Once upon a sketchbook

The book is full, at last. Time to start a new one. I have a small one (A6)in my bag at all times, and the larger ones (A4) stay at home unless a "drawing event" has been planned. I find the A3 size "challenging" - maybe some bigger brushes would help!



Several years ago I had a phase of playing with colour. The phase of using coffee as paint is even longer ago. (Remember to put the year as part of the date on the page.)

Leaving the workroom

It's holiday time -- tomorrow we're off for three weeks in Vancouver, and then on return, a workshop with Bob Adams on discharging before the Festival of Quilts to look forward to.

The studio will get a little dustier in the meantime. At the top of the pile is the latest version of "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" - unfinished. I just ran out of time - getting the science editing journal to the printers had to take precedence. Another day would have done it, but.... Next time.
Now the studio contains just about everything I need to make anything - or maybe I'm just getting used to working with what I have. Because of working on the journal right up to the wire, I haven't had time to sort out a handwork project to take along. But I don't need to leave home till 6.20 am -- and the night is young -- I'm all a-twitter with the anxiety that wells up before any trip (not a happy traveller).
Looking forward to seeing family and friends, bike rides along the river, blueberry picking...even a bit of sewing, with any luck.
Behind "the road to hell" are other, smaller, attempts at the subject, and the golden patches to the right are part of a larger attempt. On the design board are two batik pieces from Els van Baarle's workshop at FoQ a couple of years ago -- they started out as prints done in a workshop with Carole Waller at West Dean. Going to workshops is definitely my favourite kind of holiday.

Painted ladies

A book about 10cm square, fell off the shelf the other day - it was my painted ladies - watercolours done in 2003 after a course at Dulwich Art Gallery in which we did paintings in the studio (from reproductions) after looking at the real thing in the gallery. When you're "forced" to plug away at something, and start to get the hang of it, it's very encouraging -- so when I got home I pulled out lots of postcard portraits of women through the ages and started filling this little notebook. Got as far as the centre stapled page, and then got sidetracked.
"Copying" the paintings on the postcard was an education for the eye. This one is after a portrait by Picasso (spot the difference!) -

The lady in the wide-brimmed hat is my favourite - she's in a painting by the painter FCB Cadell, one of the Scottish colourists.

This might be Ann Boleyn ... or it might not ...

Her hat marks her out as Italian, 1400s - I enjoyed using the rich colour of the hat much more than the hair colours and flesh tones - but after doing face after face, started to "see" the variations of colour.

While you're intent on mastering all the subtleties at once, you might not notice basic things - like the faces are all a bit narrow, squeezed ...


Another one after a Scottish painter, but I don't remember who - and can't find the postcards....

A much slicker look at women in art through time is this YouTube video.

In the post - a surprise -
Fabrics from Karol-Ann - thank you!

Love those dots - and those fish - and those wavy lines - and that turquoise colour!
Those dotty bits might be Just The Thing for the quilt I worked on all day yesterday (an all-too-rate event, a whole day just quilting - lots of radio, and no computer).

Strand-on-the-Green runs along the river Thames near Kew. From seeing the river at low tide,
you might wonder why the houses have such strange steps.
When the river is in flood, the water rises so high
that people put extra boards in doorways and windows to keep the water out.
Some of the houses are unsuitable for tall people, at least for going out and coming in! And some of the little front gardens have an extra foot or two of glass above the brick wall.

How very confusing, and what is going on? Yesterday, away from home, I tried to upload some pix of stairs, and couldn't -- yet, seeing my post on www.planet.textilethreads.com -- there they are - but not on my own blog. Puzzling. Also puzzling is why suddenly most of the icons are gone from the toolbar, and why uploaded photos in a new post show up as html coding... and I can't put titles on any posts ...
Probably more useful and to the point to tell blogger about this, than to bore y'all with such petty details. But isn't it frustrating!!

Morning drawing - but first, one I did earlier - at the Miro Foundation in Barcelona, while waiting for the arrival of lunch in the restaurant.

This drawing had to be a two-step process.

The washes had to dry before the dark seeds could be added.

Although the ink still isn't bending to my will all the time (or I to it?), over the days of using it, I'm getting more comfortable with it and can concentrate on the subject matter more. Wet media are a learning curve for me, so it's a matter of practice, practice, practice ...

Of the nine sizeable mirrors in my home, six are on three walls of the bathroom, reflecting each other, bringing in light and space.

When I moved here 12 years ago, I tried to ignore the avocado suite and the yellow tiles with burgundy flowers, but immediately repainted the pink walls (who wouldn't?) and, in ironic mode, added the gold-framed mirrors and some flamboyant accessories. The idea was to paint the tiles gold ... but this hasn't happened quite yet.
I'm so happy to have a bathroom with a window; so many converted flats have a little dark room with a noisy extractor fan shoehorned into the middle, partitioned off from part of a bedroom.

Away from ...

... my own computer, and unable to put up any of the posts I'd stored for just such an occasion! So, a thought about mirrors. About not looking in mirrors - people stop doing that as they get older. Probably we like to "see" ourselves in other ways.

How many mirrors do you have in your home?

Morning drawing

Shell fragments, and a bit of brick, from Brighton beach. Next time -- fill the whole page.

Art at Bethnal Green

Beside the chair are simply-carved boats with peggy people to put in them -These puppet heads are portraits of Elizabeth, Petra, Joanna and Gordian, children of Eric Gill (sculptor, typographer, engraver - one of the most colourful figures of 20th century art) - made for them byartist, poet, novelist David Jones, who was a friend of the family.
And below is part of The Childhood Cube by Sarah Raphael
An article in 2001, when the artist died, said: "This is a huge vitrine divided up into about 200 separate little cubes. Only glass - sometimes coloured glass - divides one cube-room from another, so you can peer into, and through and through, with the result that the whole thing becomes a kind of never-ending children's story. Raphael got children to model little scenes for many of these rooms, and she uses some of them as the basis for her own ideas. This is pure, childlike Outsider Art, albeit of a fairly graceful, tasteful and unthreateningly charming kind. A tiny clay lion with spiky hair as thick as an iron bar prowls through a jungle of stiff, brilliantly green grass. In another cube- room, there's a wonky table, a lurching TV, and a huge container of popcorn made out of felt and Plasticine. It's rather reminiscent of Calder's Circus."

Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood

The moment I saw this creature, I knew it would not be a camera-free visit. (The little one in front is made from a wishbone, and the dolls from other bones.)Continuing the ingenuity theme, there were toys from Africa made from tin cans, and others from bits of wire and whatever.
A historical set of building bricks. It says "journal quilt" to me!
Knitting Nancy - happy memories - but did anyone ever use up the miles of cord produced? That rainbow wool is effective, in its own quiet way -
Among the teddy bears were these mad owls -
And among the wind-up toys were Gertie the Goose
this pig that trembled and flapped his ears -
and various other charming birds
Lovely rocking horses -
and sturdy walking horses -
This one has mythical overtones, to my eyes -
and some puppet horses from Indonesia -

Dolls - the museum has dolls from as far back as 1680. "Miss Revlon" is from the 1950s, her clothes made by an American(?) high school student -
Elizabeth R dates to 1953, a spin-off from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
This 1840s doll with her pocket
comes complete with underwear, including the hip roll that made full skirts stand out from the figure so nicely -
This elegant lady from the 1780s stands before a replica of Kew Palace that was actually a wardrobe, with cupboard in the middle and lots of drawers in the wings on the sides.
Pincushion celebrating the birth of a baby - the lettering etc is made with tiny pins.
Throughout the museum there are places for kids to play
and in "the east end on holiday" exhibition, places for dads to sit about in deckchairs while the kids get serious about sand -This is one of my favourite games from childhoodand we couldn't resist trying on the historical bonnets -

Uncurling ferns

Some of the type blocks that Angie Hughes uses in her fabulous work - she had several boxes of these for use in her workshop at the Contemporary Quilt summer school. Ineke Berlyn (tutor of the workshop I was doing) had spotted them and suggested using the curlicues on "Dawn Forest" - here's a close-up -
The low-lying mist is tulle backed with black FuseFX (fusible web).