otolith group’s works so intense that it was overwhelming – I would have liked to sit and watch each video in turn, but there just wasn’t time, so I am left with a fragmented series of images.

Susan Philipsz work is very haunting but I didn’t feel it was well served by the gallery space, although I'm sure that under the bridges of Glasgow, which is where it started, I believe, it must have been a very moving experience.

But for me the most stunning work was not part of the Turner exhibition at all, it was Fiona Banner’s Harrier and Jaguar – words fail me!

After lunch we went on the Tate boat down to Tate Modern for the Gauguin exhibition. I expected to be blown away by it but, perhaps because I was tired, I wasn’t. There were a few knock-out pieces – mostly the ones I already knew, like this one, but in general - when you’ve seen one pubescent scantily dressed South Seas maiden or one less scantily dressed Breton peasant, you’ve seen them all.

I wished I had spent more time on the floor below looking at Bacchus, Psilax, Mainomenos by Cy Twombly, or this Lee Krasner, or this exhibition which I missed completely.

Then we crawled home though the rush hour, playing ‘spot the Metropolitan Police’ round Westminster [it was a good night to commit crime in the other areas of the Met’s patch], and I eventually got home after a 12 hour day which I am not used to any more!

I enjoyed it though, despite my whinging!

Snap happy!

Thanks to Babybel's daddy, I have been equipped with a little photographic knowledge and a tripod. Unfortunately Wensleydale is confined to bed with a bad back, so I have spent today, when we planned to go Christmas shopping, taking two or three [hundred] black and white photographs of inanimate 3D textile pieces -

and Rambo.

I wouldn’t say they were good photos, despite the excellence of Babybel’s daddy’s input – but there are enough not too bad ones amongst the many less good ones to fill the necessary portfolio – especially when the marker hasn’t really seen the originals.

So now I have to edit the photos, select the ones I want to print, print them, get more ink and photo paper, print some more, decide which piece I am going to hand in, [its photos don’t have to go in the book], stick in the photos, write an evaluation, contextualize the samples and I’m done!

This is the piece I will probably hand in – either that or the Anglo-Saxon coffee cosy, but that is a bit derivative of a piece the tutor showed us, so I think it will be this bowl of unidentified archaeological artefacts instead. Possibly with a labelled box? Or am I mad?

Of course I also have to finish this, including trimming off those unravelling hills and adding a train, put more stuff in the sketchbooks for drawing studies [contextualisation for those too], plan and write my essay [more contextualisation]and presentation, [aaagh - PowerPoint!], and start thinking seriously about the real 3D piece.

What will you be doing over Christmas?

We thought we were going to miss out…

but when we woke up on Wednesday morning we realised that the rest of the country had very generously shared some of their snow with us. Not as much as some people have had, perhaps, but more than enough.

I was going to quote that poem about the snow coming on little cat feet – but just to check I Googled it and the poem, by Carl Sandburg, is actually about fog. Lovely little poem, though, and plenty of snow has come into the house on little cat feet – and belly and tail, since it is almost as deep as she is.

The humans, however, have stayed inside.

I began to take a few photographs [thanks to everyone who gave me much needed advice] – and I think one or two of them are probably useable.

But part way through, when I was whinging about camera shake, Wensleydale reminded me that Babybel’s daddy has a tripod, and then I remembered that he also has GCSE Photography  - so I whinged to him and he has offered me a loan of his tripod and a gift of his knowledge, and the photography is on hold till Monday, snow willing.

 

I have also made two books. One for the photographs when I’ve taken them and printed them [better order some more ink], and one as a workbook for the next module.

I’m bored with just spraying an Amazon mailer with paint for a cover – so I got a bit more creative with the one for the photographs. I stuck some bits of card on the mailer and daubed  it with emulsion paint. Trouble is that emulsion takes much longer to dry than spray paint, and current conditions in my painting studio [a.k.a. the conservatory – the unheated conservatory] – are not conducive to painstaking painting or rapid drying].

This is the workbook for the new module – and the cover is a sample.

I think I need something to keep the ‘everyday treasures’ in – like a leather covered box – except it won’t be leather. I’ve made fake leather before with brown paper, but I wondered about trying it with newspaper – and it worked. Sort of.

What I did:

1. painted newspaper with the last dregs of some dark brown acrylic.
2. Waited for it to dry.
3. Scrumpled it up and unscrumpled it.
4. Swore when I tore it.
5. Rubbed it over with a brown ink pad.
6. Waited for it to dry.
7. Stuck it to a Book Depository mailer [time for a change] with PVA.
8. Waited for it to dry.
9. Stuck brown paper on the inside.
10. Waited for it to dry.
11. Rubbed the outside with acrylic wax.
12. Waited for it to dry.
13. Made the book.

I didn’t want to reinforce the spine with tape – but I found the card tore when I stitched it [possibly because I was, for once, using linen thread]. I had to reinforce it and do it again, and by then I was fed up and tired. So that’s my excuse for wonky stitches. I was also thinking of stitching patterns on the covers themselves  - like saddle stitching – but decided that was probably not a good idea.

I haven’t ruled out using fake leather in the final piece, but I need to work out how to make it stronger – possibly by bondawebbing the paper to fabric before gluing it to card.

One thing after another…

The good news

We had a good day with Babybel yesterday - dog walk in the morning, when we had fun looking at tracks in the snow, and a trip to Whitchurch Silk Mill in the afternoon where the ducks were very pleased to see us – or the bread we brought – and Babybel was fascinated by the water wheel, the working model of the water wheel, and the looms – another engineer in the family?

The bad news

This morning it was really hard to drag myself out of bed and off to college, so I was not best pleased when I got there to realise that:

1. I’d forgotten most of the stuff I was supposed to be taking in to photograph [how could I forget a large plastic box that I trip over every time I go to the door?].
2. the battery in my camera was going flat
3. Wensleydale had the car, because he was having his hair cut, so I couldn’t go home or summon assistance.

However, as I am very much a ‘point and shoot’ photographer, I thought I would pick up enough information to complete the task at home. [I have, of course, lost the manual for the camera.]

What I learned:

1. how to set the camera to black and white, as required – which I worked out for myself
2. how to set up and light the work
3. er – that’s it.

I will have a go at home – we have black curtains in the dining room and cream ones in my work room, for the required backgrounds, – so I won’t have to climb on the furniture to pin fabric to the picture rails, and we have a couple of suitable lights. I know that even if I had had all my stuff I would still have come home and tried again – but I am not very confident about succeeding.

We do have a book on digital photography – but when I looked at it, it is written for people who already know about photography, and is full of words I never knew existed.

So I tried to order the ‘Which‘ book on digital photography, on line but their shopping basket isn’t working.

What I need to know is the meaning of all the initials and numbers and things which appear when I press the function button – and why they matter. Anyone know any good websites – preferably written in English rather than techie, and which don’t advocate the use of wide angle lenses, filtered lights or other things not found in the average technophobic home?

I did get the details of the real 3D unit – and a quick tutorial – before I was able to get through to W, make my excuses and leave. It is, as I anticipated, on the same theme as the 2D piece – i.e. ‘Everyday’ [or possibly ‘Every Day’] and I have some ideas to do with ‘everyday treasures’ – those little things we keep in safe places which to anyone else would be junk. [Like baby teeth. Yes, I know, gross.]

I am not thinking of using real everyday treasures, but of constructing some – and a receptacle for them – a bit like Penny Burnfield’s wonderful ‘holotypes’, although not in glass jars. To be honest, part of my problem with the photography is that I am enthused by the new module and want to move on!