Messing about with sketchbooks.

Ihave been working on my sketchbook for my online course today. Needed to create apertures and have a design in the background that could be seen either way. I used an old book which I have altered to become one of my sketchbooks and when I painted the pages a whilel ago they got stuck together and therefore a bit torn. I scribbed over the pages with a gold wax crayon and painted again with dilute acrylic paint to see how the

resist worked and I am quite pleased with the results.

I have recently aquired a flower press and had pressed a rose and some autumn leaves collected in my road. A sort of homage to the onset of autumn has resulted! I stuck them into the book and created the aperture pages to reveal them. - also re-oainting the surrounding page that remained after the cutting.

Whoo hoo! Knitting!

Well...that'sme! Always flipping from one arty textile-ly thing to another! I have been knitting more recently and have knitted a baby jacket for a friend and also a scarf for a gift. My knitting is a bit hit and miss and I wanted some more expertise so I am taking a three session knitting class at a shop in Camden, North London called LOOP. It is taught by Linda Marveng and yesterday I learned such a lot. There are only 6 of us in the class so we get plenty of help. We were doing fair isle, intarsia and cable yesterday. It is only a taster but Linda has recommended ravelry.com which is a brilliant knitting site. Also I have found some really helpful knitting videos on YouTube. Linda briefly showed us how to cast on using a continental long tail method and it looked really difficult. She did not have time to go into it too much but I found several videos on YouTube and have learned in about half an hour!

There is plenty of practice to be done for next week. Need to get cracking with the cable needle, try the fair isle and also experiment with knitting in the round! Can you have too many textile hobbies? Nah!

Experiments with "Citrasolve"

Last night I spent time my art space - above -the -washing -machine -and -next -to -the- back- door - playing with a technique I have read about in the Cloth Paper Scissors magazine which is published by Interweave. It is an American magazine but stuffed full of brilliant ideas and very inspiring. For some time I have been intending to have a go at paint the pages of an old National Georgraphic magazine with Citrasolve. It is a cleaning fluid which does not have harmful odours (apparently must be true as I am still here!) You soak the pages one by one with the substance and then leave it for 20 minutes while it goes to work on the print in the magazine. You rub the whole book and squeeze out excess liquid (it will be black) using kitchen paper. It is a bit of a messy business but I like messy so that's ok.

After the 20 -30 mins is up the pages come apart easily and they are beautiful, decorative swirls and gorgeous colours. They can be used for collage or scrapbooking when dry. I am thinking up lots of ways to use them. Above are just a couple of the pages I ended up with. I got loads!

Making Fabric Paper

Over the past couple of days I have tried Beryl Taylor's (Mixed Media Explorations) method of making fabric paper. I enjoy the process. Not sure if I have the right paint consistency yet. Beryl recommends diluting the paint and I think I may have underdone the diluting.I was keen to produce something inspired by the autumn colours in the leaves on the wall and the end of my garden but I am not sure that it has come out quite right. I am not displeased with the piece but it lacks the crimson look I was after! I spread a little bit of gesso on with a paper towel because I wanted to lessen the orange and then used my finger to add some crimson rub-on metallic. You can just about see the printed paper beneath which was added before the tissue paper.

I also am a fan of pale blues and pinks - I am a bit girli! Used wrapping paper beneath the tissue, on top of the fabric and am quite pleased with the results especially since I then put silver rub onto the raised creased parts. Next will be the experiments under the sewing machine.

Autumn Walls

I am planning to experiment with a fabric paper quilt using the pink and blue fabric paper I think.

Autumn!

I love this photo of pumpkins taken during a visit to New England in the fall! Our American cousins really know how to celebrate the time of year...there is so much colour displayed in the shape of fruits and flowers.

Autumn is possibly my favourite time of year. I love the chill misty mornings and the leaf colours on my garden wall! It inspires me every year. I have gathered some arty supplies and hope to spend some time creating something to celebrate my faviourite season!

Monoprinting Experiments

I fell in love with the little kiwi!

I have been experimenting with monoprinting for my assignments for my on line course with Design Matters, run by Linda & Laura Kemshall. I used some motifs from my recent rip to New Zealand to draw into thick acrylic paint on perspex, using the end of a paint brush.

....and here is the popular fern shape. Ferns are everywhere and give a very lush and green carpet to the landscape.

I drew the shape and then placed paper gently over the perspex sheet. Slight pressure with a sponge roller, then peeled up from a corner - then here was my drawing. I then proceeded to use up the paint with other prints and finally when it was almost all gone, I got this....

I have been very pleased with my results so far...might try it with fabric and thickened procion

dyes?