A new concertina

This week with the Free Up Your Sketchbook course we are reviewing, researching and preparing.  So I reviewed my sketchbook and there are bits I like but it's all too dark.  Karen did an interview with Debbie Mackinnon where Debbie showed the small concertina books that she makes.

Which gave me an idea!

I suspect Debbie starts with an A1 sheet of paper.  The largest I have is A2 so that's what I used.  Rather than making the book first, I started by putting pieces of masking tape on the paper, drawing lines with a grey Stabilo crayon and then scraping gesso on.  It was all very random.

When the gesso had dried I added very watered down turquoise and copper acrylic inks.

And when that was dry I added bits of collage using Gel medium as the glue.

Then I folded the paper and cut it. You can watch this video if you want to make one yourself.  I folded up the paper which makes a concertina book that is A6 size or opened out to A5 as in these photos.

Some of these double pages are lovely already.  However I will still add more layers to all of them.

Doing the mark making before the folding has meant that I have much more random layouts.  I would probably have put more effort into thinking about placement if I'd made the book first.

AND I am back in my comfort zone with the limited palette.

I'll continue to photograph my journey in this sketchbook.  Watch this space!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

So where was I?

Oh that's right.  I was working on Free Up Your Sketchbook with Karen Stamper in between making collages.

Although there was some collaging onto the pages.  Plus mark making with pens and pencils and Artgraf.

And in week 2 we added acrylic paint.  Only black, white and payne's grey.

This week, week 3, we had to choose one colour and collage bits of paper in that colour.

 

 

And then paint over with shades of orange plus some black and grey.

I liked being back with colour.  I deliberately chose orange as a change from turquoise.  Although you all know turquoise and orange are my go-to colours.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Free Up Your Sketchbook

It took me a while to decide whether or not to sign up for Karen Stamper's Free Up Your Sketchbook and Grow.  I have done classes with her before both online and in-person.  You might have see my Venice book or the start of a canal one.  I don't think I ever blogged about the finished book.

So I wasn't sure whether Free Up Your Sketchbook was relevant three or four years on.  I've done so much more textile work in the meantime and I wondered how this course could help me. But in the end I decided to go with it.

Here are my week 1 pages using pencil, inks, gesso and other media.

The idea is to work back into these pages as the course continues over the next 5 weeks.  I'll keep you updated.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Canal Concertina Sketchbook

I had started a concertina sketchbook way back in 2018 which was based on views of Venice - except lots of people thought it was Morocco.  I didn't get any further with it than the photos in this post: Karen Stamper workshop.

I did another workshop with Karen in 2019 and was more pleased with this sketchbook.

Anyway, back to my original sketchbook.  I loved the zigzag book I made from an Everything Art online workshop.

I thought I would make a bigger version using the old concertina sketchbook.  I cut out the main Venice pages leaving the ones I had started.  I knew I could cover up the stamped architectural images.

I won't show you all the pages, just the development of a few. This first double page spread was totally blank when I started.

As you can see this page had gothic window shapes stamped on and some Italian dictionary.

I used gesso and acrylic paint to cover the stamping.

This spread also had Venice related stamping.

I added washi tape and part of a photo.

I added acrylic paint and stencilling.

I'm still working on the pages.  I work on one and then go back to another.  I'm adding photos, text, stencilling, paint, gesso.

Here are a couple of pages that are next to be worked on.

I'll do another post later this month with some more finished (or almost finished) pages.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Concertina Sketchbook continued

In my last post I described day one of a two day workshop with Karen Stamper.  On to day 2!

Karen introduced some new techniques and then encouraged us to use day 1 and day2 techniques in our sketchbooks.

I continued to add layers onto new pages and sometimes going back to the day 1 pages.

Karen encouraged me to get different sizes of images.

I tried to work quickly and to not think too much.  I also tried not to draw anything!

This week however, I did have a go at drawing the Rialto Bridge.

Here are all the finished pages in the sketchbook.

Here's a wobbly look through video

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice