Grids

For the last session of Textile Explorations, Liske suggested various activities.  One was something she had learned from Jayne Emerson called 'Crashing'.

I had a go at it.  It involves a layer of fabric, a layer of Bondaweb and a layer of water soluble fabric. I machined my grid very evenly.

After steaming it looked a lot like smocking!

I used a gelli plate to print onto another piece of fabric, using the 'smocking' to make a pattern in the paint.

The paint on the 'smocking'.

One of the other activities was to repeat the grid activity that we did in January but without the watercolour wash.

I didn't do it at the Studio.  I wanted to do it at home as I wanted to use all things gridlike to print with.

I used a Posca pen to write on the fabric and then Indigo acrylic paint to print with.

When that had dried I added white.  Hard to see!  After that had dried I used Payne's Grey for the last layer of print.

Here are the masking tape strips after I had taken them off the fabric and put them onto a large sheet of paper.

And now the BIG REVEAL.

A grid of grids!

 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  I could keep it as a panel and stitch it or as ever, I could cut it up!

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

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