Book Covers

During this year of attending Maps & More at Littleheath Barn Studio I became somewhat addicted to printing fabric grid patterns.

And then not knowing what to do with the fabric.

But recently I made these book covers:

8x8 inch Maps & More workbook

8x8 inch Venice sketchbook

11x11 inch Australian Connections workbook

A5 Octopus sketchbook from Maps Summer School 2022

Love them!

Thanks for being with me today
Bernice

Chaos to Calm

While I was struggling to complete the river piece I had announced to anyone who would listen, that I was going to give textiles a rest.  I was going to go back to art journaling and mixed media.

So much for that!

As I was finishing the river piece I got the inspiration for 4 new pieces.  I actually had pictures in my mind of what they would look like.  They are all very different but all represent freedom in some form.

Chaos to Calm

I have drawn them in a workbook to get them out of my head and only working on one piece at the moment.

I was also inspired by a lamp made by Donna the winner of the Great British Pottery Throwdown, called The Ascent, which represented her journey out of depression.

I have painted procion dye onto calico.  It was supposed to be really dark  at one end getting lighter using a dark black, a lighter black, a medium charcoal and a lighter charcoal.  However it didn't really work out but never mind.  There was supposed to bee a lighter grey where the black 'bled' into the cream!

Plus when I washed the dye out 24 hours later, I managed to get some staining on the part that was supposed to be undyed.  However it will work out okay as move on with the piece.

I decided to make the piece slightly smaller so ripped off some of the black on the left and a strip from the top.

I had dyed other fabrics to use with this piece plus some pieces dyed with rust coloured procion dye to make chains for two of the other pieces.

I have torn up some of the fabric to make fragments which I have currently just placed onto the background.  Each of them will be handstitched before being stitched onto the piece.

I am going to wrap the cords with the different torn black fabrics before couching them onto the piece.

My tasks for this week include wrapping the cords, making some thinner cords on the sewing machine and attaching the background to some wadding and a backing so that they will take the weight of the cords.

Not much then!!

I'll let you know my progress in a later blog post.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

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

Module 3: Containers

In my previous post I told you about the memories I have of Venice.   I had made the wire version of the gondola prow.

Next I cut out different sizes of the prow shape in card and taped them to a piece of wire so it could stand up.  I took this photo of it lying down on some lino.

I used an online app to make the background transparent.

On the computer I put the image onto different backgrounds.   The first is a page from the Concertina Sketchbook I did.   The window shape in the background is a bit distracting.

This background is part of a photo I took in Toledo.

I played with the transparent image making patterns.

There is still some work to do with this part of the module but I was also looking at the next part of the course which is about containers.  The final piece for this module is to make a container to hold my Venice memories in.  I might not be able to keep memories in what I make but it will definitely be something in 3D.

I looked through the IKEA online catalogue and downloaded images that caught my eye.  Not all of them are rectangular or square boxes!

When I was doing my original City & Guilds Creative Embroidery course I made this box book from scratch and made 3 small books to go in it.

While I was on holiday in Ireland I saw this cone on a traffic island.  It reminded me of an ice cream cone.  And of course that led to the song 'Just one Cornetto' and on to 'O sole mio' which is associated with gondoliers singing.  I'm not sure why Venetians sing a song from Naples but maybe it's a tourist thing.

I did an internet search for other cone sculptures and art.

I researched the song.

I am going to make some paper cones and see whether I can make a container from a variety of sizes of cone.  I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice