Choice Made!

Did you see my post about what sketchbook to use?  You'll be pleased to know that I made a decision!  This one:

Yes, the octopus one.  Mostly because it resembles - admittedly vaguely - the way maps fold up and maps are my inspiration for my next project.

I think calling it a sketchbook from now on is probably incorrect.  It's going to be a workbook, as it's the place I'm going to record my research and hhow my work is progressing.

I spent a few days researching maps and artists who use maps as inspiration and then assembled it all in the workbook.  There are lot of photographs as I have photographed the whole 4 page folded section plus double page closeups.  I hope it isn't too many.

The right hand page above opens up to reveal pages on the history of maps.  It's very incomplete - just the bits that interested me - the Mappa Mundi, Nolli, John Ogilby and the Ordnance Survey.

I found various poems and quotes about maps.

Alongside looking at artists' work, I asked the question What is a map?  They all had different replies in their artist's statement.

I started with Jill K Berry in her book Personal Geographies.

The right hand page unfolds to reveal the work of Alicia Merrett, Diane Savona and Valerie S Goodwin.

Turning over the page we come to the amazing work of Eszter Bornemisza.

Moving on now towards how I might approach the topic.

This was from a Jeanne Oliver workshop.  Is this a map?  There's room for me to answer that!

And then more on my response to the work of the artists I found.

 

Where all this will lead me I have no idea.

As I don't usually work in this way it will be interesting to see where it all takes me.

If you've made it all the way to the end with me, thank you.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

What format?

Do you struggle when you start a new project?  Does indecision make your choice difficult?  I can be pretty hopeless about making decisions about something really simple.  Choosing a journal to use for my word of the year!!!  Or choosing a sketchbook for a project!

In the photo above there are 4 sketchbooks laid out.  The purple one is an 11" square spiral bound sketchbook.

There's an A4 and an A5 concertina sketchbook.

Or there's this Seawhite Octopus sketchbook.

And that doesn't include any of the clothbound standard sketchbooks I could use.

My problem is that there's far too much choice available.  The same applies to food, wallpaper, carpets, clothes - I could go on!  Life was probably easier in the time of Henry Ford when he said "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants, so long as it is black".

In my last post I mentioned I am about to start a new project.  Unusually for me, I have done some research and I want to record it in a sketchook.

But which one to choose!

Any of the four above would work.  Why do I find it so hard?

If you have to make choices how do you deal with it?

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Notice What You Notice

This month with Notice What You Notice we talked about research and how to go about it.  I tend not to research in the strictest sense for new work.

I have done researched projects in the past particularly for my City & Guilds Creative Embroidery Certificates and for the Master Practitioner course I did.

Since then I've tended to veer away from this type of research.  I've immersed myself in the photos I've taken related to a theme and then tried to reproduce the feeling rather than the photo.  For example this sketchbook is based on a local canal.

Kate Green, who I know through the Artist Mentoring programme we're both in, recently posted a video about her MA research project: Hidden Potential.  The work looks amazing and I'm so impressed with all the research she has put together.

If you're a Creative, what research do you do?  Do you have a style of working before you start on a piece of work?

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

PS There's an opportunity to enrol on Notice What You Notice starting in January - on zoom or in Christine's Eastbourne studio.