Sketchbook, 1993

At the same time as I discovered the joy of textiles via classes at City Lit and attended courses by Julia Caprara, Caroline Bartlett, Heather Belcher, and so many other talented tutors, I discovered the joys of drawing in museums - thereby "possessing" the objects, and making "rich pages" in sketchbooks.

An odd-sized sketchbook (B4?) turned up in a neglected corner of a bookshelf, full of drawings from the Museum of Mankind (now incorporated in the main British Museum) - what a glorious place that was,  so many wonderful things on display and so few people, so little disturbance...

In 1993 I was using felt pen, putting as much as possible on a page, and carrying a little brush for filling in the background with coffee in the museum cafe (it really does make the objects stand out, and the page easier to "read").

Weekends on the river with Tony on the narrowboat were a chance to draw flowers ... and the "moving geography" seen in the fields -

Sometimes the sketchbook went to class - this is an exercise in tissue-paper collage -

Years later I used the still-empty pages for random things - like this ink drawing "channeling Munakata" -