Needle sketches

As soon as I had done the continuous line drawings - drawing (mostly) without looking - of the weathered oyster shells and mermaids purses I collected from the beach at Eastbourne I could see that they would make great stitched designs, and had potential for incorporating into my Narrative Thread work for Diversity.

I want to put them on rusted fabric, as the colours are so sympathetic with the subjects, but I have had  problems stitching into rusted fabric in the past; my 'prima donna' top end sewing machine refuses point blank to stitch through it, with the message STOP FOR SAFETY REASONS. Personally I think it is getting over dramatic, but there's no arguing with it. My workhorse semi-professional machine behaves a little better, but you can tell it's not really happy. I've tried various combinations of fine needles and different threads, but I think the oxidised metal clogs up the weave and makes tension very difficult to control.

So I've decided to stitch first and rust later. The samples are testing out different combinations of quilt sandwich and a variety of background treatments.

I'm pretty happy with the 'drawing', each slightly different but quite recognisable. I wanted to densely stitch the background so that the images gained dimension, 

and I've tried conventional quilt sandwiches with white cotton, hand and machine stitched, linen with felt and linen with felted blanket. 

I though this was going to be too heavy, but once the the stiffness of the quilted background might be a good thing. I think I'm going to leave the edges raw, so it's important how the backing and wadding reacts to the rust too.

Next step layer them up with rusty finds and tea a wait and see what happens!

On the beach again

On my travels again - this time to sunny Eastbourne and a course with Alice Fox at Studio 11. Right up my street, it's called Adventures in Beachcombing. 

We've started each day with a walk along a local beach, gathering detritus and natural items, plus words, sounds and thoughts into a makeshift sketchbook.

On Eastbourne parade seafront the haul was enormous 

Couldn't detach this wonderful collection though

Next day to the fishermen's beach, to find rusty things (didn't manage to drag the old mattress home either!)

And today to Birling Gap, between the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head.

A strange chalk landscape similar to that at Lyme and West Bay, with towering, crumbling, striated cliffs and flat pavements, but with white cliffs and grey flint pebbles instead of ochre.

Back in the studio came the bit I'm not so good at - actually doing something with all that collected stuff!

We've been rust printing on fabric and paper

Monoprinting and embossing 

Sketching and drawing 

And today we've been looking at weaving and other textile related ideas - no photos of mine, but here's what Veronica (who is a weaver) is creating 

Great to have four whole days dedicated to doing the work - lots of ideas for forthcoming exhibitions ...

See more of Alice's work on her website: alicefox.co.uk

Sketchbook Part 2

The sketchbook arrived safely!

And it has been catalogued at the Brooklyn Art Library with a call number of 148L.5-5 (whatever that means!). In time it will also be digitalised, so able to be viewed on-line. The full Sketchbook tour starts in the US in April, and the European books will come to London in October. Exciting!

The Sketchbook Project

My book for the Sketchbook Project made it to the post office by the skin of its teeth - 4.15pm yesterday - the last date for postmarking. The theme is Along the Line and I decided to narrow this down to the shore/coast line so I could work with an old favourite - after all it was supposed to be enjoyable.

Sketch Book Project

As usual despite all good intentions I left it till the last minute and it was a mad scramble to get it done on time - never underestimate how long it takes to fill a page. Thank goodness for matte medium photo transfers - a relatively quick way of creating a background for text. All papers are not equal - the paper in this book was less equal than some! It's fine for drawing on with pencil and drawing pen, but doesn't like wet media at all. I took it apart and replaced some of the pages with 140gsm cartridge paper and thick tracing paper - with hindsight I should have done them all, and included watercolour paper too, but I was wary of making it too bulky. Inevitably, with mixed pages, I ended up wanting to put wet media on the drawing paper - which went straight through. This is why the pebbles have a green background!


Here are a few close-ups - the rest are in the album above. Had trouble photographing these as the book wouldn't lie flat. Of course, I should have scanned it, but I didn't think of that in my rush to meet the deadline. More haste, less speed . . . 

Ammonites at Lyme Regis - Brusho and pen on tracing paper

Seascape - acrylic applied with credit card on cartridge

Gulls on a telegraph wire at Dungeness

Old groynes at West Wittering - brusho and pen on cartridge and tracing paper

Mackerel - pencil and brusho on drawing paper (the one that bled trough!)

Boat at Clovelly - pencil on cartridge